Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It's June when his life ends.

He doesn't realize the month has changed until it's a week too late. Time blurs together without a phone or a computer except for the ancient one used for library checkouts, chronically set to January 1st from nineteen-ninety-something. He just knows the fallen cicadas, orange feet crinkled up on the asphalt, look kind of sad. He tries not to step on them on the way to work.

"People'll think you're playing some kind of satanic hopscotch," his roommate informs him after he trips up the stairs. "It's an eyesore."

"You're an eyesore," his other roommate snaps.

They start to argue, as usual, and Atsushi quietly slips out the door. As long as they don't touch his green tea without asking or forget to pay their share of the rent, he's okay. Everything's moving along swimmingly.

The morning is already hot and unbearable when he steps out into the sunlight. People avoid each other's eyes, tucked in their own world with earbuds and apathy, ever since—Well. A part of him is relieved. Someone would smile and wave in his direction and he'll wave back and then die from embarrassment when realizing their intended person was behind him. Things like that.

Things like his blood running cold every time he saw a Hello Kitty backpack, like the one he'd filched a few bills from years ago.

He can't remember what its owner looked like, only that he was starving and weak and dizzy and someone was blissfully unaware, asleep on the riverbank grass. One day he'll meet their eyes and they'll automatically know it's him, crying thief! thief! and he'll be arrested and rot in jail until he's sixty. Unless the owner tells him that the money was for their sick child with leukemia, or a purchase of chocolates for the one true love of their life, and Atsushi took their thousand-yen hopes and dreams away—

*

"Oi. You don't get much sleep, do you?"

"Sorry, Kunikida-san."

"You don't have to apologize to me. Or anyone for that matter," he replies gruffly, sliding a stack of books toward him. Atsushi knows his irritation isn't directed at him. Just a thesis proposal dragging on.

"I guess." He grabs the topmost cover, already placed neatly barcode face-up for his ease. Inspiring but anal, he overhears undergrads describing Kunikida in a nutshell. "How are things going?"

Kunikida winces. "Badly. They're making me help teach calculus since someone quit. In addition to the usual lab sections."

"Oh," he says, reaching for another book. Pedology. Judging by the exciting picture of dirt on the cover, he can guess what it means. "That sucks."

"It does," Kunikida agrees. "But the first week after the student holiday went alright, I guess. After some things settled down."

Atsushi pauses, mouth falling open. "What - it's already June?"

"Seriously, brat, where have you been?"

He grins sheepishly and shrugs, adding a calendar to his mental list of things to buy with imaginary leftover money after toothpaste, tea bags, train tickets. Rent.

The receipt timestamp affirms that yes, Atsushi had been under the illusion that time had stopped.

Kunikida shuffles the books into his arms, looking set to waddle back across campus like that. Hilarious, Atsushi might think if he's a little less timid, a little less intent on not unnecessarily pissing people off.

"Wow." Someone peeks out from the literature aisle. "You look like a drunken chicken."

Apparently other people lack a healthy instinct for self-preservation. He pretends to be occupied in clicking through a spreadsheet of overdue fines.

"Dazai, you asshole," Kunikida says in a world-weary monotone. "What are you doing here?"

"Visiting."

"You're visiting. At this hour."

"Is that a problem?"

"It's broad daylight."

"Sleep can wait. I need to get my fix of esteemed verses."

"Don't say it like - like you're doing some kind of illegal drugs, or something—"

A thin anthology of poetry is thrust into Atsushi's hands. He has no choice but to look up at the stranger playing with metaphorical fire.

Even under the library's unflattering fluorescent lights, nobody should look like they had just stepped out of a film. If he has no chances with the freckled captain on the basketball team, or the girl with the curly hair who studies biochemistry until closing, he has no business even looking at this person.

Somehow, Atsushi manages to keep his voice steady. "Good morning. Do you have a university card?"

"I do." Dazai peers down at him. He doesn't move to reach for his wallet but pokes at the potted cactus on the desk instead. "Would I be cursed if I prick my finger on this?"

"What?"

"Like Briar Rose?"

"I know what you're talking about," Atsushi says, flustered and annoyed that he's even flustered. "But last time I checked, it's a spindle on a spinning wheel."

Dazai gives him a bright, close-lipped smile. "There's always room for modern interpretations."

"A cactus, though...?"

"There are worse things it could be. Imagine all the possibilities."

"Just...don't cut your finger on it, please."

"Hmm. If I fall into a century-long slumber, would you be my prince charming?"

Atsushi chokes on his spit. "Are - are you even real?"

"Well, I'm back to grading homework," Kunikida loudly announces from the doorway.

"Good luck, Kunikida-san!" he calls after him, then turns back to the infuriating person now tipping droplets from a water bottle into the pot. Scratch his initial observations; Dazai has a whole ocean of chaos running under his good looks, and Atsushi needs to shove him out the door as quickly (and politely) as possible. "Could - could you not overwater it?"

"I won't," Dazai tries to assure him. "I'm great with plants."

Atsushi chances another glance at his face. It's then he realizes Dazai has a slightest indent on one cheek, gone when his crooked smile evens out to talk.

"See?" Dazai chirps. "All better." He turns the cactus around, the blossoms wobbling on their delicate stems for a scary moment, and...proceeds to knock the pot over onto Atsushi's desk. "Oops."

"Okay. Could I have your card? To check your book out? Please?" Atsushi asks, already done. He sweeps the dirt off, checking the pot for cracks, and finds one. He silently thanks the universe; the head librarian will have his head if there was so much as a chip in the porcelain.

"Sure," Dazai says. The hand rubbing the back of his neck actually makes him look sort of remorseful. Atsushi's ready to forgive him, brush the mistake off, until he just has to add: "As long as I can check the cute librarian out as well."

Atsushi schools himself through several deep breaths. He'd hated it, back in high school, when people (ironed uniforms, expensive haircuts, pearly white teeth) asked him (scrawny, small, fresh out of the orphanage) out on a dare. Except Dazai didn't smile with his teeth, which Atsushi guesses would be pretty like the rest of him. No. In fact, they'll be broken in or yellow as butter and revolt him so much that Atsushi will stop developing five-minute crushes on people he'll never see again.

At his silence, Dazai's smile fades slightly. "Ah, well. I'll stop before I lose your good graces. Unless I've done it already." His gaze flickers to his name tag to add, "Atsushi-kun."

"It's okay." Atsushi accepts the offered card, making sure their fingers don't touch. At least Dazai had the decency to apologize, or say what counts as an apology.

"Is Kunikida-kun one of your teaching assistants?" Dazai asks, nodding toward the glass doors the man had blustered out of.

"No. I'm not a student here." Dazai Osamu the computer shows after Atsushi scans the card. Fourth year. Psychology.

"Oh?"

"I—" He'd only attended his third year, miserably failing his entrance exams from the rigor and shock of high school after being shoved out into the streets one cold morning, but there's no sense in giving out his life story to a total stranger, is there? "I need to save up money before applying here - or anywhere that'll take me." Not a total lie.

Dazai hums. "Do you know what you want to study?"

"Not really." He's not even sure if he could make it in, truth be told.

"That's fine. More than fine," Dazai replies smoothly. He takes the book Atsushi slides back to him. "And I'll make it up to you for sure." He pats the cactus again for good measure. "I'll bring you a bowl of tea on rice next time."

"Okay," Atsushi says blankly, playing along with the joke. At least that's what he thinks it is. People only did nice things for others who are funny, pretty, smart—lovable.

How Dazai knew about his chazuke was a mystery. The bowl from his short lunch break is scraped dry, betraying none of its previous contents.

"It's a promise," Dazai finishes. It's hard to tell, but his smile morphs into something softer, crinkling his eyes in what Atsushi's sure is a trick of the light.

*

Sweat beads at his neck and his shirt sticks in uncomfortable places as he heads into the supermarket after his shift, lingering around the tomatoes and summer squash longer than necessary for the icy haven of air-conditioning. The evening rush pays him no heed. Office workers are wrapped up in their own world as Atsushi navigates the maze of shopping carts.

Or so he thinks. He's tossing chicken into his basket, absently calculating how much his wallet can take, when someone nudges him.

"They haven't solved the serial killings yet?"

"Uh—"

The middle-aged woman nods to the university newspaper tucked under his arm. It's a free copy from the library circulation desk, the headline emblazoned across the top.

"Um, no. Not yet."

"I should be scared, but it's hard not to think it can't happen to me, you know?"

Atsushi nods, distracted by his grocery list and the crowd bumping and reaching around him.

"And, get this - all their bones were broken." She turns to inspect the packaged steaks, cooing at her gurgling infant.

His chest aches at the pure, unadulterated love in her eyes for it, so he looks away. "It...it must've been painful. That's pretty scary."

"Isn't it?" she asks. "And the insides of their leg bones were scraped clean, like they're harvesting bone marrow for money."

That gory detail makes him lose focus on shopping. "You think that's what's the killer after?"

She shrugs. "I don't know. How should I know what - what do you call it? What a psychopath thinks about?"

Curious, he unfurls the newspaper, reading beyond the headline. "They're nicknaming whoever it is the Kyonshi of Yokohama," he states. "Or just Dracula."

"Huh. It's almost like that case from the eighties," she says, rocking the baby to her chest. "I grew up when it happened. They made us walk home in groups."

"In Saitama, right?"

"Yeah, that one. Those little girls had their blood drank from, I think. He ate a foot or a hand. Or both."

Either way, the sight of the rubber-clad butchers, wheeling in carcasses through the back door, makes him queasy. It's in the past, he firmly tells himself. Except the past is unfolding right now, within fractions of a kilometer from where he lives. Maybe he should've left this issue untouched, but it's too late to stop reading.

"'There seems to be no apparent pattern with Yokohama's Dracula,'" he recites. "'An assorted collection of bodies, young and old. Their blood was almost depleted, but no body parts were eaten.' So...not a cannibal?"

"Still. Only a monster would do these things."

"I hope that they catch whoever did this soon," Atsushi offers. "That monster."

The woman doesn't reply, as the baby in her arms begins to wail at the top of its lungs. The air-conditioning whirring and thumping at full blast is freezing cold, now.

*

Now that he's read, really read and digested the news, Atsushi begins to hear about it everywhere:

He stands in the grocery line, idly thinking about his chosen brand of cheap green tea, and overhears a group of teenagers behind him.

"My dad told me to buy garlic," one of them says. His friends giggle and jeer at him, but Atsushi almost considers the idea. Almost, because the line's wrapping around the aisle as they speak and his basket items just equals the amount in his wallet by a slim margin. He's not gullible. At least not as much as when he first set foot outside the orphanage and bent down for the classic your shoe's untied.

After, he waits for the train home. He checks his backpack as he waits, the top zipper ripping at the seams from his borrowed textbooks—he wants to ace his general education classes, if he ever gets his life together. The station seems emptier than normal, an entire bank of seats vacant in his periphery. Unless it's his overactive imagination playing tricks on him.

It's easy to forget photographs, showing nothing more than sweaty investigators and chalk markings. It's less easy to forget the grisly details. He glances at the TV above a couple giggling silently at each other, reading the headline.

Ninth victim found beside the Ooka River.

"Are the conspiracy theories true?" the solemn local news anchor mouths, words in caption.

"This is beginning to look like the work of more than one person," the equally-solemn correspondent answers. "And the city council is pulling resources from investigators. Instead of giving more, in fact."

"The mayor has declined for comment. It's all very perplexing."

"I agree. And we've received the sequencing results - the DNA we found is close to B. maculata. Closer to a fruit bat's than a human's."

"As expected from the kyonshi."

On screen, an exchange of laughter, forced even without the sound.

The train arrives, and Atsushi sits by the opposing doors. He tries to not pay attention to the musings about the supernatural, compounded by the full moon outside the windows. He can barely lift five dictionaries to the top shelf, much less fend off a magical being from fiction.

It's in vain.

When he gets off the train, he rushes down the station stairs, into the familiar dark streets, and breaks into a panicked run, books knocking hard against his back. He squeezes his eyes shut while he dashes past the bars and strip clubs, miraculously full with people.

"Hey, is that the kyonshi killer?" someone yells.

Drunken guffaws. "Monster! Monster!"

It's nothing. Upon rounding the corner to his apartment complex, he slows down to a walk, winded. The most dangerous things here are broken bottles amidst the dandelions and gravel and cigarette stubs. Safety.

*

"Good morning, Atsushi-kun."

He jolts from his doze, unsticking the pages plastered to his cheek. He looks up and—oh. Oh no.

"Dazai-san," Atsushi says. To his annoyance, Dazai's still put together despite his fluffy hair. Or because of it. The tips of it seem to float in static, as if he'd dragged a comb through it this morning and it snagged further up.

"I'm glad you remember me."

"You're not easily forgettable," Atsushi says, then immediately regrets it. "I mean—"

"I'll take it as a compliment," Dazai replies, smiling. Atsushi resists the urge to feign nonchalance and bury his nose back in his book. An introduction to linear systems is engrossing. Really.

"Can I help you with something?" He puts on his best helpful smile, trying to not look constipated, as the biochem girl teases him sometimes. She's not here, to Atsushi's disappointment. He could use a friendly, honest smile compared to Dazai's general murkiness.

"Maybe."

"What is it?"

"Tell me what toppings you want on your chazuke."

He's at a loss for words. What is Dazai getting at?

"You know, what complements your delicious tea on rice?' Dazai prompts him, rotating the cactus pot between his forefingers, and Atsushi can't bring himself to protest the poor plant's treatment, not when Dazai actually looks serious for once.

"Your joke wasn't funny," Atsushi says, disbelieving. "And now I'm going to shelf some things, if you don't mind." He flings himself off his chair, honing in on the cart behind the circulation desk. Chocked full, to his relief. It'll keep him busy for a good fifteen minutes.

"Wait." Quicker than he had any right to be, Dazai follows him into the fiction section. His fingers close around Atsushi's wrist in a loose circle. It tingles, warm skin on skin, and Atsushi shakes the contact off at once. "I wasn't joking, nor was I making fun of you."

This close up, without a desk separating them, Atsushi realizes there's something odd about the way Dazai talks. Not in the way his light words sound, but in his facial shifts. The motion of his mouth seems off-center. Maybe it's a habit. Maybe it's nothing.

"Why?"

"Why," Dazai says, amused. "Because I don't lie about these things. And I'm offering to buy you lunch."

"I work until four."

Dazai tilts his head to the side, studying him. "I was going to head to culinary and make it to bring to you. Unless you want to go with me at noon?"

"No, thanks," Atsushi says, throat closing. "Dazai-san."

"Fine with me. It's too hot outside, anyways."

Despite the heat, Dazai's long sleeves aren't rolled up. Whatever. It's none of his business. Atsushi pushes the cart around the corner to shelve the foreign dictionaries.

Dazai turns, and Atsushi feels relieved that he's finally leaving, but he just sidesteps his aisle and walks into the next one.

Dazai stoops his head down to look at him between a gap in the books, revealing bandages crisscrossing the base of the collar of his crisp button-up. Seeing it does weird things to Atsushi's stomach, not wholly unpleasant things. He blames it on the light heating up the references aisle, feverish even in the early morning sun.

"Don't you have class?" he asks. He reaches over and closes the blinds, sending their section of the library to cool relief.

"Not until three, I don't," Dazai says. He retreats his head and walks into the dimmed aisle, standing right next to Atsushi. He's afraid Dazai might mess with the books on the cart, but he just taps his fingers on it, suspiciously sounding like the beat of some pop song he hears in the shops.

"Oh. That's lucky."

"Looking to get rid of me so soon?"

"No," Atsushi lies. Dazai must pick up on his discomfort since the rhythm stops. "Why are you here, anyway?"

"I told you already, but—" Dazai sighs. "I'll just have to do it to prove it to you. Plus, Kunikida-kun isn't here yet."

"You could've just said that you were bored waiting for him," Atsushi says, motioning Dazai to scoot over. Where is that step stool anyways? He stands on his tiptoes, to no avail.

"Do you want some help?" Dazai pipes up.

He's tall, Atsushi faintly realizes. He plucks the book from Atsushi's hands and wedges it into the shelf, arm skimming across Atsushi's on the slow way up. He swallows thickly.

"See? All better."

"Thanks, Dazai-san," Atsushi manages. If he can't keep his wits about him, he can keep his manners, at least.

"I'll help you with the rest, too."

He considers refusing the cheery offer, but something holds him back. "Thank you," he mutters, and Dazai skips off to carry out the task.

To his utter amazement, Dazai follows the decimal number stickers with ease, returning botany and algebra and astrophysics back to the 400s, flitting to the 300s after with microeconomics, all in the correct order.

Not a total airhead. He'll give him that, at least.

*

"Atsushi-kun," Dazai sings. "I've kept my promise."

A steaming bowl of chazuke is set before him, speckled with black sesame seeds and piled high with nori and pickled plums—and is that cuttlefish? If it was anyone else in this world, he might've fallen in love right then and there.

Except it's Dazai. So he doesn't.

"You weren't joking," he says instead, feeling thoroughly dumbfounded.

"Of course not," Dazai answers, unwrapping and holding out a plastic spoon. Atsushi accepts it, and something passes between them. Sorry, the spoon seems to say.

Apology accepted.

*

The world gets hotter. The murders don't stop.

There are whispers going around, after a top swimmer on the team turned up dead and mangled behind a nightclub. The midterm atmosphere seems even more high-strung than usual. The university sends out emails with flimsy reassurances, urging the student body to keep calm.

A snippet of the post-mortem examination, printed on every front page, details something straight out of a horror movie. An aorta used as a drinking straw. A sliced heart, perfectly halved as a lemon on a chopping block.

Atsushi should be terrified, but only feels a prickle of unease. He'd lived in fear for a better part of his life, and maybe, just maybe, he'd just acclimated to it. Not confidence. The opposite, really. Glazed-over frustration at not knowing. Not knowing where the monsters hide, not knowing if he should do something or if he's just helpless in controlling his fate in the end.

"My calculus class might be moved to 8 AM," Kunikida says.

"We're going to close before sundown," his evening manager says.

"Star-shaped bento for you," Dazai says. His smile is triumphant as he places the food on the desk.

"You don't have to," Atsushi says, trying to keep his voice final. "You already apologized for - for that." For aimlessly flirting with me when you don't mean it and knocking over an innocent cactus while I can't handle your stupidly pretty face.

"I want to. Think of it as a thanks for your company these past few weeks."

"If you're sure," Atsushi says slowly. He opens the container to reveal, as promised, food molded and cut into shapes. It's from the train station shop, he realizes. The place that's always crowded with students by mid-morning. Dazai must've gotten there at the earliest possible time.

Either he's still remorseful, or he's just messing with Atsushi. Neither one sits well with him.

"You should have some," Atsushi blurts out. He's not the one to look a gift horse in the mouth, not when every scrap he saves is going toward future rent. But Dazai's shown him more kindness than he deserves. "I get leftovers from the restaurant I work at." Not really, since the food is greasy and gives him indigestion, but Dazai needs to know he'd more than made up for things.

Dazai blinks. "You have more work after this?"

"Yes?"

"After the street lights turn on?"

Atsushi nods.

Dazai seems about to say something else, but glances away. He drums his fingers on the table, looking deep in thought.

"If it's about the murders," Atsushi starts. "The restaurant's closing after the sun sets, starting today."

"Ah." Dazai doesn't stop staring at the clock. "Do you believe in the rumors?"

"Like the ones about something...magical going on? About vampires?"

Dazai nods.

"I don't know," Atsushi says truthfully. "It's really strange. Like with the official evidence about the non-human traces. And how nobody has truly seen anything yet."

"Hmm."

"Do you?"

Dazai laughs into his palm at that. Another odd motion, Atsushi notes.

"I don't know what to think either," Dazai answers, eyes boring into his now. "Atsushi-kun, can I hug you?"

"What—"

"In case one of us gets unlucky. Memento mori, you know?"

"R-right." He scans his unreadable expression for an ulterior motive, but Dazai's difficult to read. "Memento mori. Sure." But that implies Dazai's request is something he would regret if he had to die. An indulgence. Like going for a third slice of cake, kissing a spouse goodbye. Atsushi's thinking too hard about this. Definitely.

He stands up from his chair, knees unsteady. Dazai smiles a little, stepping around the desk, arms outstretched. He's annoyingly handsome, Atsushi weakly thinks, before he's drawn into his arms.

Clean laundry. The smell hits him as a punch to the throat. He's up on the orphanage's rooftop again, pinning sheets and shirts to the clotheslines, feeling small under the fierce blue sky. He'd liked laundry days. He'd felt as if he could hide once enough things were hung up, breathing in the air without worrying if he'll be somehow punished for that, too.

Atsushi's eyes burn. He can't remember the last time he was held like this, touched with care. Now isn't the time to get emotional! part of him shouts. Deep breaths, and Dazai squeezes him a tiny bit tighter. His heart swells with an unfamiliar feeling, fuller and fuller—

"Do I even want to know?"

The spell breaks. Atsushi untangles himself from Dazai, landing heavily back into his chair like he'd just ran up a mountain and back.

"Kunikida-kun!"

"Dazai," Kunikida says flatly. "Don't mess with people who are too nice to shove you off."

"I wasn't," Dazai whines. "And Atsushi-kun makes sure to let me know if my charms are too much."

"You mean if your dumbassery is too much."

"Oooh, don't let your undergrads hear you swear. They might see the pole shoved up your—"

"This is university, not high school," Kunikida bites out. "No matter how much some people belong back there." Tiredly, he steps closer and deposits a couple books into the return basket. He nods to Atsushi. "Good morning."

"Good morning, Kunikida-san."

"I'm not late, am I?"

"I can check when I scan it," Atsushi says, even though the sun will explode and the kyonshi will drink the whole city in before Kunikida-senpai returns his books after the due date. "No, you're three days early."

"Thanks."

"So boring, Kunikida-kun." Dazai rolls his eyes, then stage-whispers to Atsushi, "He color-codes his schedule in nine different highlighters. You'd think he was an important man."

"You could learn from him," Atsushi says. "I almost had to hunt you down for that poetry anthology last week."

"Chase after me then," Dazai replies, smile smug. "It would make a great romantic subplot for a novel. I'll keep that in mind next time."

"It - it's not a good thing."

"There are worse things in life than to have a librarian after you. And a cute one at that."

Atsushi gags, cheeks warming, as Kunikida groans. "Just because it's not the worst thing doesn't mean it's a good thing, Dazai-san."

"Point taken." Dazai appears unfazed as he spins on his heel. "Anyway, make sure to reheat your bento if it gets cold."

"Wait," Atsushi says before he could stop himself. Dazai glances back over his shoulder. "At least eat some with me."

"I can't refuse, can I?" Dazai says. He very well can refuse, Atsushi muses. It's not like Dazai cares about rebuffing an acquaintance's offer.

"Kunikida-san, have some too if you want," Atsushi tells him. Kunikida looks two parts disgusted at Dazai chomping down on a skewer, one part...perplexed.

"Dazai—" Kunikida starts.

"Don't worry about it," Dazai says through a mouthful of strawberry stars. He keeps chewing, cheek pushing into a smile when he meets Atsushi's eyes. He looks the slightest bit pained; maybe the strawberries are sour.

"Alright." Kunikida shifts, and takes the smallest cube of tofu in a gesture of stubborn politeness. "By the way, is the marching band always this loud?"

Atsushi listens to the sound of muffled feet and drums in the courtyard outside. "I think someone said their evening practice got moved to the morning."

"I see."

"Don't you love it, Kunikida-kun?" Dazai asks cheerily. "Listen to that jazz solo."

"It's fine," Kunikida grumbles.

"Actually, I played the saxophone back in my rose-tinted school days—"

"Don't you dare."

"Just kidding. I did kendo."

Atsushi frowns as he tries to imagine it. "How did you manage to fit your hair into that gear?"

"Rude," Dazai sniffs. He drapes himself over the countertop, scattering pens onto Atsushi's desk. "What did you do, Atsushi-kun?"

"I—" He had done nothing back then. Too shy to break into established circles of friends. Too scared of the future to sleep without finishing half a novel at night. He would escape to icy plains, Martian dunes, and he still does, sometimes, when his lungs fold and he can't breathe in deep enough.

"Literature club," he lies.

Dazai hums. "Well, that explains why you understood my Briar Rose reference." He swallows his food, looking the slightest bit pained. Maybe the batch of strawberries are sour. "I'm glad we operate on the same wavelength."

"...Let's not."

"Let's not fall in love," Dazai sings, horrifyingly off-tune. "But I really mean it when—"

Atsushi casts him an exasperated glare.

"Well then." Dazai pushes himself off the counter, lips curled in amusement. "How about this? Let's exchange book recommendations in the future, so we can know each other better."

"Okay," Atsushi says, slowly, and is concerned about how easy it is to agree.

Chapter Text

Atsushi takes the six-eighteen train, that next mercifully cool morning.

Hongoudai Station looms tall and gray in the mist, deserted at the hour. Curry wafts from the lone doughnut vendor setting up on the sidewalk outside, a relief from the questionable stench lingering in the apartment when he'd left. Behind the ticket booth, the usual station worker thumbs through a newspaper, cigarette in hand, nodding at Atsushi as he swipes his pass.

The train rolls in, right on time. He finds a seat and presses his cheek to the rattling armrest to keep himself awake. Too bad the time from his cut hours hadn't been spent sleeping, courtesy of the apartment's paper-thin walls.

Bit by bit, more passengers trickle in—medical and nursing students, mostly. He finds himself lulled by their chatter, sleepy complaints about exams and charts floating over his head as he stares out the window, Yokohama shimmering in gentle light blue when he blinks. The train ride smooths out. Warmth tingles somewhere on his back, gone the next instant.

At least it didn't ache anymore. Lugging those old lab manuals to the distant chem building hadn't been the best idea, but he did pass Hiyama, you-can-call-me-Fumiko-chan, in the stairwell, her curls frizzy in the humidity. Best of all, he'd responded to her cheerful greeting without melting into a puddle right then and there.

"Atsushi-kun?"

He jolts up from the armrest. "Sorry - Dazai-san?"

Smiling brightly, Dazai slides into the seat next to him. "For some reason, you're usually asleep when I see you. Maybe you should be sleeping beauty instead."

"No thanks." Atsushi smothers a yawn, paying a cursory glance at Dazai in his long pants and long sleeves. "Or, take off the beauty part, so I'll just be sleeping."

"Aw, don't sell yourself short~"

He should be wary about seeing certain people first thing today, but there's no helpless cacti in sight to knock over, fortunately. Unfortunately, it's kind of difficult to dislike—and put some necessary distance between—flirtatious assholes who turn out to not be assholes, with or without the involvement of chazuke, but it's an imperfect world he lives in.

"You can go back to sleep, you know," Dazai says, wedging his backpack between his ankles. Assorted pins with brains, dogs, and bells printed on clink together with the motion. "I'll wake you up when it's our stop."

"I'd rather not." He'd rather not show up to work drowsy, especially today. Dazai's small act of kindness trips him up, though. Again.

"Oh? Could it be that you prefer to talk with me?"

"Whatever brings peace to your mind, Dazai-san."

"I'll take what I can get," Dazai replies glibly. He leans back in his seat and clasps his hands behind his head. "So in that case, wake me up when we get there. Fifteen minutes of sleep is a national treasure."

"You don't look tired," Atsushi blurts out, noting the lack of eye circles, or even a trace of weariness, in Dazai's generally alert and...preppy state, even while his mouth's cracked open in a yawn. "I mean, not that you can't be, of course."

"That's flattering, but I am. See?"

Dazai slackens his face, stripping it of his smile, and Atsushi's dumbfounded, instantly chilled, by the change. It adds a few worn years to his appearance, to say the least. Without the glint of amusement in his eyes, the sliver of a conniving smirk, Dazai becomes someone else—is someone else.

"I see," Atsushi agrees, glancing away.

A beat of silence, and Dazai yawns, straightening his arms. "Actually, no. Like I can sleep with all this background noise." When Atsushi looks back, Dazai's smile is back on his face once again. "I usually don't see you on this train. Unless you always sit in a different carriage and we've just missed each other."

Atsushi shakes his head. "There's a book delivery early this morning. The head librarian needs us there to sort the boxes and help her unpack."

"Sounds fun."

"Better than dealing with people first thing in the morning, I guess."

"Was that a barbed statement I heard, hmm?"

Atsushi waits for a finger to poke his cheek, but it doesn't come. "No. Not really," he says, testing the waters. Dazai huffs out a laugh. "I was talking about catching people doing...things behind bookshelves."

"What kind of things?" Dazai asks, way too sweetly to be true. "Playing hide-and-seek? Doing arts and crafts? Monopoly?"

"You - you know what I mean." He can feel his face growing warm, to his mortification.

A scandalized gasp. "How crude, Atsushi-kun! Why would anyone spoil the delicate cherry blossom of your young mind!"

"Why would they care what the librarian thinks before making out?"

"The young and innocent librarian, you mean."

"Right," he says doubtfully, resisting the urge to close his eyes and drift off to sleep. It really was too early for this. "But you're not that much older than me, right? If I'm twenty and you're a fourth year, you must only be a couple of years ahead...?"

"Four years. I'm twenty-four," Dazai says. The train clatters through a tunnel, swathes of light and darkness slanting over his silhouette. He shifts almost imperceptibly in his seat, sleeve brushing against Atsushi's wrist. "I would've graduated in the same year as Kunikida-kun, but some things happened."

"O-oh." Atsushi drops his gaze. "Um. I'm sorry for prying."

"You weren't, don't worry. It wasn't the same kind of things—" Dazai smirks, curling his fingers in air-quotations, "that you catch people doing in the library, by the way."

"I hope not." Atsushi smiles to himself. "But with you, no one can be sure."

"Wow, ouch. I'm hurt." Dazai places a hand over his heart, mock-sniffling, before fixing his gaze back on Atsushi. "And how cute. Your cheeks are—"

"I know." Leave it to Dazai to spot the most inconvenient things. He fumbles out, "It's nothing. They felt like they were roasting, last night."

"And what happened last night?" Dazai leans over the armrest and wags his eyebrows, to Atsushi's horror.

"Oh my god. Just, Yuuto - my roommate, or one of my roommates, brought someone home last night. They weren't exactly quiet about it."

"Ah. People still go out that late?"

"Someone pointed out that the chances of running into the serial killer are low, in a city of millions," Atsushi muses, recalling his roommate's airy words of dismissal while heading out last night in his trademark laced leather pants. "If that's what you're talking about."

"But do you think that?"

"It's less than dying while crossing the street, at any rate." Atsushi grimaces. "Or being skinned alive by a jealous friend-with-benefits, which might happen to my roommate. Or maybe it's the other way around."

Dazai laughs. "Really? I can relate."

"You...can relate to which side?"

Dazai shrugs, sunny smile back in place. "What can I say? I was kind of a bastard back then, according to Kunikida-kun."

Before Atsushi could voice the protest on the tip of his tongue, Dazai snorts, shedding the traces of bitterness in his expression.

"Anyway, it's time to help a squirrel vanquish all darkness from this world," Dazai announces, drawing a surprised huff out of Atsushi. He takes out his phone and angles it to let Atsushi look on. One of those chipper arcade games, it turns out, and Dazai is actually good at it, thumbs darting across the screen.

"Oooh! Don't think you can best me at a duel, Racoon-kun."

"He's fake and uses a tuna can as a weapon, Dazai-san."

"Tell that to the squirrel he's been pilfering from, that rotten thief."

The train rattles to another stop at a quarter till seven, he glimpses from the station clock outside. One last stop before theirs.

"Hey, it's Anpanman," Dazai says, peeking out the window between game levels.

"What - oh." Sure enough, Atsushi spots the cartoon advertisement outside, recognizing the shiny noses and plump faces, now in glossy, high-definition drawings.

"Looks like they're done with the renovations. The central lines will be packed with screaming kids and tourists this weekend, if you're headed that way."

"Mmm. Probably not." Most of his Saturdays entail pushing dim sum carts during lunch hour and folding baozi until dinner, followed by idle Sundays spent with a book or two. "But I do see Shokupanman." He recalls seeing the toast on television—in the playroom, probably, before someone chewed on the electrical cord and that was that.

"Did your parents ever take you?"

"Uh...I. No. I didn't have—" he fumbles, feeling, not for the first time, like a complete idiot. "I didn't have parents. I mean, I did, and maybe I still do, but I don't."

Atsushi braces himself, expecting his admission to be a total conversation-killer, at the very least. The past, repugnant, seeping through the gaps in the flimsy life he'd made for himself, tends to stink up the air, burden it somehow.

Except the moment passes, and Dazai simply nods, saying, "Really? Me neither."

*

They step into the train station alongside the sea of pastel scrubs, the sun barely risen above the skyline.

"If you don't mind me asking, why do you go here this early, Dazai-san?"

Dazai falls into step beside him, ceasing his incessant attempts at humming on-key. "I shadow people in the medical center. Clinical psychologists, if you want specifics."

"Is it interesting?"

"Not really, no. I'm appeasing this one professor, and it's bad luck to refuse free connections, yeah?"

"I guess?" He's mildly shocked; Dazai must be an exemplary enough student for a professor to recommend into a competitive field, one that his high school advisor had cautioned his top classmates against, no less.

"I found out some useful info in the neurology unit, though."

"What?"

"Forty-three percent of the doctors who work there look like models."

"That's..." He can feel his left brow twitching. "Really specific?"

"Ah, but I'm just so bored in there. But imagine this: marrying one and getting rich." Dazai sweeps out a hand over the horizon, as if trying to pull Atsushi into his vision. "Never having to work a day in your life, lounging around in a lakehouse as the trophy husband and sipping martinis."

"Sounds...bearable, but isn't it better to save the money and live off interest?"

"Don't give me that responsible outlook," Dazai whines. "What if I told you the martinis came with cute little umbrellas?"

Atsushi snorts his assent, softly to let Dazai continue.

"And lychees, too. With crushed ice, or a bit of sake. Oh how I miss—" Dazai yawns. "Are you getting all this? Taking notes on the yellow brick road to paradise?"

"Wasn't - I thought the city was for all the bribery going on. Not heaven."

Dazai turns to look at him, eyes shining in that look whenever Atsushi catches a literary reference of his. Their little inside jokes, if he didn't know any better. "Emeralds are green, which means money in some places, which is my point exactly. Don't worry, you could always be the Dorothy to my Tin Man."

"That makes no sense." Out of the corner of his eye, Dazai's pouting. Atsushi snaps his gaze back to the road straight ahead. "Sorry, but I've only heard bits and pieces about that book."

"But aren't you going to help me find what I'm looking for?"

He shakes his head, not quite understanding the vague circles Dazai talks himself into. "But good luck, Dazai-san."

"Pfft."

At the next block, Atsushi hangs back while Dazai joins the crowd crossing the street, people spilling into the stretch of hospitals and patient care centers. Atsushi watches as a few of the students call out greetings to Dazai, ushering him easily into their conversations.

He's popular, Atsushi realizes. And yet Dazai chose to sit next to him on the train this morning—it means nothing, really, but he's warm, surprised at himself for having forgotten about his distance so easily.

*

"Good morning," he calls into the library, finding the lights off and the space empty. "Watanabe-san?"

"Atsushi." A gray bob appears above the desk, followed by a back hunched over an open binder. "The delivery truck's outside. Grab some more boxes, won't you? All the carts ended up everywhere but here."

He hurries off to make himself useful. Judging by the silence, none of the other library assistants are here yet. Except for Kenji, who waves at him while unpacking a shipment, boxcutter held between his teeth.

Stepping onto the cement platform, Atsushi says, "Good morning."

"The boxes are in the back," the driver mumbles, slouching against the truck door and scrolling through his tablet, clipboard tucked under his arm. Unlike Dazai, most people don't bother to mask their world-weariness at seven on a Friday morning.

Before Atsushi can reach for a box, the skin on his back tingles again. It's not even the same place as where his muscles ache, now that he feels it more strongly. The heat is unmistakable. He racks his brain for what he did to cause this spot to flare up, if some poisonous bug had slipped into the apartment and managed to bite him in his sleep.

"Hey," the delivery man calls from the front. "Hurry it up, won't you?"

He suppresses a flinch. "Right. Sorry."

"It's fine. Just finish it. Quickly."

Atsushi blinks, out of sight, at the rudeness, but dismisses the prickle of unease and reaches for a box. It's nothing that could scratch the surface of what he'd heard, to be honest. Plus, the sun has barely risen, so it's—explainable.

"Hey! Need help with that?"

As Atsushi tries to balance the boxes in his arms to avoid an extra trip, Kenji jogs over to his side, to his relief.

"Could you please?"

Whistling, Kenji whisks the top boxes off the stack, leaving him empty-handed.

"You don't—"

"Don't worry! I've got this." Kenji shifts his load to balance on one shoulder, flashing a peace-sign back at him.

"Finally," the delivery man mutters as Atsushi walks past, the last couple boxes in tow. "Hand this to your boss." Atsushi almost keels under the weight of a slapped receipt, accompanied by a glare that he meets evenly.

His back continues to burn.

*

"Atsushi-san, the computer won't wake up!"

Atsushi rummages for sticky notes in a drawer, sleepiness dried up after seeing the sheer amount of work laid out for them. When Watanabe cooed at her beloved cactus blossoms, he'd stopped breathing, steeling himself for the day when Dazai's crime will come back to haunt him. Or, more accurately, crimes in the plural, as he'd spotted Dazai patting the petrified tree bark on the archaeology display table last week, and empathized with the million-year-old branch.

"Does the power button not work?"

"No," Kenji replies, pushing again, and Atsushi catches a reverent whisper of "I believe in you. "

"Is the power cord plugged in?"

"Yup."

"Is the monitor connected?"

"Maybe?" Kenji spins in the swivel chair, a sign of deep contemplation.

Atsushi fishes out a pack of sticky-notes, nestled between a bundle of highlighters and a bottle of pain relievers that would've been useful on several occasions, if they hadn't long expired.

Kenji stops spinning. "You know, buttermilk baths always worked when one of the piglets was down..." He turns to look at Atsushi, grinning in a way that Atsushi quickly moves to shut down.

"Maybe it's better if we don't try that, Kenji-kun."

"Okay! I won't, if you say so."

Atsushi breathes out a sigh of relief, shuffling over to inspect the computer. "Do you mind if we trade?"

At once, Kenji leaps from the chair. "I'm much better at the other stuff, anyways."

Atsushi smiles, and leaves Kenji to toss and twirl the pen, resuming the task of sorting and marking the deliveries.

It's quiet. Watanabe had sent the other assistants, once they staggered in, across campus to hunt for the carts the other administrative departments hoard, engaged in some silent war for the prize of minimized back pain. A prize that, months into this job, has Atsushi's full and enthusiastic support.

Kenji hums, a soothing sound—a melody meant to relax, or to ease the monotony, as Atsushi tests the monitor for signs of life. Unlike the tunes of certain other people.

"That song," Atsushi says. Coming from Kenji, the notes sound barely recognizable, without the off-key riffs and exaggerated crescendos. "I think I've heard it before."

"Really? I hear it in the dining hall sometimes," Kenji chirps. "Or was it the vineyard?"

"You hear music in the vineyard?"

"It's supposed to help the grapes grow. And make the wine taste better - but the hen house always smells bad, even after it was just cleaned a few days ago, and nobody ever offers me any, so I don't know. Oh! And last week, I ended up carrying people out of the birthday party in there because, you know, drunk people."

Atsushi digests this, and decides it's better not knowing the details of Kenji's agricultural field trips to Yamanashi. "That's...nice?"

"It is," Kenji says, dropping another textbook onto the stack for moving. "You could tag along sometime! I have a spare set of earplugs."

"Is the music that loud?"

"Oh, no. The other volunteers treat the music like a karaoke session, even though it makes the goats cry," Kenji informs him. "But they've gotten used to it."

"That's...good," Atsushi mumbles, remembering how this conversation started in the first place. "In fact, I might need earplugs here, since Dazai-san is bad enough to make a whole herd cry."

"Oh, wow. Dazai...?"

"Osamu. A psych major, I think."

"Ooh, I know him! He was at the research expo," Kenji says, clicking his pen in enthusiasm. "There were a lot of brains there. I only understood four words from his research poster, but he seemed really nice."

Atsushi chokes on air. "Nice. Dazai Osamu is nice." Not that Dazai is rude, or unkind, but his personality isn't gold-star quality either. Then again, Kenji assumes that the majority of the population have pure goodness in their hearts.

"You two seem close," Kenji says, oblivious to Atsushi's skepticism.

"Not really?"

"Like really close—"

"Not at all," Atsushi says, throat oddly tight. "What makes you think that?"

"Kunikida-san told me stuff. And I did see—"

The prehistoric computer chooses that moment to roar, causing Atsushi to yelp and the desk chair to bang into the desk. He could feel Watanabe's frown on them from the second floor balcony.

Through it all, Kenji remains utterly blissful. "Hey, you got it to wake up!"

*

At mid-afternoon, the scorching sun near its peak, Atsushi wheels the cart out of the elevator. To his confusion, there's a mass of students loitering outside of the study rooms. He spots his roommate amongst them, surprisingly alive, skin intact, dutiful hangover sunglasses in place.

"Shh. Don't alert him."

"He has headphones in, don't worry."

"Hey, I have those same ones. We're meant to be."

"Looking for a rebound?"

"No, you don't, Yuuto-kun."

"Shut up, all of you. You're too loud."

Atsushi wheels the cart down the hallway, rehearsing the room numbers for the delivery. Through the windows, he glimpses Dazai, pen skimming across paper, laptop balanced on a precarious stack of textbooks.

So that's what they're looking at.

He considers tapping on the glass to mouth a hello, but the small crowd blocks the way, whispering and giggling at the ultra hot senior across the hall. Besides, it'd be awkward, initiating contact. Dazai's always been the one to come up to him, not the other way around. If they are even friends is questionable.

"Wish someone could look at me like he's looking at his work."

"I don't know about you, but I wish he could look at me like that."

A ripple of laughter, and Atsushi rolls his eyes to the stratosphere and back. Apparently they haven't heard Dazai open his mouth before, he thinks, a hundred parts exasperated, one fraction of a part fond. Plus, the fifth floor of the life sciences building isn't some aquarium or art gallery to be gawking around at.

"Excuse me," Atsushi says, pausing before the row of jutting backpacks.

"Oh! Sorry, we were just—"

"It's fine," Atsushi says, smiling politely in reassurance. "Sorry for making you move from..." Stargazing, his mind supplies.

One by one, they slink back to their study room, Yuuto ignoring him—or failing to see Atsushi—in his typical strut. A couple of them sport blushes and hide their embarrassment in sips of coffee, a sign of a break gone awry.

Atsushi pushes on, chancing another glance back at Dazai. It surprises him. Not because of Dazai's looks—that has become a fact of life now, all things considered—but because Dazai is quiet, expression serious and a little cold, intent on wading through his work behind the glass.

Atsushi rounds a corner, and throws out another false impression. At this rate, he thinks, Dazai will burst into tears, lift up his head of hair, and reveal that he's been wearing a wig all this time to disguise his jellyfish brains.

*

He ends up getting lost in the maze of hallways. The room numbers seem to skip and double-back without meaning, and, to his horror, he flings open a sticky door to a classroom while a professor was talking. Mid-lecture about mating zebras, the current slide informs him.

In his defense, the entrance looked the same as the exits leading to other dim spindly hallways. Half of the class witnesses his frozen embarrassment before he closes the door, bowing whilst whispering an apology.

After passing through a corridor reeking of plant fertilizer, another of formaldehyde, then narrowly avoiding a collision with a graduate student's cart of specimens floating in an unnamable beige foam, Atsushi arrives at the correct office, out of breath, checking and double-checking before knocking.

No response. He considers leaving and coming back, but that thought lasts for less than a second.

He could try sliding the instructor's edition through the mail flap, at least. If that fits, then the other requested books should.

Grasping the heavy hardcover spine, Atsushi opens the flap on the door, lifts the book to the opening—and drops five kilograms of bony fish migrations smack on his feet.

"Minami-sensei?" he shouts, peeking through the opening once more.

The professor lies flat on her office floor, eyes closed, hair fanning out in a flaxen puddle.

"Can you hear me?" Atsushi calls out, hoping he's not talking to a corpse but an unconscious woman. "I'm going to go for help, okay?"

Toes throbbing, he pushes to his feet, hobbling past the dark meeting rooms, the empty laboratories, to knock on the next closest office. Silence. He tries the next one, and again nobody answers.

"Were you looking for someone?"

When he whirls around, the professor from before stares back at him, cart now empty of its stock.

"It's Minami-sensei. She—"

Quick as a wink, the man seems to understand, setting his messenger bag at his office door and taking off down the hall. Atsushi struggles to keep up in his herbal-scented wake.

"It's not the first time this has happened," the man explains, mouth pressed in a thin line, twisting the doorknob. It is unlocked, and Atsushi berates himself for not trying in his earlier panic. "She's anemic."

"Oh."

The professor takes her wrist, and must be satisfied with her pulse, as his face remains impassive, beckoning Atsushi toward her.

"Can you hold up her legs? It'll get the blood moving back up to where it needs to."

Atsushi clambers forward to grasp her ankles, icy to the touch. "Like...?"

"A little higher would be better," is the tranquil response, and the professor takes Minami's desk phone, pressing in a string of numbers in quick, clean succession.

"Thanks for getting help," the professor says once his colleague is shuttled away on a stretcher, stirring under the voices of the paramedics. "She would've lain there alone if you hadn't come. For a while, perhaps."

"It's - not a problem," Atsushi flounders. The man raises a silver eyebrow, patiently waiting for him to continue. "It was by chance. And - I wouldn't have known what to do. So, thank you, um...?"

"Fukuzawa-sensei."

*

Atsushi leans against the bulletin board, taking in the press of flyers and pushpins against his back, grounding him, erasing the leftover panic from his trip up to the top floor of the biological sciences building.

He's on the verge of relaxing, soothed by the fact that, objectively speaking, the whole thing had turned out alright. Now, he'll head back to the library, scan and shelve the morning's worth of books, and then pick one out to read in the post-lunch hush. Realistic fiction. He's feeling like reading realistic fiction today, or a slice-of-life manga from their well-thumbed collection. Nice, safe, ordinary stories.

"Hey - Nakajima?"

"Yuuto?"

His roommate lets the stairway door clang shut behind him, scuttling over to where Atsushi gathers his breath. The sunglasses are now perched on his forehead, revealing puffy red eyes. Atsushi chooses not to comment.

"Nice seeing you here. Can you get WiFi?" As usual, Yuuto cuts right to the heart of the matter. Atsushi hasn't decided yet if it's a good or bad thing. "We can't access this one assignment - it's an online submission, and it's due in fifteen minutes. Before class."

"I..." Where is this going. "I don't have a phone, remember?"

"Fuck, I forgot. Nobody's getting any signal, either."

"Seriously? Does your professor know about this?"

Yuuto guffaws. "He's a jerk. Plus, he specifically told us not to wait until the last minute, but here we are."

"That's too bad," Atsushi says slowly. "But it's just one assignment, right? It'll be okay, right?"

"Actually, it's a group project. And I'm failing his class." At Atsushi's uncomprehending expression, Yuuto continues, not the least bit chagrined, "I told the front desk about this, but the grandpa down there is moving slower than it takes for my ass to recover after being—"

"Okay," Atsushi cuts in, smiling what is sure to be his constipated smile. Actually, constipated makes him cringe, now that Yuuto had to bring his nightlife up. "Did you try IT?"

"No, but—"

"Wait. Never mind. I forgot you can't call."

"The staff here have their own line," Yuuto reminds him.

Atsushi blinks. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Technically we're not supposed to let people onto the ethernet," Atsushi says.

"Please? It'll only be a minute."

"...Alright. Where's your laptop? I'll log in for you." Atsushi gets to his feet, swallowing his sigh in a single brisk nod. There was a reason his roommates had deemed him as the buffer zone in their cramped, airless apartment, the line of demarcation.

"About that." Yuuto grins, scratching his stubbled chin. "My group's been blocked after trying to break into the staff connection too many times. Plus, my laptop got, er, destroyed this morning."

"...Yuuto, I'm not stealing one for you."

"No? But you always have an idea of what to do."

"Do I?" Atsushi asks in disbelief. "Most of the time I just listen to you guys rant about each other."

"But you do help, and we're both very grateful—"

"It's fine," he quickly says. The faster he can fix this, the sooner he can head back to the library and delve into more comforting worlds than reality. "Just...follow me."

Tugging his cart behind him, Atsushi leads the way down the remainder of the hallway, back in the direction of the elevators. Out of the corner of his eye, Yuuto's study group is pressed against their window, no doubt waiting for his return as the savior of their grades.

And across from their room, still lost in his own world, sits Dazai.

"Hey, wait, what are you—" Yuuto splutters.

Atsushi walks over to the glass panes. His feet are oddly leaden, heavy in a reluctance to bother someone submerged in work. Don't be stupid, he chides himself. It's just Dazai. For a moment longer, he stands rooted to the spot, taking in the curve of Dazai's shoulders hunched over his textbook, hair tucked behind his ears.

Then Dazai peeks up, smiling. He meets his eyes as if knowing Atsushi had been there all along, hesitating.

What? Dazai mouths, squishing the tip of his pen into his cheek.

Don't, Atsushi mouths back. Dazai tilts his head quizzically, and Atsushi shakes his head, opening the door.

"Please don't draw all over yourself," Atsushi clarifies. Yuuto clutches his elbow as they walk in, muttering about being in the presence with his dream date, his fateful red-stringed soulmate.

"Concerned about my face?" Dazai slides his headphones off, seeming to have understood without a problem. "I'm touched."

Atsushi offers him a dubious silence.

"Hi," Yuuto squeaks out, grip digging into Atsushi's collarbones. Atsushi ducks out of the grasp and watches Yuuto flush, a blotchy blush creeping from the neck up.

"And who is this?" Dazai asks, the corners of his mouth lifting.

They both wait for Yuuto's response. Seeing as his roommate had forgotten how to speak, Atsushi sighs and says, "This is Yuuto. He's my roommate."

"I see." Dazai nods sagely. "The confident, skinned-alive escapee? Nice to meet you."

"N-nice to - what?"

"Ignore him." Atsushi closes his eyes for a moment, then turns to face Dazai. His amusement seems to roll off in waves. "I have a favor to ask."

"Really? Go on," Dazai says, propping his chin up on his hand.

"Could I - we borrow your laptop? Yuuto needs to submit an assignment, and I'm letting him into the local network." Atsushi inhales a calming breath. "Things are down, at the moment."

An unreadable look flits through Dazai's face; he reaches over to his phone resting a textbook, inspecting the lock screen to confirm that yes, every nearby cell tower around the university was down. For a split second, Atsushi hopes that it isn't annoyance, or anger, that he didn't misread this situation and overstep some unknown boundary, but Dazai asks, tone light, "Did you extract any favors from him?"

"No?"

"You should."

Atsushi's incredulousness must show on his face, as Dazai laughs quietly, smothering the sound into his palm, the back of his hand smeared with ink. "I'm sure that's what you would do though, Dazai-san."

"So little faith in me," Dazai laments, scrunching up his nose. He looks Yuuto up and down. "Are you a first year?"

"No," Yuuto croaks out, voice almost inaudible. He seems to shrink further into himself, a feat for someone who easily towers above Atsushi, and probably over Dazai too, if he stood up straight. "Second."

Dazai turns back to Atsushi. "I find it hard to believe he's the same age as you."

Atsushi frowns. "What do you mean?"

"Ah. I didn't mean appearances-wise."

*

"I can't believe you know one of the hottest seniors here and didn't tell me earlier," Yuuto bemoans once they're alone, shoulder to shoulder in the elevator rattling downward. The project had been submitted in the single-digit seconds before the deadline, to the neighboring room's cheers of relief and Dazai's poorly suppressed amusement. "Like, our story could've gone from friends of friends to friends, or something. I could've invited you, and told you to bring him to one of Ryu's house parties, or—"

"Yuuto, I don't even go out with you anywhere besides the laundromat across the street."

"I mean, that I can be easily changed," Yuuto says, intentions still clear as ever. "I made some friends with fourth years before."

"Then what's stopping you?"

"He's just so..." Yuuto laces his fingers behind his head, puckering his full lips. "So...dreamy, you know?"

A cactus clattering on the table, fertilizer pellets scattering from a glass jar— "I - I don't know."

"And his aura's smoky and mysterious, yet bright."

"What?"

"You know what, I'm going for it." Yuuto does a triumphant half-shuffle dance move that has Atsushi thanking the universe they're alone in the elevator right now.

"Unless," As if seeing him under a whole new light, Yuuto props up his sunglasses to squint at Atsushi, who pointedly stares up at the elevator's array of numbers. "You're dating him? Shit. I didn't realize - I'll back off, Nakajima, I know I appreciate art but not like that—"

Atsushi sputters, interrupting him. "No. I'm not - we're not even that close, actually." He bites down on his lip to hold back his incredulous laughter. Of all the things Yuuto could've chosen to describe someone.

"Are you sure about that?"

"I'm sure," Atsushi says firmly, shoving the empty cart out when the doors part. Several students huddle around the receptionist's desk in the atrium, frowning down at their laptops. Yuuto clicks his tongue in pity behind him.

"Because I'm dialing up the charm the next time I see him. The guy replaced my number one since junior high, Nakajima, the Satou Takeru himself."

Atsushi can't resist letting out a small snort. "Okay. Good luck."

"And..." Unperturbed, Yuuto shoots him a smirk, all traces of that morning's heartbreak gone from his face. "Could you put in a good word for me too?"

"I already told you, I don't know him that well."

"Hey," An elbow grazes his side. "You owe me one - my leather pants wouldn't come off yesterday, and you were already sleeping so I had to get Itsuki to do it."

"What - why?" Atsushi scrambles to process this sudden dump of information, never mind the fact that his roommate thinks he's the default go-to for extracting his legs out of his clubbing pants whenever that emergency arises. "Couldn't whoever you were with, you know, do it for you? Isn't that how it works?"

"It's hard removing a boa constrictor from your thighs when we're both drunk," Yuuto says. He slides off his sunglasses and rubs them on the hem of his t-shirt. "I mean, Itsuki was just watching reruns or whatever in the front. I told him about my problem and he just nodded and followed me in. Problem solved."

Atsushi lets out a strangled noise. "You mean he didn't murder you?" If his roommates had gotten into a fight last night before Yuuto's noisy late-night events, he would've definitely heard. Back at the beginning, he'd witnessed shouting matches over the milk carton, the toilet bowl, the electric fan in the dead heat of summer. The little ceramic ashtray before it cracked into pieces and led to a whirlwind over who broke it and who was going to buy a new one and Atsushi had just been glad he didn't smoke.

"Of course not. We arrived at a peace treaty a few days ago. You were still at work, I think, but he and I agreed to ignore each other as much as possible." Yuuto shrugs. "We didn't want to be too ambitious and try to get along, so the mutual silent treatment is best."

"Not that I'm complaining, but...since when did you two get on good enough terms for him to help you, um, take off your clothes. While your - the other person is in the same room. Without complaining."

Yuuto balances his sunglasses back on his nose, smirking. "I have my ways."

"...Okay."

"You know—"

"Please don't tell me about them."

Yuuto clears his throat. "Back to Dazai-san. I doubt that he thinks nothing of you. I mean, you just marched in and talked to him! It was cool."

"Seriously, good luck, but I don't—"

They step out into the humid shade of the pavilion, and Dazai, speak of the devil, glances up from his spot on a nearby bench.

"Atsushi-kun!" Dazai beams and waves. "Long time, no see."

"Dazai-san," Atsushi replies, returning his smile and dutifully ignoring just how much brighter Dazai looks outside, away from the sallow indoor lights.

"And...Yuuto-kun?" Dazai swivels his gaze to the hulking figure fidgeting behind Atsushi.

"Hello," Yuuto whispers, the noise so ticklish to Atsushi's ears that he trips half a step forward.

Dazai seems to take it in stride, humming a few noncommittal notes. "Are you busy right now?" he asks, flicking his gaze back on Atsushi.

"Not really? I'm just going to return this to the library and probably—" He looks down at his watch. Half past one. "Eat lunch."

Dazai brightens, uncrossing his ankles. "Want to come with me and Kunikida-kun to the dining hall?

"Um..."

"He's been extra cranky lately with everything he's doing, so I've offered to treat him to chicken. Some company would be nice."

Atsushi blinks. "Sure, if he doesn't mind."

"Of course not. Kunikida would normally just frown and grunt while I talk about my day to him. I can't understand why. And you're welcome to come too, by the way," Dazai says to Yuuto, whose mouth hangs open. "Though, I think Atsushi-kun just did a really nice favor for you back there. He's been working hard since the sun barely came up this morning - so, you wouldn't mind pushing his cart back for him, hmm? "

Atsushi looks back and forth between them, trying to decipher what Dazai's planning, with that smidgen of silk in his voice.

"S-sure," Yuuto stammers. "Of course. I was going to head in that direction anyways. Just push it to the front desk, yeah?"

Atsushi nods, in awe at how pliable his sharp-tongued roommate became in the mere presence of his crush. Then again, gorgeous people have a kind of cosmic power, especially when said gorgeous people are aware of it.

"Ugh, since the cellular signal's down, I guess we'll just wait for Kunikida to show up." Dazai plops back down on the bench, patting the space next to him.

Atsushi pauses for a moment, then sits down beside him, careful that their shoulders don't touch. Down the swirl of sidewalks funneling into the campus green, dotted with tents for some campus event that afternoon, he watches Yuuto's retreating back until the rumble of the cart fades away.

"You didn't have to, you know," Atsushi says, glancing at Dazai. "But thanks, anyway."

Dazai hums. "It was the least he could've done, considering that you kept his head from rolling. He should be jumping at the chance to be your loyal servant for a week or two, to be honest."

Atsushi lets out a quiet snort, fidgeting with his wallet. The heft of more than enough for a one-coin meal eases his mind a little. The generous portions in the student hall are worth the longer walk there, the days he decides to go there.

"You two seem to get along well, though," Dazai notes, tone curious.

"It's more like we have to," Atsushi says. He shrugs. "Or else we have to pay more rent if one of us leaves."

Dazai nods, gaze back on the cloudless sky beyond the rooftops. "You have more than one roommate?"

"Yeah."

"The only roommate I've ever had was Kunikida. We were randomly paired during our first year. And I've had a great time annoying him ever since then," Dazai says. "Speaking of which, Kunikida's lab should've ended ten minutes ago, but he usually stays late to clean up like the cute little TA he is."

"Wouldn't that make him a responsible TA?"

"Blech."

"About Kunikida-san or being responsible?"

Dazai wrinkles his nose. "Definitely both."

Atsushi shakes his head, more out of fondness than exasperation, to his surprise. He turns his wallet in his hands. Beneath the pavilion, with their legs stretched out in the shade, the raw white sunlight doesn't reach either of them.

Dazai hums a few choruses. He's still blatantly off-tune, nasal in the high notes—and Atsushi wonders if he's actually this bad or just pretending to be. It's almost been a month since Atsushi had met him, but he can barely begin to unravel Dazai's mannerisms, much less his thoughts and actions. Smoky and mysterious, Yuuto had gushed.

"What's so funny?" Dazai asks, and Atsushi whips his head around to see Dazai has scooted closer than before. He's looking dead into Atsushi's eyes, chin cupped between thumb and forefinger.

"It's nothing," Atsushi stammers out. Dazai's open smile—or at least, the closest he's seen it getting—creases his eyes into half-circles. A warmth rises in Atsushi's stomach.

"Oh?" Dazai tilts his head to the side.

"Nothing," Atsushi says again. At that, he's ready to break eye contact, inching away from Dazai and his charm. Why one of the brightest, hottest (Yuuto's words, not his) fourth-years chooses to hang out with him, he doesn't know.

"Your eyes are pretty," Dazai says.

"Dazai-san."

Feeling flustered all over again, Atsushi scrambles to his feet and looks behind them, pretending to watch an impromptu game of soccer unfolding on the green below.

"Oh, good idea, we can wait for Kunikida-kun in the student center." Dazai stands. "I mean it, though."

"What?"

Dazai has the audacity to wink at him. "I'd get in a brewing vat to escape Nathaniel's flood with you anytime, Atsushi-kun. Green tea and bread for a day while the rest of humanity dies."

Atsushi hides his smile. "I thought it was Nowell's flood, though?"

Dazai snorts in surrender, and they make their way down the steps, where a frisbee swoops in from thin air and scares the living daylights out of Atsushi. In an unexpectedly nice, almost sweet gesture, Dazai lightly touches the crook of Atsushi's elbow, gently steering him around the thicket of aggressive club representatives and increasingly violent games of soccer on the campus square to the walkway on the other side, the green underbellies of the trees keeping the summer heat at bay.

"Do you prefer lovely Knight-san's tale instead?" Dazai continues, eyes twinkling. "Very rich in chivalry and all that stuff." They round the bend, the university hall and its nose of glass gleaming in the sunlight. "Kunikida would love that story, if only he'd get his face out of the mud for a bit."

Atsushi squints at the sunlight ahead. "Um, I'm not sure why the prisoners doomed themselves to a girl they didn't even know. But then again that's half the classic romances, I guess?"

Dazai hums in agreement. "So, you prefer the exquisite butt-kissing saga then?"

"I...prefer neither of those."

"Oh...then, do you like slow romances? Falling in love with the shift of the tides, the turning of the seasons? How can I compare thee to a summer's day—"

"Dazai-san, people are looking at you weird."

"Let them stare," Dazai says, waving a dismissive hand. He stays silent, though, as they pass through the front doors, the hall jammed with students. Dazai leans in closer, arm brushing Atsushi's side as they settle into a booth. "I hope you find a gentle, sweet love one day, Atsushi-kun. Really."

"Um." Atsushi knows he's pretty much doomed in that department, but accepts the sentiment in stride. "Thanks, Dazai-san."

Contented, Dazai props his elbows on the table, resting his cheerful face in his palms.

*

Kunikida, stress beading off his skin in rivulets, snatches the card from Dazai's hands, announcing that he would order a large box for all of them—Kenji had tagged along, too, how many people does that kid even know—while Dazai whines about acid reflux and decides that milk coffee is the only thing calling out to him.

"Do you care to know about the tenets of attraction?" Dazai asks as they take their place in line.

"No, thank you."

"One. Physical attractiveness. Hotness casts a wider net over the market, as everyone knows. Of course, its definition varies from person to person, and beauty is only skin-deep, after all—"

"Nobody asked—"

"Two. Similarity. Unlike the cheesy soaps Kunikida likes, opposites tend to retract. What's the saying, again? Birds of feather make eggs together?"

"I - I don't think it's that."

"Details, details. Three—"

"Why are you telling me this?"

Dazai shrugs, eyes alight with mirth. "Three: proximity. There was once this penguin, in Australia or New Zealand or something."

"Please don't launch into another off-topic story." Not that Atsushi minds much: Dazai's stories end up making a twisted sort of sense, if held under a certain ray of light.

"This is relevant, trust me," Dazai tries to assure him. "Anyways, this penguin first opened its eyes in a zoo enclosure. Let's call it Kirby." Someone snorts further at the front of the line; apparently people can't help but listen in too, nor can they resist Dazai's face, judging by the double-takes of more than a few students. "Kirby hatched out as an ugly duckling, you can say. Except nothing was wrong, save for a severe lack of a tuxedo."

"What?"

"A tuxedo." Dazai pats his back and flails his arms for emphasis. "The black coloring on a penguin."

"Right."

"All of the other penguins shunned it. Penguins are social creatures, too, so things were looking bleak for young Kirby."

At Dazai's expectant look, Atsushi supplies, "Poor Kirby."

"And then Kirby died. The end."

"It died?"

"Doesn't everything?"

Atsushi sighs. "But what happened before then?"

"The other penguins eventually accepted it into their group," Dazai says, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. "It only took a few weeks for these birds to look past his lack of tuxedo and accept him as one of their own."

"What are you—" Atsushi frowns up at Dazai's twitchy smile. "Where are you going with this?"

"Just a wise thought of the day?" Dazai suggests, rambling on."Familiarity leads to fondness. It's easier to like something you see everyday, which is why I—"

"Dazai-san, while I appreciate you regurgitating your studies, you really need to decide what you're having." Atsushi nudges him to the newly opened counter.

He half-expects him to say triple caramel latte, ten pumps of vanilla at twenty-eight degrees or something equally obnoxious. But, in a never-ending chain of surprises, Dazai says a merry greeting and states his order of black coffee without a hitch, chirping a word of thanks as the cashier hands him his change. Smooth as cream.

*

"How go the midterm lab reports, Kunikida-kun?"

Kunikida glances up from gnawing on a drumstick and glares. "You know how they are."

"No I don't, that's why I'm asking you."

"Piss off."

"Hey, and whose student card did you use to buy that chicken?"

"Then please piss off."

Dazai ignores him, humming another upbeat song that Kenji unconsciously shakes his leg to under the table, immersed in his own world of a massive chicken thigh. Dazai uncaps his cup of coffee and—fishes out a baggie of white powder from his backpack.

"I pre-measure my sugar," he says at Atsushi's expression.

"Ignore him, he's precise about useless things like that," Kunikida says, furiously wiping his fingers with a napkin. "If only he'd put in that much effort into studying."

Stirring his steaming cup of coffee, Dazai scoffs. "And sacrifice my four hour naps? That'd be a tragedy."

Kunikida grunts and pulls out another piece of chicken, mumbling something suspiciously like four, my ass.

Dazai redirects his gaze across the table, stare palpable as Atsushi finishes his own food. Despite much cajoling and arm-waving (Kenji) and subtle scooting of the box in his direction (Kunikida), Atsushi spoons through a one-coin curry, relieved at their willingness to leave it alone. Even after all this time, it's still a sore spot, rooted in some fistful of stolen bills by the river.

Dazai takes a noisy sip of his coffee, earning a loud kick under the table from Kunikida. "Ow. I meant to ask - do you have any book recs, Atsushi-kun?"

Atsushi turns his gaze up to meet Dazai's. "I - have you heard of Sasameyuki?"

Dazai lights up in recognition. "I have."

"The same author also wrote Some Prefer Nettles," Atsushi offers, spooning up a carrot in thought. "It's pretty slow. Like lots of mirrors and theaters and stuff." When Dazai leans closer, unexpectedly in genuine rapt attention, he continues, "But that's why it's unique, I guess? It's cold, kind of clinical in some ways. But that's how repetitive day-to-day life can be." Atsushi smiles down at his plate. "Then again, I read almost anything, so."

"I'll give it a try," Dazai answers at once. "I'll check it out at the library the next time my favorite librarian is there."

"You're so useless," Kunikida grumbles as Atsushi breathes out an exasperated sigh. He watches, avoiding Dazai's gaze, as Kunikida dabs at his chin, somehow making eating fried chicken look like a proper dining affair. "At least make an effort to value the people you do like—"

"Now, now, there's no reason to lecture me on the etiquette courses your family stuffs you with." Another slurp of coffee is audible above the lunchtime rabble, earning a twitch above Kunikida's brow. "Although, there's nowhere else it can be stuffed in, considering that pole's still there, hogging all the space, you know..."

"You little—"

"Thanks for the meal, Dazai-san!" Kenji chirps, suddenly out of his reverie. Judging by the way his eyes fade in and out ever so slightly, Kenji is one step into a food-induced car.

"It's no problem, Kenji-kun," Dazai says, beaming. "You're the only blond that's decent around here. Unless," he flicks his gaze to Atsushi, who focuses on carefully scooping the last dredges of sauce from his plate. "You could call Atsushi-kun a platinum blond? If so, you're one of two, don't know what happened to the third one, heard he moved to Antarctica last spring—"

"Oi—"

"Thanks!" Kenji returns the smile brightly, oblivious to Kunikida's sudden dark cloud of murderous intent. Atsushi tries valiantly to keep his blank expression.

"You're welcome," Dazai replies in an equally bright tone, slapping Kenji's outstretched hand across the table. When Atsushi looks up, Dazai's angling the palm to Atsushi, waggling his brows in what he thinks is encouragement.

Atsushi holds his stare for a second longer, then sighs in defeat. Dazai's hands are calloused, he realizes, despite their fair appearance—long pale fingers, spidery veins branching and disappearing into his sleeves. And—Atsushi needs to stop staring like a creep.

"Back to work," Kunikida mumbles, folding his used napkin onto his tray. His chair screeches as he stands up, nodding to Atsushi and Kenji—and squinting at Dazai—before picking his way through the sprawl of tables. Dazai cackles when he stumbles over a wayward purse; Kunikida's ears are an angry shade of red as he climbs down the stairs.

Kenji calls out a farewell soon after, explaining that the university gardeners needed help with the display outside, so cheerful about irises and daisies that Atsushi almost feels like chipping in too, even though he wrecks plants just by touching them. Still, it wasn't his actions that led to the grand fall of Watanabe's cactus blossoms.

At last, Dazai and him sweep up the remaining crumbs off the table, or, rather, Kenji's side of the table as Kunikida is Kunikida. Dazai slings his backpack over his shoulder, pausing for a moment before he turns to face Atsushi. There's a strange, nearly solemn look in his eyes.

"See you tomorrow."

*

"That's it for today," the hostess announces. "Could you switch the sign, please, Atsushi-kun?"

Atsushi sets down the wet rag he's holding and flips the panel over, unplugging the neon lights at the windows while he's at it. A glance outside reveals Chinatown's streets teeming with pedestrians, faces pinched, street vendors folding striped umbrellas and tin awnings, blue and pink cellophane sheets slipping the leftovers away.

Even the restaurant has people shoveling in food at warp speed. Every so often, their eyes dart out at the ruby clouds outside, waving for the check before their plates were cleared. Their nervousness, palpable above the beating hum of the ceiling fans, the shriek of the cicadas outside, makes him anxious to get home as well.

"Excuse me," a regular motions at him. The man's voice drops to a whisper as Atsushi approaches his table. "Do you have garlic in the back? You can add it to my bill. Just - please."

"Sorry," Atsushi says, sympathetic. "But we don't have any more, besides the peels." The request has been cropping up more and more often closer to sunset, the longer the police case drags on without so much as a suspect. It's as if bravado during the day melts to rampant fear the darker the evening becomes.

"I'll take it," the man says. "I'll take what you've got."

In the back, the kitchen door squeaks, announcing his entrance to the entire space. The line cooks glance up as he sweeps the shells from a cutting board into his apron pocket.

"Charge 'em five-hundred for that, kid."

"No! Make it a couple thousand yen."

He ignores them.

"Thank you."

The words rush as one out of the man. He takes the peels, clasping his palms together like holding glass. Atsushi dips his head in response—and hands him his bill without an extra charge penned in.

*

"Noon's good for you? Great! There's this place near the waterfront..."

When Atsushi boards his packed evening train, the surrounding conversation on a basketball match in Chiba instead of the news. He's glad; he's not sure if he could handle another mysterious death right now. The topic distracts him, reminds him of his own university's captain, always stopping to ask Atsushi about his day, then Fumiko-chan, cheeks a dewy pink, nose perpetually buried in a textbook.

The businessman a few handrails down laughs into his phone, chattering on about lunch date plans. Lunch. At lunchtime yesterday, Dazai brought him takeout bento and hugged him like he was precious—and why is he thinking about this.

"Yeah, definitely, they don't make it too sweet, if you want to try..."

Atsushi fiddles with his shirt sleeve, stained from cleaning a puddle of peach liquor at the restaurant. He'll have to scrub at it and let it soak once he gets home.

"...so see you tomorrow. Love you too."

His roommates might already be home. With hope, his leftover boxes of gyoza and taro puffs will tide them over, long enough for him to have some peace and quiet to finish his chapter of introductory chemistry problems and go to bed early. I hope Dazai-san got home alright. The thought forms without warning. Who am I kidding, of course he did—

The train plunges into darkness.

He blinks, bright spots flashing across his vision and the world ends in a thud, a cry of metal, and he's being flung down, briefcases and purses and grocery bags upended, crashing every which way. A wink of the sunset beyond the windows—scarlet, purple, bruised—and he smashes head-first into the floor.

He's upside-down. Or rather, the train's flipped and he's on the underbelly of the roof, slipping and sliding and something feels sick, twisted deep in his middle. Panicked screams ring in his ears. He's painfully lucid, awake.

Dreaming.

*

Wet sounds in the train, louder than the plaintive sounds of the train doors.

Atsushi bites down hard on his lip, unable to move as people giggle and bustle around under the flickering emergency lights. Something burns, white-hot, on the small of his back. When he pushes an eye open, the businessman from before is being lifted by his necktie, whimpering as his loafers leave the floor.

Sometime between buying a dozen eggs and vegetables at the supermarket and arriving at his apartment complex, he'd ended up passed out in a train carriage, crumpled on a sticky-wet roof.

"We should've done transit-runs sooner, you know. It's like ordering a box of chicken tenders. To-go."

"It's remarkable, you knowing what that concept is."

Laughter rips out, so shrill it sends a violent wave of terror through him. There had been a crash, a fall, except he can't quite connect the jagged pieces together.

"Airi," the businessman chokes out, a plea.

"God, don't you hate it when your food talks?" the voice above trills. "Who's Airi? The one who's paying for your funeral?"

And the businessman goes limp, leather shoes dipping down in the air. Atsushi tastes blood. He remembers see you tomorrow in two separate voices. An unbearable feeling wells up—heaviness, chemical smoke, dark night—he sees his own hand snatch an ankle, yanking the man out of the grip gone slack from surprise.

"What! Perhaps you are Airi?"

Before he could reel from his action, Atsushi is being hoisted up, gasping in pain.

In the lights—a shine, a curve. He flinches against the delicate touch on his neck. Please, let this be over quickly. He's dreaming. He'll wake up and be back in his room, safe and under the covers. He'll be back behind the library circulation desk, called awake by Kunikida, waiting to check out another teeter-tottering stack of books, or his name would be called by Dazai, familiar close-lipped smile gracing his face.

Atsushi scrabbles against the hold—defiance. The same force that clung to him during another moment in time, long ago, to steal, to live, to live. Like then, he's terrified beyond belief now, heart thudding in his chest, cruel smooth faces surrounding him, and it's not real, this slow, languorous pressure pinching at the skin above his collar, lancing the ring of heat on his back.

"What the fuck!"

The touch stops before it breaks in. Something skids up his forehead. He goes limp, looking up just in time to see a golden liquid arc through the air, strike his brow, then drip down to send his eyes to fresh agony.

*

He wakes up when it's dark again. A kneecap digs into his shoulder, a hand rests on his face, tiny shards sprinkled over them as salt on frozen concrete. They're right-side up again. That would explain how his entire front throbs in a dull pain, searing straight through his middle when he tries to move. Love you too, he remembers, an echo of a memory. He's too muddled to think, not when he's boiling inside his own skin.

He's propped up against the train door, the glass cool against his cheek.

Yokohama seems dimmer than normal. No billboards under spotlights, no taxis or trains drifting around the dark jut of skyscrapers. Only the moon hangs high in the sky, striking the swollen bay. Everything's so clear and quiet, as if he's truly alone in this world and watching a silent film, a funnel of blackbirds blot out the light in the black water.

Chapter Text

Stars. Clouds. A wine-dark sky.

The rain had begun sometime after the last train had shuddered through: no lights, no sirens, only the clackclackclack of droplets through the gaps in the windows and doors, glistening veins of white on the panes. It builds into a rush, drenches his clothes in a warm dampness, pooling where the carriage tilts on its side, away from the bay water.

The same one, two blasts of a horn. Thunder without lightning, metal clattering on the railway above. Storm and train invisible under the waxing moon.

Atsushi places his palms flat on the floor and pushes with all his might—the agony leaves him prone, gasping on someone's silk shirt. Their ribs dig into his cheek, rising and falling with each breath. A shallow heartbeat flutters in his ears. The night becomes deep, stygian, allowing him to swim through it, under it, gulping in the brine, the moonlight, and the air.

*

He comes to in water, shivering. His drenched clothes are lukewarm at best, now, a chill soaking into his bones and coating his skin. He thinks about the late spring heat, then billowing steam, frying oil in a kitchen. A circle of children huddled around the radiator past bedtime, passing around a flashlight.

The same pair of horns, the same rumble of thunder—a train passes through again. Atsushi wills himself to move his left hand, then his right hand. The stain on his tie appears as a painted oval in the darkness. He grapples on the slippery floor—the spot will need to soak in a dish of salt when he gets home—and manages to sit up, propping all his weight on a seat frame.

Cold water, clammy hands. A silver coin, perfectly round, pinned to purple fabric.

A warm gust of wind. Stars dance with each ripple.

The next instant, the sound of shattering glass—

A barrage of lights flood the train. Spheres the size of marbles, amber and smooth, tumble from empty space and melt into the gravel beyond the carriage, skinning the glittering night sky from the top down. The sky beneath is scrubbed raw: the moon has drooped, faded into a gloomy dawn so bright in comparison that it stays when Atsushi closes his eyes.

"Fuck this, we have another—"

"A whole train, my god, they didn't know when to—"

"—identify the bodies! We need to return them - give me some estimates—"

Someone stirs by his arm. A man coughs and spits out blood. His tie dangles from his neck; bruises line his throat. Atsushi braces himself, letting the weight of another body lean against him. What—the man rasps, cloudy gaze fixed on the scene outside, the last surreal chunks of honey seeping away into the ground. Where?

Atsushi touches the back of his hand and meets the man's eyes. They burn bright, in and out of focus. "I don't - I don't know," he whispers back, hugging the spots on his sides that seize with each breath. "But - we're in Yokohama, I think."

"Yokohama?" the man echoes.

Atsushi nods, his head made of lead.

Bit by bit, the man's face unfolds, eyes glassy, busted lip curling into a smile. "Home," he mouths. The sight tugs at Atsushi, buoying him up in a well of dizzying, unspoken relief.

I have been here before.

A sudden crunch of footsteps on gravel sounds closer than before. The man flinches beside him, the hope drained out of both of them with a single shared glance.

Atsushi motions to the floor, gingerly lying down and closing his eyelids, willing his shaking legs to go limp. An answering splash of water lets him know the man had followed suit, and they lie there, motionless among the sprawl of bodies. How many other passengers have survived, Atsushi can't begin to guess. His head throbs; his eyes are dry as sandpaper; he feels like he can simultaneously sleep for days and never sleep again. He strains to tune out the ringing in his ears to listen for any hint of their fate.

"In here, in here!" a boy calls out from the inside the train, closer to the windows. He must be able to see whoever's outside, Atsushi hopes against hope. Paramedics, or police officers, or ordinary people spotting their wreck as the sun rose.

Shouts erupt from outside, a sweep of light searching through. The child screams again, I can't feel them, I can't feel my legs, and someone manages to crawl through a window, shoes slapping water. A soothing string of syllables. A woman's voice above the din. A grunt no more than an arm length's from Atsushi, and then metal and rubber twist as one.

The water gushes out as the doors are forced open, the carriage space crowded in a span of seconds.

"Survivors! Careful, don't step on - Naomi, take the rest of them and check out the two carriages behind this one—"

When Atsushi dares to crack one eye open, a motley of uniformed workers and people in wrinkled dress are swirling above him. Forefingers touch at wrists, necks. Arms locked at the elbows press up and down in a silent rhythm. A count to three, and the man from before howls with pain as two people lift him onto a stretcher and out of the train, all the while talking in hushed, harried voices: you'll be okay - no bleeding, sprained neck, vehicle two - lie still, please, sir—

A steady hand tests his pulse on the side of his neck. Something dry presses against his side. The square somehow staunches the rest of his waterlogged body, an anchor Atsushi pours his focus into as he's peeled of his frigid shirt, wrapped in thick cotton towels, and hoisted up and away, the ceiling soon replaced with a flushed dome of sky and rain.

He thinks he says thank you sometime before he'd passed out, but can't be sure if the words had simply sloshed around in his head, unspoken.

*

"Fifty minutes to sunrise, do you hear me? Oda-san?"

—the back of a van with the seats folded down, dim scenery rushing past. Mouth sour with sleep, Atsushi shifts beneath the blankets, causing the tarp he's on to rustle noisily. Other shapes lie beside him, the gray dawn shining in long patches. The unmoving bodies are a mere hand's breadth away, and Atsushi doesn't dare move until one of them exhales. A moment later, another lets out a whistling snore.

"I hear you," the driver answers, then glances back at Atsushi. "Please don't move too much," he says, like rushing a bloody mass of injured people around is a daily occurrence of his.

"We're almost at the downtown hospital," another person speaks from further back. A girl with a wan, heart-shaped face, long dark hair swept in a ponytail, steps over and crouches next to where he lies. "Any sharp pain anywhere?"

Atsushi shakes his head, causing the world to churn again. The cool numbness smothers his body, muffling every sensation.

"Are you dry?" Her eyes dart over to the floor around his head, where Atsushi assumes the water in his hair and face had ended up.

"...Mostly?"

She nods, the same eerie calmness floating about her as the driver. But they lack the stark-white cruelty of another group of strangers, and Atsushi schools himself through more breaths. "I would help you sit up to drink, but..." An almost sheepish look flits across her face, making her seem instantly younger. "Neither of us know much about medical things. They - the paramedics - told us not to move you unless absolutely necessary and to give you no food or drink."

"I understand," Atsushi murmurs, feeling ready to throw up.

At a groan nearby, the girl kneels beside a woman, pressing a damp compress to her forehead. From a case of small colored pouches and jars, she brings out a stalk of mint, tearing its leaves and scattering the pieces across the woman's stomach. She stays quiet, lips moving without sound. Atsushi feels her gaze landing on him from time to time.

He stares out the back window, where the only other vehicle on the road, a bus, trails behind them. Rose Hotel, the fender spells out. A couple of silhouettes stick out against the sky behind them, ducking at certain intervals, movements calm and measured as the girl's beside him.

His eyelids grow heavy. His legs and torso appear to be dusted in mint leaves as well, weighing them down, tugging him back into the quiet dryness of the van. He's still desperately cold, as if no amount of blankets could drive out the chill stamped into his flesh, and aches in places he'd never known before. The morbid part of him wants to crawl under the tide again. If he wakes up again, great. If he dies, he'll never know.

"Kyouka," the girl says, as if sensing his slipping consciousness. Atsushi jolts awake again. "And this is Oda-san." The driver nods, eyes fixed on the road.

"Atsushi."

"Pleased to meet you," Kyouka replies, a grim smile tugging at her mouth. "But as they say, I wish it were under better circumstances." She turns to pour water in a large metal bowl sandwiched between the two front seats, exchanging a few words with Oda. Atsushi wracks his brain for her dialect, her familiar yet unfamiliar choice of words, but comes up empty.

"Kanagawa's ICU should have beds ready. They're setting up backup units too," the radio comes to life on the dashboard. "—are banging up a storm at doctors' houses to get them to call in." The voice sputters out, and Atsushi winces at the yells and rustling in the background. "—been hell without cell towers, you wouldn't believe, god knows how many people are still out there. If we can move around some beds, acquire some more supplies, we could fit in a little more, but..."

"There's no helping it," Oda says. The morning light makes his red hair look almost black. "Focus on helping the ones already there."

"—you're going straight into the enemy's turf, though, when we could be focusing on widening the Passage, instead."

"That could take days. Or weeks," Oda replies with the air of an old argument, maneuvering them swiftly through a left turn. "We separated them out as quickly as the vials came. They won't harm possible assets."

"And that's another problem - you think they're just gonna leave them alone? Believe it or not, I swear I saw my kid's homeroom teacher in the mix. If we have to fight some undead version of her, that's messed up, man, I swear—"

"We'll keep a close watch on them. The plan's already in its finishing touches."

"Still, I—" A hiss bleeds through the radio, followed by stern shouting in the background. Atsushi catches a string of numbers, punctuated by demands for sterile saline and gauze, a blood-pressure cuff, "Alright, alright, as long as you trust him."

"I do."

"Then that's good enough for me."

A final crackle, and the radio drops silent.

Oda clears his throat. "Sorry, for all this," he says, voice disarmingly quiet after the strained back-and-forth with the caller. "Someone will explain everything, hopefully sooner than later. You only have to focus on healing. They'll send in help when it's clear."

The road winds around Tokyo Bay, Atsushi realizes. The faint moon is setting above the waves. The car moves too quickly for regular early morning traffic, but he doesn't think the past few hours (days?) could be counted as normal either, unless he's been hallucinating all this time, knocked out in some ER, bowels splayed open in surgery.

He settles back into the cocoon of blankets, the sea flashing blue and silver. Atsushi swallows in the sight of seagulls skimming the water, rain-laden clouds stretching across the horizon where shafts of sunlight break through. A stillness sets in. Atsushi becomes aware of the stretch of distance behind him, knowing that every ache and cut is because he isn't dead. Not yet.

It's when raindrops begin tapping the windshield and Oda switches on the wipers that Atsushi remembers he had forgotten to reply. "I..." he trails off, clutches the blanket tighter as another chill shakes through his body. "Aren't - aren't you already helping me? And when what's clear?"

"Not so much," is the honest response—short, almost, if it had come from someone else. "And, to put it bluntly, when the enemy's distracted so we can rescue you all safely."

"The hospitals have never been safe, but at least they weren't active hunting grounds," Kyouka says. She watches him carefully, weighing his reaction. "From the ones you've seen."

"Who have I—" Her face swims above him, pale and tired. Atsushi pauses. "Oh."

Not for the first time, the breath slams out of his lungs, and he's utterly lost, strings of desperate questions knotting together. He must look like it too, as Oda hums in sympathy and Kyouka leans over to pat his freshly-socked foot.

Oda turns onto another street, a bundle of tiny flowers swaying from the rearview mirror. Their scent eases the crushing weight in his chest a little, and he wonders if they had put it there for this very reason even if the reason for everything is as clear as mud now.

"This city isn't home to only humans," Oda says, blowing past a red light without a blink. "The other side's been hidden for too long. It's breaking the peace in your world, too. It's looking bad, but - Atsushi-san?"

Atsushi curls into himself, light blooming at the edge of his vision. He squeezes his eyes shut. The car seems to accelerate to an even faster speed, passing over potholes and debris, the thrum of the windshield wipers filling the silence. Kyouka squeezes his toes again. The pressure lingers this time.

He draws in a lungful of sweet lavender. The streetlights fade in and out before his eyelids, cones of light and dark.

Another breath, and Atsushi thinks, I have been here before.

Five, or six, the sleek inside of a garbage bag is all he can touch and see. Twelve, drifting out of consciousness as the snow fell and fell, for someone forgot to fetch him back in after his punishment in the hen house, whatever it was for that day. Eighteen—a new start, carving legs to stand on in another world, one far more dangerous than the one he'd left behind in the walls of dilapidated brick.

Twenty, and Atsushi realizes he can do it all over again if he had to.

*

"Orange or strawberry, Nakajima-san?"

As with the past meals, he picks Kenji's preference: strawberry.

The orderly places the jello and spoon down with the rest of the lunch tray, spilling broth out of the overfilled bowl, and checks an item off his clipboard. Atsushi thanks him, and he wheels the cart to the bed beside Atsushi's, greeting the old man there.

The massive strife that had engulfed Yokohama meant every hospital was filled to the brim, clinics lending out rooms for stabilized patients, staff pink-eyed with exhaustion, spaces cleared out for gurneys separated by heavy plastic drapes. A stifling fear clings to the air, a flurry of rumors that this, whatever this is, is well beyond Yokohama alone. Information trickles out line by line, aid even slower to trickle in. The city had woken up to darkness the morning before: children missing, alarms silent, all train stations cordoned off until further notice, a siren wailing at the top of every hour.

Most of the time, the nurses and doctors whisper soft enough for some semblance of privacy, not that Atsushi has the energy to care one way or the other. Atsushi already knows too much about Nakano-san's persistent constipation, given the foul cursing two beds down; the convoluted plot of the dramas that occupy the communal TV at meals; little Onishi-kun's excitable bladder, to the consternation of his hovering circle of aunts.

It brings him a strange kind of comfort.

Kunikida raises an eyebrow when Atsushi insists that no, he doesn't mind the noise, in fact, he prefers it. Because being left alone means he's only with his thoughts, and he'd much rather have Nakano curse his constipation to hell and back or nurses bustling in at 3 AM to clean up Onishi's latest accident than have to face that night and dawn again.

Atsushi finds headphones on his tray table anyway. The attached MP3 player contains an extensive library of tracks like "Four Hour Stress Relief, Soothing Sleep Synth Tones," "Waterfall (loud)," and "Waterfall (louder)."

"I'd always wondered what Kunikida-kun listened to," Dazai muses, cheerfully scrolling through one such playlist. He's almost unrecognizable with his hair stuffed into a baseball cap. A surgical mask covers half his face; horn-rimmed glasses balance atop his nose. "Hey, I found the third waterfall track - 'for certain emergencies.' Oh, that's interesting. Wonder what he uses it for?"

Atsushi gives him a look, too sleepy to keep his smile hidden. "Please try not to make him regret lending it to me."

"What do I have to do with this?" Dazai's eyes shine with mirth through his glasses. "I'm merely an innocent bystander in Kunikida-kun's chaotic path of destruction."

"And you didn't try to stop him?"

"No, I'm only a humble foil to his character. The hero sent to highlight Kunikida-kun's vices with my virtues. Did I mention my bravery and dashing good looks?"

Atsushi snorts, dipping his spoon into the steaming bowl of porridge. He doesn't offer Dazai food today—he knows a little bit more now, even as his mind feels on the verge of a meltdown. "Wouldn't that make you not an innocent bystander?"

Dazai frowns in concentration. "I could be one of those reluctant hero types. One that pretended to sow his farm with salt to avoid going to war. Nothing like classical-era procrastination, am I right?"

"There was a prophecy, Dazai-san," Atsushi indulges him, stifling a yawn. The porridge tastes like swallowing in the ocean one spoonful at a time, but he savors the warmth it brings. "He wouldn't come home for a long time if he'd left."

"Hmm." Dazai tucks a wayward strand of hair back into his cap and leans forward in his chair. "But he ended up leaving anyway. I mean, there was some sleight of hand to get him to give up the ruse, but he could have resisted more, yeah? Prophecies, 'smorphecies."

"He didn't sail home until ten years, though? Just like the prophecy," Atsushi says, setting down his spoon. "But I get what you mean. His fatal flaw didn't help things."

Dazai laughs behind his mask. Despite everything, it lightens Atsushi's heart to hear it. "Then," he says, eyes gleaming. "Who was there?"

"What?"

"Nobody."

"Who...are you talking about?"

"Nobody, that's who."

Atsushi groans, having half a mind to throw a pillow at Dazai, if only every centimeter of his skin wasn't wrapped in a cast or hooked to some bumbling machine. "You know, if you'd put this much energy into making sure your books were returned on time..."

"And become a responsible member of society? You ask too much of me."

"The next thing you know, you'll be saving a few thousand yen a week. And getting to class on time."

"I get caught up in the whirlwind of life," Dazai says, waving an airy hand. "Not everyone can have their planner color-coded down to their daily intake of protein and fiber - although I'm not denying he needs it."

"You don't need a high-quality planner," Atsushi says, knowing by now that Dazai would sooner eat dirt than voluntarily adopt any of Kunikida's uptight habits. "You just need to write down what to do, maybe a few reminders you're going to do that week."

"Oh, what I need to do?" Dazai winks, prompting an exasperated eye roll.

"You - you know what I mean."

"Friday, eight o'clock PM. I'm going to write down 'fun.' With someone."

"Okay. I don't want to hear about it, I already hear enough from Yuuto—"

"Guess who?"

"How should I know? Do you even know?"

Dazai sniffs indignantly, jutting his nose to the ceiling. "I don't know what kind of person you take me for, but I'm making plans with someone. So - guess who?"

"Your girlfriend?"

"No."

"A stranger?"

"No."

"A friend?"

"Again, no."

Atsushi sighs, settling back into the bed. He pushes the cup of strawberry jello toward Dazai; Kenji works double shifts at the library, now. Half of the staff—rumor has it Watanabe the head librarian herself is in for a herniated disk—is somewhere in a hospital, shoved into this one or another in the dozen across the city. He hasn't seen a newspaper to know if that night has been named yet, much less sorted out which parts were real.

He is about to grumble a defeat when he snaps his eyes open, seeing Dazai's gaze wavering above his mask. He's clearly trying not to laugh. "I can't believe - you're inviting...Nobody."

Dazai confirms his answer when he shakes in silent laughter, clutching his stomach as he doubles over.

"I can't believe you," Atsushi says, though he's laughing too—Dazai's amusement is too infectious, and more than a bit endearing. He keeps this to himself.

"Besides," Dazai says, once he's somewhat collected himself. "I'll probably just lose the planner, and everything will be for nothing. So for now, I'll be a third-class citizen and make it up by helping you organize books sometimes."

"Actually, you can bump it up by leaving the orchid in the mystery section alone."

"You were there?" Dazai clicks the leather case closed on Kunikida's MP3 player. "Plants are my friends, so I've got to visit them."

Atsushi snorts. "Yes, I was there."

"Ooh, staring at me from afar, Atsushi-kun?" Dazai asks smugly.

"—I was - shelving nearby," Atsushi sputters, annoyed at himself for still getting tripped up on Dazai's vague flirtations, unintentional or not. "And worried. Since an orchid's weaker than a cactus."

"Orchid-san is sad now, how could you? Don't listen to him, sweetie," Dazai croons to the wall with the window, as if the flower could actually hear him.

"It would be a lot sadder if its vase shattered on the floor," Atsushi reminds him. "Watanabe-san would behead me if something happens to her plants."

"I'll be sure to tend to your grave, Atsushi-kun. You'll get fresh lilies every week."

"That's...not the answer I was hoping for."

"Oh? Then what kind of answer do you prefer?"

"How about, 'I, Dazai Osamu, swear to find my books and check them out without talking to anyone'? Or anything," he adds hastily when Dazai makes to speak again.

"It's hard to charm people without opening one's mouth," Dazai says. He gives a brazen wink. "And it's okay to come up and say hi sometimes, you know."

Atsushi blinks up at him. "I - I know—"

A group of interns fling open the door then, brandishing patient charts. They have the same worn, punch drunk eyes as most of the workers he'd seen, but with measurably more grace as they check IV lines and dressings.

When they're gone, Atsushi meets Dazai's eyes, who had scooted his chair to be flush with the hospital bed, back turned against anyone else. Dazai hooks his mask down to his chin and sniffs the water, face impassive. He looks unfairly handsome as ever, a different kind of attractiveness in his glasses and faded BayStars' snapback (he doubts Dazai even knows a single player on the team), and—the leftover anesthesia must be messing with Atsushi's mind.

"Good?" Atsushi whispers.

Dazai shakes his head, tugging up his mask again. Stinks of silver flakes, he had whispered yesterday morning, when he'd first smiled with his teeth and Atsushi had barely kept himself from falling off the bed while Dazai had held both of his hands, refusing to let go until Atsushi's breath had stilled and he had stomached the latest twist that universe had sent his way.

Can you remember, Dazai had whispered. If you had been bitten or not?

Almost, but no—

For a disturbing moment, Atsushi thinks he can smell the traces of silver, too: metal mixed with something peppery, like ginger or lemongrass.

"So," Dazai speaks again, unruffled from the latest poisoning attempt. Nothing against him, he'd said, just a general test for the unknowing, those without a developed sense of smell. Harmless to humans. "You're taking everything pretty well."

"Not really, I can barely sit up," Atsushi says after a pause, though he knows Dazai's referring to something beyond his physical injuries, like the morning he had woken up on a tarp, the sun rising over the city before him, wondering if he was alive. Blackbirds. Mint being shredded in the girl's hands.

Dazai looks at him for a few moments longer. His gaze is soft, wholly different from the teasing mood earlier. "You are. I'm glad we've met earlier this month."

Something swoops in the pit of Atsushi's stomach. "Um. Me, too."

Dazai gives him an answering crinkle of his eyes, before bouncing right back to the less solemn version of himself. "You like puzzles, right? There's some in these newspapers, if you want."

Atsushi considers it, then says, "Sorry, Dazai-san. I'm too tired to think."

"Atsushi-kun, you're still recovering from a case of shock and a concussion, not to mention a few broken bones. No apologies needed." Dazai hums, placing the MP3 player back onto the bed tray and reaching into his backpack. "In that case, do you prefer The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Murata-sensei's translation—" He lifts up a book, emerald strokes winding across the cloth cover, "—or Sasameyuki? I couldn't find Some Prefer Nettles, but reserved it with Watanabe-san - lovely woman by the way, did you know she crochets bookmarks in her free time?"

When Atsushi glances over, Dazai is holding, sure enough, a stitched owl attached to a slim braid of yarn, fuzzy pompom threaded through the other end.

"It's...cute?"

"Isn't it?" Dazai coos, hovering the owl beside Atsushi's face as if it's flying. "Hoot, hoot, oh who do I spy with my very own eyes? Atsushi-kun's cuter than me, hoot hoot—!"

"Dazai-san," Atsushi says, without any real annoyance. Dazai looks so pleased with himself, cheeks poking out from behind the mask.

And Dazai laughs, again. It draws Atsushi in, and it must be the lingering anesthesia, because he doesn't think he could get tired of it for a long while. "So, which book?"

"Sasameyuki," Atsushi blearily decides, yawning. The nurses would be doing their noon rounds before the day is done, and he's not looking forward to being poked and prodded again. On the other side of the curtain, Nakano's done a complete change in mood and is yelling for joy. At what, Atsushi can only guess.

"Ah, get some rest, Atsushi-kun," Dazai says lightly. He stacks both books on Atsushi's tray, Sasameyuki on top, folded newspapers wedged between their covers. Atsushi hands him the jello cup to give to Kenji.

"And don't forget to play 'Waterfall' at max level if needed," Dazai says, reaching over and squeezing Atsushi's hand. Before, if he had doubted whether the bay accident and the dawn that followed was all a vivid nightmare, a vision while he was unconscious, he does not now: Dazai stares back with such a heavy look in his eyes, and whispers, "They're becoming gold."

*

He had slept cleanly through his surgery and blood transfusions and then some. Kenji graciously donated some of his invaluable O blood as soon as Dazai overheard a neurologist talking to a nurse practitioner who heard from the lab techs upstairs panicking over the shortage. Kunikida calls it being nosey, you could've just watched the local news; Dazai calls it gathering intelligence, which wouldn't hurt if you had a little more of that, Kunikida-kun.

The doctors and nurses tell him the strangest stories—twenty-four people were found in the ER break room at six o' clock in the morning, discovered by a poor intern who went to investigate a loud bang. A five-by-five grid of gurneys greeted her, sprigs of poppy and daisy splayed on each chest like corpses in coffins. The twenty-fifth gurney was covered in confetti, silver or gold or both. The empty cannon on the floor beside it was deemed the culprit of the said loud noise, and the elaborate prank turned out not to be a prank.

Each patient was rushed through triage, around the same time as the surgeons and hospital physicians started pouring in, woken up by shouts of a city-wide crisis. The subways were down; they were generously transported by a network of civic volunteers, as Kenji describes: somber windbreakers, yellow hardhats, brass badges pinned to their sleeves, vanishing into fog that rolled in from the sea if anyone had thought to look back.

Blocks from the hospital, in a park tucked behind a soba shop and a block of aging houses, a hotel bus sat abandoned. The keys were on the front seat, or left in the ignition; the details get shuffled around. Neighbors heard engines rumbling away in the early hours of June 30th, but the power outage, coupled with the storm, prevented even a glimpse of the individuals.

The papers' official story is a freak earthquake, which explains the capsized trains and blood lining the roads. Except every building and bridge is intact, the instruments detected not even a shake, and in other news, the kyonshi is still on the loose.

*

He had been more numb than in pain, all sights and sounds shrunken to the small cottoned area around him. His restaurant uniform was folded neatly at the foot of his bed. The sun shone through the half-drawn blinds, the skyscrapers and billboards awash with light again.

A soft-spoken nurse had moved him two floors down for an evaluation, explaining his close brush with death, faint words about hypovolemic shock, four months for his leg to heal—three, if he's lucky—a torn tendon in his abdomen. Twenty-six hours, he'd been out. She handed him a button to press if he was in pain and dimmed the lights on her way out.

The next thing he'd seen was a striped sleeve, bandages circling the wrist underneath.

"We meet again," Dazai had said, a smile clear in his voice. It had been the only recognizable thing about him.

Atsushi drifted in and out of the hazy field of cotton, head pounding, squeezing the morphine pump when it had quickly become too much. He focused on the blue and white lines of Dazai's shirt; stalks of purple peek out from his front pocket. Lavender.

Kunikida had walked in shortly after, oddly dressed in his own baseball cap and thick round glasses. His shirt is untucked, the first button open. The beginning of blond stubble shades his face. Carefully sloppy, Atsushi had decided, if that was even a possibility. There was obvious concern in his frown, deepening the longer he looked at Atsushi. Both of his wrists were in casts.

Kunikida had struggled with himself, opening his mouth, looking at Atsushi, then Dazai, then Atsushi again, before saying, "Sorry you had to go through all this, brat."

"It's okay," Atsushi said, mashing his mouth into what he hopes is a complete smile. He refocuses his slippery attention back to the lavender in Dazai's pocket. Atsushi feels like he's barely holding something back, stagnant air trapped in his chest, all the while fishing in his memories for a semblance of the truth.

Dazai followed his line of sight. "Looks like Odasaku had picked you up all right. Oda-san, I mean."

"You - you know him?"

"Sure I do," Dazai said, voice still unnervingly light. Both Dazai and Kunikida continue to stare at him, weights pulling him back to earth, keeping him from vanishing up and away. The picture should be hilarious—a pair of unkempt college students, maybe hungover, die-hard baseball fans on the weekends, even though Atsushi can't recall either of them revealing as much as a favorite sport before.

"You sure it's all right, you being here?" Kunikida turned to Dazai. "Scratch that - it's definitely not okay for you to be here right now."

"Eh, they're probably too busy to play bounty hunter," Dazai said, shrugging. "We needed a few more helping hands, anyways."

"'Probably' will get you killed, one of these days."

"Yeah, but has it happened yet?"

"Unfortunately, no."

Atsushi had huffed in amusement at that, and Kunikida's shoulders had loosened when he glanced back at him. Dazai remained opaque as ever, but Atsushi decided that's closer to the normal state of things.

"Do you know if you're done with surgery?" Dazai asked, casually rolling up a doctor's stool that Atsushi doubts he has permission to.

"The nurse told me I'm about to go to a shared area, after the anesthesiologist clears me. So I guess so?"

Dazai made a noise of understanding. "In that case, I have some explaining to do."

"Do some work first, since you're alive," Kunikida muttered, elbowing Dazai at his side. He brandishes a pebble, followed by a tangle of damp plant shoots: clover. "Since you're so eager to help."

"No need for that, Kunikida-kun," Dazai sang, spinning in the stool. "Save the bottle magic for the other patients. I'll use my skills here."

"Which means he's going to sniff around like a dog," Kunikida informed Atsushi.

"Don't slander my reputation like that," Dazai whined. He wheeled himself over to the IV drip, tugs his mask down and—inhales the air around the machines, lost in thought for a moment before announcing, "You're clear, Atsushi-kun."

"...Okay?"

Kunikida opened his mouth to clarify, but the pebble glows, rattling in his palm. "All surgeons have left the floor with that one pesky practitioner. Don't do anything that draws attention to yourself," he directs at Dazai, stowing both stone and clover back into his jacket pocket.

"Relax, I'm the very essence of discretion."

Atsushi and Kunikida had shared a look, then Kunikida opened his mouth again, hesitant. "You can see, right? You can read the fine print on that—" he motioned toward the faded glaucoma poster on the wall, "—can't you?"

Atsushi had nodded, on the verge of asking before being flooded with the unforgettable feeling of his eyes bathing in flames, cold spots against his throat.

"All right," Kunikida said, seeming resigned, shoulders slumping in a way Atsushi had never seen from punctual, straightlaced Kunikida whose handwriting is akin to a typed font. "Explain it to him, Dazai, nicely—"

"I will," Dazai insisted, shooing him off. "He's seen them. He deserves to know the truth, as do all of them, in time."

Kunikida looked back one last time and nodded, letting the door click shut behind him. A beat of silence stretched out.

Dazai sighed, swinging his long legs over the back of the chair and resting his chin atop folded arms. He chewed on the inside of his cheek, eyes growing pensive.

"Let me know if you ever need me to stop talking, Atsushi-kun."

And Atsushi had inclined his heavy head, watching Yokohama unfurl under the hot sun.

"Can you remember," Dazai had begun. "If you've been bitten or not?"

Chapter Text

"July 2, Nakajima-san," the nursing student says, beaming. "One more day into recovery."

Atsushi smiles back, watching her uncap a pen to cross out July 1 from the calendar propped up on the nightstand. A picture of hydrangeas for June, sunflowers for July. It was one of the accumulated items from the population of his designated recovery area: a stock calendar for each patient, courtesy of the friend of a woman in for a punctured lung.

After breakfast the student helps him out of bed. She's careful not to brush against his side, hooks his IV bag to a wheelchair stand, and pushes him out into the hallway, where they pass rooms upon rooms of the wounded to the elevators in the back corridor.

"So! Did you want to go to the gardens after therapy today?" the student asks. "I'm sure the doctor would allow it."

The corner is bedecked in glass, slick high-rises and blocks of verdant parks fanning out below. A painting covers the only wall, an abstract piece that could pass as a hot-air balloon or a circus tent but Kenji swears is an electric fan flying over ice-capped mountains.

Atsushi looks up at her. "Maybe tomorrow? If you're not busy, I mean."

"Of course not," she says with undisguised enthusiasm. Atsushi knows the nursing students float around idle most of the time, eager for any chance to help between changing sheets and fetching supplies for their seniors, flipping back and forth the same stack of charts. "Some fresh air will do us both good."

"Thank you." Atsushi offers her a small smile.

(The disarming one, Dazai had called it. The one that feels manipulative but also the slightest bit thrilling, having a grain of power when he catches a pallid doctor staring a bit too long or when an intern is about to push a cup of smelly water into his hands.)

The nursing student talks about her classes with a forced cheer Atsushi is grateful for. Wisps of smoke rise above the skyline; both of them look on in silence before the telltale wail of sirens kicks in and the student goes back to grasping for stories. She takes the same train to the university as him, the one from Sakae-ku; she hates children, dreads the OB rotations, and hopes to specialize in cardiac care, maybe anesthesia. Her roommate had partied too hard last weekend and wouldn't stop reciting the anterior pituitary hormones before falling asleep. On the bright side, she had gotten to watch a full hip replacement surgery yesterday, making her rethink her plans.

"I wish I knew what I was doing," Atsushi says, if only to say something.

She laughs under her breath, pushing him out of the elevator and across the sky bridge. "I'll let you know when I find out."

The physical therapist gives him a grim smile that Atsushi has memorized by now. Atsushi's winded as he completes his third lap around the space on his crutches, the nursing student cheering him on each time he passes her, sweat beading at his brow.

The patients are both worse and better off than he is: one struggles to lift a spoon to his mouth while another balances serenely on a mat of foam. Sometimes he thinks he recognizes one of them, from the train carriage, the van, somewhere in between, but he doubts they remember him. He wouldn't.

It's ten o'clock by the time the physical therapist checks the last item off his clipboard.

Ten in the morning, thirteen minutes, twenty seconds.

*

"Hey!" Kenji peeks his head through the curtains, voice muffled in his surgical mask. "How are you feeling today?"

"Better, thank you," Atsushi replies, wiggling his stiff fingers from rest.

Kenji's expression is as bright as ever, but a blotchy redness clings to the skin under his eyes. Atsushi knows it must be bad if Kenji was feeling run-down.

"Have you been to the gardens lately?" he asks, plopping down on a free chair

"No. It rains here in the mornings." Atsushi glances out the window where the last shreds of clouds hover above a street clogged with traffic. The nursing student had bid him farewell at noon, informing him that she could be back after her lectures to keep him company, but Atsushi had shaken his head, telling her that she should get some much-needed rest and that he's expecting visitors that afternoon, anyway.

So he reads a few chapters of Sasameyuki, the clean, lovely scent of a book filling his nose with each breath. He uses the crocheted owl bookmark Dazai had entrusted him with. He waters the vase of daffodils (from his coworkers at the library, at least the ones that had passed through the previous night unharmed) with the innocent-looking pitcher the staff have allotted them. He naps easily when the words start melting together, dreams of dark waves crashing into a train tipped on its side, the passengers dissolving into mist.

"Do you want to go?" Kenji grins at him from above. "They're organizing something large down there, last time I saw."

Atsushi readily agrees.

With his uncanny strength, Kenji lifts him into a waiting wheelchair, throwing a blanket over his legs for good measure. As they pass the familiar painting, Kenji revises the story to include a refrigerator on the mountain's peak, watching the fan fly away because it was what it chose to do, not what it was fated to do, I heard that from this cook at the barbeque place. He almost spins a complete narrative on the elevator trip down.

Kunikida is waiting outside, frazzled to a point that Atsushi can no longer tell if it's for the disguise or Kunikida's been running himself to the bone trying to keep watch on the hospitals and emergency crews and whatever else he has to do. Their people, whoever they are, are short-staffed, severely outnumbered as they work from dawn to dawn and struggle to contain the damage. On the bright side, they are small enough to slip under the radar; the coven doesn't deem them enough of a threat compared to the larger war at hand.

"Kunikida-san," Atsushi greets when Kunikida lifts his head at their arrival, decked out in a pair of gaudy sunglasses with the BayStars logo clipped on, a jacket draped over his own hospital gown. Another disguise.

"Atsushi. Glad to see you," says Kunikida, rising to his feet. There's a wariness to his step as they walk to the shrubbery, their usual bench by the fountain vacant.

Kenji wheels Atsushi around the puddles and finally sets him beside the bench. They're silent for a while, Kunikida watching him, Atsushi fidgeting, Kenji humming in his seat. It could be a normal day after an earthquake—as normal as one could be, if he could block out the past week, the singing in his blood, the memory of his eyes aflame. He could ignore the spell smothering Yokohama. He could pretend the notes Dazai leaves for him are wild strings of fantasy, a product of too vivid an imagination.

Except the rain always starts before lunchtime. The first day of the month is crossed out again. The doctors—the human ones—begin to comment that he's recovering faster than usual because he's five days ahead of where the rest of the city is. Kunikida and Kenji always hop into a car and leave well before midnight, not without just a few more patients squeezed in.

An anonymous stranger patrols the hospital through the wee hours of the morning, smearing leaves on the floors and walls and whispering until a ring of light shines and goes out. They always smell of cinnamon or lavender, slipping in and out without a word to him.

Then the sun rises, an orderly sets down a tray of miso soup, and the day begins anew.

Kunikida clears his throat. "Are you still awake over there?"

"I - Yes." Atsushi looks at Kunikida, his expression hidden behind the sunglasses. "Sorry."

Kunikida frowns, assuring Atsushi he doesn't need to apologize. It brings a pang of familiarity. "That's fine."

"It - isn't it?"

Kunikida nods jerkily, spine slackening as if he has to remind himself to slouch even though there is nobody in the vicinity, much less someone who would know him for who he is. He reaches into his backpack and hands Atsushi a thermos, which he uncaps and tips into a smaller cup. A few rose buds float in the amber liquid, lemon juice and something bitter coating Atsushi's throat as he drinks until it quiets the thrumming in his veins.

"We're almost ready for you to come home, by the way."

That gets Atsushi's attention. "You are?"

"Not your home. But another one we're hoping you'll be safe - that potion can only delay the inevitable for so long."

"As long as I'm not surrounded by people waiting to kill me, I think I'm alright," Atsushi says, relieved when Kunikida's mouth twitches.

"Nobody wants you dead, if that makes you feel any better." Kunikida flattens his mouth into a displeased line. "Anyone in this part of town, at least. Their higher-ups are cracking down on the marrow harvests as we're told, so they haven't lost their minds yet. Basically they're taking only what they need, or else the whole deal with the time spell is useless."

"Why kill off the cow when it can still give milk to you?" Kenji cheerfully chimes in.

"...Right."

Atsushi closes his eyes. "So they're drinking but not killing."

Kunikida grunts an affirmative. "That's the hope." He looks like he wants to say more, but he pats his pockets and brandishes the same pebble and clover as a few nights ago, the dusky glow dimming as they watch.

Wordlessly, Kenji leaps to his feet and wheels Atsushi deeper into the gardens where the sidewalk splits and wraps around to the hospital plaza bustling with people. Kunikida leaves the way they'd come from, mumbling a goodbye and how there's others who need the contents of the thermos. From far away, he looks like another downtrodden, confused patient. His feet drag behind him; his casts peek out from the jacket sleeves.

"He says he's going to visit you soon," Kenji says when they reach the edges of the crowd. A sizable crowd of students mill around, the healthier patients outside with their friends and family after the rain. They each accept a brochure on hand-washing from a dimpling nurse, who waves them into the throng of people waiting for water bottles and snacks.

"Is it safe?" Atsushi narrowly dodges an upchucked spray of ice from an infant wailing from its mother's back. "I mean, he's - busy, isn't he?"

Kenji passes him a napkin and wheels him to the small stage where a volunteer is giving an ardent talk about boiling water notices in the city. "Not anymore! It's only down to practicing at this point, you know?"

"Practicing?"

"Yep. Assigning roles, preparing the potions and elixirs. We're not going to have time to prepare once that night comes."

Without a word, Atsushi digests the information. The sunlight warms his face, and he sinks further into the chair. He's exhausted after another night of botched sleep, pain erupting when he tries to roll onto his side or tug the blanket closer to his chin.

"He's been asking us about you," Kenji informs him.

"How is he?" Atsushi asks, keeping his tone even. Dazai had vanished ever since the day refused to budge from the second of July.

"The same. Mostly."

"Mostly?"

Kenji produces a floppy sun hat and places it on Atsushi's head, chewing his lip in thought. "Kyouka says he's a bit quieter these days."

Atsushi remembers the scene in the study room, wondering if Dazai had been planning from the beginning, and nods.

"Our leader - the main one, I mean, is off trying to make new friends. Lots of whispery stuff. I don't really know much else, other than it leaves Dazai alone at the top."

In front, the volunteer finishes her lecture to uneventful applause, the crowd dispersing around them.

"I can't imagine what it's like," Atsushi says. If he's tired from lying in bed all day, where does that leave Dazai and Kunikida and Kenji and the rest of them?

"Me neither," Kenji agrees, pushing Atsushi back onto the sidewalk. "Digging up ginger roots all day is so much more fun than keeping people from dying. Actually, pretty much anything's better than that."

They navigate the rest of the crowd in silence, Atsushi bursting with questions about potions and spells and magic—basically everything beyond the narrow area that he knows. He decides against it, though, as Kenji stifles yawn after yawn behind him, exhaustion written in every step forward.

*

He's allowed to bathe himself in the evenings, as long as someone's within earshot to hear if he falls. The plastic bundled around his leg cast rustles too loudly in the small space when he wobbles over to the shower, half of the area taken up by a built-in seat, the remaining floor lined with sticky, non-slip grooves.

Atsushi wills himself absolutely not to rub his eyes when he looks in the mirror. Gold lays claim to the pink, leaving behind a rosy island in each eye. The change is subtle enough that someone who isn't him—or Dazai, apparently—doesn't notice.

Usually a golden band at the neck, or the shoulder, Dazai scribbles in the margins of the newspapers. The writing is in pencil, nearly illegible, but Atsushi has all the time in the world these days. He erases after he's done reading. A careful incision after months of planning and a ritual spell to craft—unleashing the venom is no lighthearted task for the donor. Sometimes it turns lips to gold, leaves a permanent stripe across a cheek or chin, a swirl on a wrist.

Atsushi turns around and nudges the slit of his hospital gown. The sapphire marks on his lower back have faded, the points of the star no larger than moles. The first loop through, they had been bright enough for a couple of nurses to comment.

Three and two. The numbers had been circled on the results of a high school swim meet, beside the calendar of dates annotated with werewolf migration (Yosano bets before midnight) and strawberry moon (don't drink the potion). The same star had been drawn on the corner next to a hideous attempt at a smiley face. Atsushi figures it's some positive message (three-to-two? thirty-two?) about the same burning patch of skin that night, the one that drove the vampires out and left the people in the carriage adding to the wounded count rather than the dead.

*

"July second, Nakajima-san. One more day into recovery."

Like the past times he'd seen it, July 1 is marked out in a dash of ink, the end blotting before the nursing student pulls away.

*

The waiting area has enough furniture for the visitors to catch a few hours of sleep on. Time drags by in silence, all non-essential procedures behind the double doors canceled until further notice. Tanizaki, an undergrad who knows Dazai through a convoluted chain of acquaintances, snores gently in the armchair next to him, Kenji also dead to the world on a couch across the room.

Atsushi flips through an interior decoration magazine dated six years ago, finding curtains in more shades of mint than he'd thought existed and instructions for tissue paper garlands engrossing enough to keep him from overthinking. The only other people who are awake is an old man near the staircase, one cherubic grandchild asleep on each shoulder, and the girl playing her coral-pink console on mute. Neither of them look his way.

In the middle of a multi-step guide to planning springtime parties, Dazai peeks over his shoulder, the brim of his snapback poking Atsushi's ear.

"Interesting?" Dazai whispers, pointing at the decadent tray of macarons on the page.

"Sort of?" Atsushi whispers back.

"Is that a question?"

Atsushi smiles to himself; at least some things haven't changed. He sets the magazine down on the coffee table and turns to look at Dazai. He's not obviously exhausted like the others—his eyes are clear and alert as usual, a thick pine scent wafting off like he'd slept in a bathtub of potpourri. "How are you, Dazai-san?"

Dazai nods smoothly, glasses slipping down his nose a fraction. "Finished both books already?"

"No," Atsushi says, nudging the pocket of his wheelchair. "It's kind of hard to read right now - the words are blurry. It could be the concussion."

"Ah." Dazai looks away. "It could also be because the face has too many nerve endings. Too many recipes for disaster."

It had been five days (five rainy July 2nds) since Atsushi had last seen him. He lets Dazai wheel him down the hall, closer to the busier sector where they could talk freely, the smell of brewing tea and coffee overtaking the antiseptic.

"You know that one guy with the golden lips I told you about?" Dazai stops them at a small table and hitches over a chair, pushing his glasses back up as he sits down. "Apparently his whole mouth got numb. He couldn't tell a spicy fish nugget from the regular kind, so only when he was swallowing did his throat burn and revive the soul in his body. Warms the heart, doesn't it?"

Atsushi shakes his head at the pun. "Wasn't there, um, anything else he could eat besides that?"

"Good point. Cod nuggets were the only thing left in his freezer when his wife left him. He couldn't tell when she was kissing him, or it was some killer hickey he gave her when he didn't know his own strength. Something like that."

"...Oh."

"Or was it because he hacked up those cuttlefish balls on their anniversary dinner? Either way, he's respectfully called fishy-lips now, according to the legend."

"That's...nice."

"Apparently he's still alive, by the way. Because of..." Dazai waves a hand in thought.

"The whole immortal thing?"

"Exactly. Who knew having chapped lips could ruin and save your life? Speaking of," Dazai unzips his backpack and brandishes a thermos. "Drink plenty of fluids."

Atsushi takes the thermos and the offered foam cup, briefly brushing his fingers with Dazai's chilly ones. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me just yet, Atsushi-kun. If only all you have is a cold, or the flu."

Atsushi sips the lukewarm liquid, hoping his face doesn't show how lost he feels—who would he be in a month, a year? Where would Yokohama be? Chiba? Tokyo? "I'm not hacking my lungs up, so I guess that counts as a win?"

"Of course," Dazai says, clearly not buying his attempt at optimism, but he doesn't call Atsushi out on it. "No need to blow your nose, too. But that means you'll have to try harder at convincing your boss you're sick - I have some tips for a free week-long vacation, if you want?"

"I think I'm good, Da - Kurosaki-san." He glances down at the rosebuds and lemon slices bobbing in the water. "Kunikida-san told you to immediately change the nickname, by the way."

"Hmph, Kunikida-kun's no fun. He wouldn't let me use Uchida even though it's a perfectly fine surname."

"...You can't be serious."

"I know right? Kunikida-kun's can be so unreasonable sometimes."

"I wasn't referring to him."

"He just doesn't get enough leafy greens, you know? When you can't take a dump, it makes you become someone you're not, although—"

"Excuse me?"

They both look up. A woman in a wrinkled floral blouse stares back at Atsushi.

"Uh..." Atsushi tries to wrack his head for where he could have seen this woman, clutching her purse to her chest in a white-knuckled grip. Part of the university staff, a student? A dim sum regular?

"Sorry - but, um. You have light hair. And it's—" She takes a breath, shivering, sweeping her long straight hair back. "I have to ask. Did you take the train from Chinatown a few days ago? About - six PM, or so. That night. When all this happened."

Atsushi's throat goes dry. A cold burst of realization pushes to the surface. "Yes? Yes, I did. Were you—" He looks up to meet her widening eyes. "Were you there?"

"No, but—" She takes a tentative step closer. Out of the corner of his eye, Dazai subtly shifts in his seat, uncrossing his legs. Whether he's wary or curious or none of the above, Atsushi can't tell. "I'm Airi. You - you saved Hitoshi's life, didn't you?"

An unlocked phone screen shows the same woman in front of him with a bright smile and a much happier expression, side by side with a man against a backdrop of white sand and blue sea. Airi. Hitoshi. The businessman on the train. The shivering man asking where they were on that frigid dawn, bleeding silently beside Atsushi as they waited.

He swallows against the dryness in his throat and nods. "Are you...do you not like sweet desserts, ah, Airi-san?"

Something unhinges in the woman's—Airi's—stance: another step brings her right beside his wheelchair, and she pulls him into a warm hug, his chin coming to rest atop her shoulder, a mixture of sweet perfume and tea curling into his nose before she pulls away, stepping back to regard him.

"He told me what happened that night. About what you did." She loosens her grip on her purse and looks into Atsushi's eyes again. Her smile is watery. "He told me...what he saw. I - I don't know if you saw the same thing," Airi starts. "Or if you remember any of it to even explain to me. It's just...hard to understand."

Atsushi blinks, scrambling to figure her out. "How is Hitoshi-san? Is he here?"

She nods. "He's been recovering in one of those areas downstairs ever since his neck brace got put on. He seems to be getting better. With his wounds, I mean." Airi clasps her hands together. "But he's terrified. His face - he described these - these things to me, how their faces - and their teeth. Oh god. He was almost killed until you stepped in, I don't know what I would've done—"

In a lurch, Atsushi hopes that Hitoshi did not contract the venom, the golden liquid arcing through the dim carriage and seeping into open cuts and orifices. Does Hitoshi—and the other survivors of that night—remember the same horrors in the same flashes of vibrant detail? Did they see the slaughter of entire trains, roads, ones without a spell to ignite, the one that now marks his back in several blue-tinged spots.

Atsushi glances at Dazai, trying to silently ask how much they should tell her, if they should tell her.

To his surprise, Dazai's eyes shine with curiosity behind his glasses when he catches Atsushi's gaze. A moment's pause, and then he shakes his head once.

"I'm sorry, but my memories are jumbled up from that night, Airi-san. I don't know what I saw." Atsushi inhales a lungful of air. Now is not the time to be spewing knowledge about supernatural creatures roaming around Yokohama and preying on its inhabitants, which, by the way, are six days behind the rest of the outside world because of a time loop designed to keep them oblivious, corralled in.

"I hope Hitoshi-san will be alright," he offers sincerely instead.

"Thank you." Airi smiles, the apples of her cheeks pinking in such unadulterated gratitude that Atsushi fumbles to accept it.

"You don't - It's nothing. It's okay. I'm sure he would've done the same for me." Empty reassurances, but Atsushi knows better than to say nothing at all. Not when Airi looks marginally more like the carefree woman on the beach, united with someone she loves.

"Oh! He's in area 3-5, by the way." She pulls a pen out of her purse and grabs a napkin from the dispenser at the center of the table, scribbling the information down. "Recovery area 3-5, first bed to the left. He would want to see you, I think - if you have the time, of course. To thank you." She bows her head then, a few strands of hair toppling forward.

"I - It's alright, Airi-san. I'll try." Overwhelmed, Atsushi takes the napkin politely, knowing that she will forget about ever meeting him as soon as midnight strikes that day.

*

The rain continues through the next two days, a perpetual drizzle over Yokohama.

Sometimes Tanizaki, who he learns is in Kunikida's calculus class, reads Sasameyuki to him, gushing how weirdly fascinating the book is after every other turned page. Sometimes Kunikida keeps him company while grading homework assignments, red ink slashing across paper, one earbud of Waterfall (loud) in. Kenji continues to down strawberry jello cups at an alarming rate whilst appending the latest in the mountaintop-fan-refrigerator saga.

Dazai's antics become more outlandish, beginning with a bizarre puppet show of Macbeth with persimmons and plastic knives; Kenji had gladly gulped down the remains of the king at Act I's conclusion. His visits are sporadic and short. Kunikida hints that their plans are ready to go any day now, but Dazai neither talks nor seems to worry about them. He still plays the part of the air-headed fourth-year psychology student with a penchant for literature and finding the buttons to press on people.

And lately, burning holes into the back of Atsushi's head.

"Is there a bug on my back?"

"No, no, Atsushi-kun. I'm simply observing that your hair is a bit darker there. Kind of closer to charcoal, it's pretty interesting."

Or: "Um...what is so interesting about my skull?"

"Ah, it so happens that your brainstem is there. The human body is just so vulnerable and yet it fights to live on, like in some instances where someone cut off a limb in the middle of the wilderness—"

Or: "Atsushi-kun, do you think altruism comes from inner integrity or from social cues?"

"I think...it honestly depends?"

It's not until late afternoon on the seventh day when Dazai says without preamble, "No one named Hitoshi is on the list for rosebud potion, by the way," that Atsushi begins to understand.

Dazai could've just asked what happened on the train, but Atsushi decides it's more of his style to dodge and deflect, wheedle the information out of people. Even if what Atsushi did is far from interesting or brave (more like a snarl of actions and reactions he can't begin to parse out), a bubble of relief rises up whenever he thinks of that night now. He's glad for Airi. He's glad to have helped someone see another day, even if that day is currently messed up in twenty different ways. He's glad Airi found him, the scrawny, fair-haired kid her boyfriend must have described.

And yet, to have memories of that night shared by another person rings a certain death knell if he's honest with himself. The world Dazai and Kunikida and the nameless rest of the supernatural hunters reside in is real, it has been real all along, and they might not live to see August be ushered in.

*

"Get well soon!"

Atsushi glances up from squinting at The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to a bouquet of bright yellow roses blocking his field of vision.

"Dazai-san," he chokes out. "Why - what are you doing?"

"Flowers for the hard-working librarian, of course," Dazai says, setting the parcel down on the tray of his hospital bed. "For you."

Moments later, flowers begin to slide off their spot, too precariously weighted to balance on the tray. Atsushi manages to stop their descent with a flung-out arm, not without a loud wince.

The minor fiasco has a pair of nurses looking over at them, giggling and whispering as they turn back to charting. Whether they are flustered at Dazai because of his face (even half-covered, it's objectively not unpleasant to look at) or at some vastly mistaken assumption about the two of them, Atsushi is on the verge of bursting out laughing at the incredulousness of it.

"Hang on, I brought a vase." Unfazed, Dazai proffers a bundle of newspapers from his bag, unwrapping it to reveal a simple glass container. "All yours."

Atsushi forces himself to maintain eye contact. "You - you really didn't need to. Really."

"But I wanted to."

"I appreciate it, then." Still reeling, Atsushi unties the bouquet and slips the roses down into the vase, realizing a few sprigs of lavender and sage are also in the mix. He no longer thinks Dazai's intentions as malicious, per se, but they remain inscrutable all the way back to the star-shaped bento an eternity ago. "Really - thank you."

"Really?"

Atsushi rolls his eyes, and feels his lips split into an unbidden smile. "Yes."

He's about to gingerly twist to his side and scoot the daffodils over on the bedside table, but Dazai swats his hands away and does it for him.

"Sunflowers, huh?" Dazai nods at the calendar. He dusts a few browning petals off.

"Yes." Atsushi withdraws his arms and settles back into bed.

"Cheery."

"Though maybe not as much as yellow roses."

Dazai makes a noise of amusement behind his mask, turning back to face Atsushi. "I'll take it as a good sign, then." Then he darts a glance around the room, the nurses wheeling out a creaking piece of machinery before leaving the room unstaffed. He takes out another container of the potion and pours the contents into Atsushi's empty soup bowl. "Yosano brewed this batch herself, added in a few more special enchantments. You'll meet her soon, probably."

Atsushi nods and lifts the liquid to his mouth, wondering, not for the first time, just how many are involved in this.

"You have another present, by the way," Dazai says. He reaches toward the bench at Atsushi's feet, brandishing a basket of cellophane-wrapped confections. "A certain Fumiko came by early this morning, only to be disappointed that the librarian was still sleeping."

"Hiyama-san?" Atsushi marvels, turning the package in his hands. He had seen her snacking on this particular brand of biscuits several times.

"Yes, unless you know more than one Fumiko-chan who would notice if you weren't at work." Dazai must spot the faint flush on his face; he grins, saying, "She's cute, you know. I have a talent at wooing the most beautiful people on campus, if you ever need my help~"

"You were here earlier this morning?" Atsushi cuts in, willing his cheeks to cool down.

"Mmm-hm. I needed to run a few errands, set up some spells. Thought I'd come pester you if you were awake, but I saw your lovely admirer instead."

"She's not—" Atsushi splutters, and Dazai wags an eyebrow. "I just think she's - pretty. And smart. That's all."

"They just grow up so fast," Dazai mock-sighs, setting Fumiko's basket back on the bench. He seems to freeze for a second, outstretched fingers stilling, then stretches and stands, eyes alight with mirth as he adds, "What about me?"

"What?"

"Do you think I'm pretty and smart?"

Atsushi groans, though he can feel the heat starting to rise up his nape. "I think you know the answer already."

"Oh? But I don't have all the answers to life, Atsushi-kun, because that would be far too arrogant of me."

"That doesn't mean you don't know anything."

"I know that the sky is blue. I know that the grass is green. I know when someone's keeping a secret from me—"

"Fine. You - you are," Atsushi says, and is about to instantly regret it. Except Dazai places a stack of newspapers beside the calendar and tucks the pitcher into his bag without a word. His eyes are startlingly soft. It's far from the smug glow of triumph Atsushi had been expecting.

"Get some rest if you can. A crossword's on page five, by the way, just in case."

Alarmed, Atsushi tries to sit up, only to be steadied by a gentle hand. "Did something happen? Is it - is it happening soon?"

Dazai hums a vague tune in response, retreating back into his inscrutable self. Gaunt face blank, he swings his backpack over his shoulder and turns on his heel. "Stay safe, Atsushi-kun. I'll see you later."

Chapter Text

The morning rain slows by the time they emerge from the subway station (eleven hours, thirty minutes, fifty-one seconds), leaving behind a thin layer of fog shrouding the rooftops. Dazai walks in step with Atsushi up the ramp, dodging stubborn dandelions growing in the chips where light meets soil. They reach the top where Kenji waits with another patient, a burly middle-aged man who looks like he could rip Atsushi in half with his tattooed fingers.

Maybe he'd been bitten there, or on his arms, the gold stain lost in the swirl of ink.

They head down the streets at a comfortable pace, enough for Atsushi to catch up without huffing and puffing on his crutches. Under the overcast sky, Dazai carries a polka-dotted parasol, cheerily twirling it around as he walks. Kenji fills the silence oohing and aahing at the storefronts.

Atsushi feels uneasy, vaguely sick, at passing through the familiar streets. It's supposed to be a homecoming, right down to the pigeons swarming the bakery patio, the old woman shelling prawns at her tiny doorstep. The ivy has made it to the top of the DVD rental store, the last of its glass windows broken in. It's surreal, having Dazai and Kenji in the neighborhood he had spent years alone in.

"Look at that teapot!" Kenji tugs at the patient with the ease of picking up a soda can, stepping close to press his nose against the storefront. A worker inside shouts eagerly, but Dazai manages to pull them along before Kenji could wander in.

Another deserted crosswalk greets them around the corner. The cars are parked bumper to bumper under the shade, wet with condensation. "Looks like we're here." Dazai points at the intersection plate. 2-chome; almost home. "Guess it's time to part ways."

Kenji gives a salute. He links arms with the patient and skips-pulls him down the road ahead, maneuvering them around the puddles. For a second, Atsushi meets Dazai's gaze, inscrutable as usual, then nods to the street on the left.

Upon reaching the apartment's stairs, Atsushi has no choice but to be carried up by Dazai (the whole sweeping off the feet thing was not necessary, but Dazai had caught him completely off guard), and he fumbles with his apartment key before the door creaks open, breathing in a fragrant buttery scent. Yuuto should be up by now.

Dazai eases him onto the front mat, and Atsushi finds his balance on the crutches. He kicks off his shoe and hobbles into the dim apartment, frowning back when Dazai doesn't follow. He's still standing in the doorway, parasol folded, mouth twisting into a grin. "You have to let me in."

"...What?"

"It's your home, but not mine. Here." Dazai extends a hand, letting his golden mark peek out behind his sleeve.

Atsushi circles his fingers around Dazai's wrist and—tugs him in, the lent backpack clattering to the floor with the force. The TV is off in the living room, dust motes falling to catch on the screen. The wall clock ticks; the numbers are blurry. A trail of candy wrappers march up the side of the sofa. He catches a whiff of cherry and sugar, gum his roommates would eat after a cigarette or before hitting up the nightlife.

A thump, and Yuuto emerges from the kitchen.

"Nakajima! I was just - urk—!" His roommate freezes and descends into a violent coughing fit, no doubt choking on his breakfast. "G-good morning, D-D—"

"Morning to you, too," Dazai greets as Yuuto attempts to sweep up the crumbs off the sides of his mouth.

"Yuuto - are you and Itsuki alright?" Atsushi asks, glancing down the hallway. His other roommate's door is closed.

"We're fine," Yuuto says, eyes quivering from trying not to look at Atsushi's companion. "Itsuki has a sister with a sprained neck, but he didn't seem too worried about it when he left. I...didn't even realize the earthquake was happening until I checked my phone that morning." Dusting his palms above the sink, he shoots Atsushi a half-jealous, half-concerned look. "What's happening? I got a call yesterday - they said you were in critical condition. There was some debris crushing your leg, or something—"

"Hospital mistake," Atsushi says, although it's more like manipulated medical records showing he's in the ICU while the ICU thinks he's in cardiology and cardiology thinks he's in surgery and the operating room thinks he'd been discharged before June had even ended. "I just got out this morning. He's...Dazai-san's lending me a place to stay. To be closer to therapy and work while I'm recovering."

Yuuto stares at him, jaw slackening.

"Uh, I just need to get a few things out of my room," Atsushi continues, accepting the handle of the backpack Dazai nudges his hand with. He hopes Dazai's presence had stunned Yuuto enough to prevent any unnecessary questions he couldn't adequately lie around. "And then I'll be out again."

"Oh...o-okay..." Recognition dawns on Yuuto's face, as if his not-so-secret crush is currently at his home, catching him eating breakfast in his board shorts and holey t-shirt. He stammers out a few well wishes and, with nowhere to flee, ducks his head into the refrigerator, mumbling about heating up a batch of vegetables.

Atsushi moves into the hallway, stepping over the line of ants crawling out from the first door. Itsuki had a terrible fondness for sour gummy worms when he's nervous.

He opens his bedroom door, steps in, and Dazai promptly smacks his head on Atsushi's bookshelf.

"Ouch." Dazai rubs at the spot on his forehead.

"Daz - Are you okay?" Belatedly, Atsushi wonders if vampires could even bruise.

"Fine, fine. Don't mind me."

Dazai traipses over to the window, humming to himself. Yuuto has a view of the city, Itsuki faces the bay, and Atsushi has a front-row seat of the neighboring apartment's AC equipment and a family of four's daily drama behind their kitchen window. "Doesn't it get claustrophobic in here?"

"Not really?"

"Hmm."

Atsushi takes a step forward just as Dazai turns around, and at once they're up in each other's personal space. His room does seem tinier, with Dazai's hands moving up to steady Atsushi's shoulders, the hollows of his throat pale just visible above his collar.

Stammering out an apology, Atsushi steps out of his reach and hones in on—packing. His shoulders radiates with warmth where Dazai's palms had rested. His best winter clothes, socks, shoes, packing. Right.

Atsushi rifles through his drawers and squeezes every sweater and long-sleeved shirt he owns into his backpack. Nine months to be born, three months to die. One hundred days. Except he's going to sleep for a while and come back, a few teeth sharper, a few organs rearranged, afraid of the sun. It would be October by the time he wakes up again.

He squeezes in his pair of jeans after the shirts, topping the pack off with woolen socks. Dazai inspects his collection of paperbacks, chattering about a sci-fi author he recognizes. Atsushi places his stained restaurant uniform into his laundry hamper and takes one look back at his sparse room: his books, his lamp, the plaid pattern of his blanket. He finds that leaving doesn't bring him any relief, even if he would be temporarily freed from noisy sex and early morning arguments over the bathroom; he is going down a different, treacherous path.

"Ready?" Dazai turns from inspecting the shelf; Atsushi hopes the books hide the massive wad of duct tape on one of the back trusses. If he ever makes it back, he decides he wants a proper bookshelf. One made of maple, or plywood; a promise to return to. He'll save up for it, he'll pick up anyone's shift at the restaurant if they ask, he'll work hard—

"Yes."

*

Feral vampires, Kyouka had explained, are half-baked, a result of forcibly waking a Sleeper up too soon. They are marked with brutal strength, unquenchable thirst, and could be theoretically made in as little as a week. The stuff of expendable shock troops for a coven at war.

Which is why the rosebud-lemon swill had become a near-daily thing.

"If you can't sleep then you can't be woken up," Kyouka says from the front. "It was for people who couldn't turn safely, so they could buy some time to find a place. Yosano-sensei has modified it further."

Kenji had requisitioned them a local caterer's van, assuring Tanizaki that he would return it later. Atsushi sits on the tarp shoulder to shoulder with other bleary-eyed people, Tanizaki at the steering wheel, Kyouka tapping on her phone at the passenger side, tiny flower charm swinging by her wrist. Everyone nods at the heavenly fragrance of cake and chocolate when they had climbed in except for Tanizaki, who had sniffed and lightly declared that he couldn't smell a thing.

A few children, no older than primary school age, are among them, silently looking out the window. They're passing through the more affluent side of the city, the paint newer, the buildings taller, the signs with romaji for the touristy stops. Whether their parents or they themselves had been bitten—Atsushi aches in sympathy, regardless.

"We're almost there," Kyouka calls back.

A circlet of lavender rests on the top of her head, stems braided thick. The combination of the lavender and the cake soothes him and, by the looks of it, several other passengers too. "Please don't fall asleep yet."

She hands a jug and a stack of cups to the passenger immediately behind her, meeting Atsushi's eyes in the process and smiling in recognition. Her fangs are pointier than Dazai's. Natural born, Dazai had said. Old enough to remember the first man in space, the first man on the moon. She looks like any other student on a university campus, her face smooth as a newborn's.

"Drink it after lunchtime," Kyouka says, then turns back to her phone alight with new texts. "Although it might not be as powerful by now - it's to be expected at this point. So don't worry."

*

Tanizaki parks beside the curb of a shrine in an unfamiliar ward of Yokohama that smells of salt and diesel, the shade of camphor trees leafing out dark and full up to the gate. Atsushi gingerly aims his crutches one step up at a time, Kyouka trailing not too far behind, a pair of viciously curved knives clinking together at her hip, flowers stuffed in several corked bottles clipped to her other side.

She pauses before the gabled entrance, shoulders loosening.

"Go on ahead, Atsushi. Please make sure to eat and drink well." She flicks a glance at her phone, and a weary smile unfolds across her face. "Dazai says good luck."

Atsushi clears his throat, warm against his will. "Could you tell him thanks?"

"I will."

"And - good luck to you too, Kyouka-san." Dazai had mentioned she would be playing guard later, one or two of the hunters outside each shrine and temple.

"Thank you."

Two of the healthier patients carry a frail woman in her wheelchair up the steps. Atsushi glances at Kyouka in her black raincoat, the determined stiffness of her spine, before he hurries after them.

Tanizaki stands before stone lions at the top, pointing their group down the leaf-strewn path at the fork. He holds his cellphone away from his ear: the caller shouts rapid-fire instructions and time tables on the other side.

"Try to stay outside the buildings," he manages to say in between sentences. "I'll meet you outside - gotta speak - yes, 7:15 works for us - to the caretakers inside first—"

The path winds around moldering columns, raindrops dripping from the wooden slats of the verandas and latching onto his nose. The aroma of scallions, broth, and frying oil wafts out an open door. The air seems to buzz with things unseen—his back prickles every time he goes within an arm's length of a statue, a fountain, a copper bowl of smoldering incense sticks.

"Think we'll get some of that for lunch?" A man, sweaty shirt sticking to his chest, throws himself down on a patch of grass. "For some kind of last meal deal?"

"With luck," someone else replies. The others settle in a lopsided clump before the pond.

"We could use some luck. It feels like we've been missing that, you know, with the fact that we're here and all."

"We have plenty of it, you just have think about it," comes the dry reply somewhere on Atsushi's right. "Not that you know anything about thinking."

"Hey, now—"

The somber mood lifts after that.

Atsushi awkwardly stands at the edge of the path until a pair waves him over, gesturing him to sit down. He doesn't have to wonder at their golden points: a slash of gold runs up the girl's cheek, the boy sports a glistening pair of pinpricks on his hairline. He wonders how they got here, what kind of accident they were in, what they remember. How they all ended up in this clump of trees on an otherwise unremarkable summer afternoon.

The boy makes eye contact with Atsushi and smiles shyly before looking away, intent on observing the ducks in the pond.

"Are you a student?" the girl asks, leaning back against her duffle bag.

"No," Atsushi says. "Are you?"

"I just started this March," she replies, and her companion nods beside her. "I'm studying - studied biology. My brother here was in technical writing. It's really boring, just like him."

The brother shoves her arm, clucking quietly. His sister scoffs. "You were born two minutes after me, shithead, show some respect."

Atsushi blinks at them. "...Is it fun?"

"I hoped so, but I didn't really get a chance to know," is her glib reply. Her voice is hard, brittle; she looks as worn down as Atsushi feels. "Maybe one day we can go back to find out. Pfft. Although I'm still convinced this is all a shitty sociological prank that'll make headlines about how the teens are so prone to believe the illogical, or something. Would be nice to go back to a kind of normal life, huh?"

Atsushi hums his agreement. He thinks about Dazai, his early morning commute and long-sleeved clothes. Normal, to the outside observer. "You probably can go back," he says quietly. "You...can probably go back as many times as you want to."

"I - That's one way of looking at it," she says, a light reaching her tired eyes. "I wouldn't have to choose a concentration."

Atsushi nods, a reassurance to himself as much as her. "You can study them all if you want to."

"Yeah. With no rush."

"You might have to switch schools every once in a while," her brother says.

She snorts. "Maybe after reaching thirty in mortal age. I can't have them getting too suspicious."

"Actually, I was referring to people seeing your ugly mug for too long."

Tanizaki emerges from inside the closest building, frowning at nothing in particular, and heads for the pond. He digs bundles of herbs and flowers from his backpack, a vial of opaque liquid and a brush. He begins tracing the shore with it, muttering under his breath.

A priestess offers them tea. Atsushi accepts, if only to keep his hands busy. To their delight, another priest comes out with a large pot of udon, ladling generous portions into porcelain bowls, enough for seconds. The rosebud potion gets passed around. Stepping back, it could be an odd picnic of fifteen or so people of wildly different ages and sizes and backgrounds. A bird-watching club outing; a team of employees celebrating a newly-won contract.

As the sun peeks out from the clouds, Atsushi wants to crawl out of his skin. They are sitting in the shade, but the heat is smothering, the dappled light lingering in a black-red haze if he closes his eyes. He imagines an entire tub coming to a boil if he sat in a bath of cold water; it would siphon the heady syrup seeping from his bones, the warm glut of sleep tugging him down.

"How is it?" Tanizaki wipes a bead of sweat from his forehead and sits down beside him.

"Really good," Atsushi says, lifting a fish cake to his mouth. The last meal deal. At least it isn't chazuke; he had no stomach for it. "Shouldn't you eat, too?"

"I will." Tanizaki gives a mild shrug, stiffly stretching out on the grass. "I might just close my eyes for a bit, though, before I go..."

The next time Atsushi looks up from his bowl of udon, Tanizaki is passed out, legs askew on the grass.

*

Noon fades into late afternoon, the haze of pollen spiraling off, the damp grass dried to stiff blades. Tanizaki smears leafy pulps over his paint markings, a mash of plants that hint at lemongrass and basil and the ever-present mint. He weaves around to the shrine entrance where Kyouka has not uttered a sound.

The cloudy skies give no indication of the coven-casted time loop. The magic up there leaves no telltale sparkle or blip in the scenery.

Would it rain amber spheres like that first morning, the lost hours Atsushi had spent in the wreckage of the train carriage? The one that had oscillated through a fraction of an hour. Sloppy trimming, amateur defenses. An echo of Kunikida's voice: even this lazy bastard could break it with a bit of soil and enchanted jade.

It's a sharp contrast to the one swallowing the city now, one meant for bigger, bolder plans. This one has multiple spokes, quality blood shunted to its dedicated spellcasters at the perimeter. A seamless loop of a replaying day, the people inside, walking to lunch, to work, go about their day over and over unaware. Easy pickings, a recreation of the Biei Farm of 1365 (you mean 1465, do you even bother learning fundamental information?!) because no vampire general would let their army fight on an empty stomach.

A pebble no bigger than his knuckle rests in a bed of clover beside Atsushi. It flickers on and off, indecisive—they are not quite humans, not quite vampires.

Atsushi finds a small knife in the final batch of newspapers from Dazai, its handle encased in a clear plastic wrap. A flip phone and its charging cord are stuffed in the pages underneath. He opens the contacts to see Kurosaki, Grumpy, and Happy entered in, followed by backups numbered from zero to ten.

He closes the phone. They were risking their lives out there, freely traveling in and out of a magical barrier to protect them when Atsushi and the rest of these people could have abandoned them to the coven's eager hands. They would have become mindless Ferals to be used, expended against their civil war or in skirmishes against Tokyo's many covens. Airi had thanked him, but still looked like she could say a thousand other things. He supposes there is no way to properly thank someone for a life; he can only take it, and keep going.

Sunset comes and goes. The caretakers retreat elsewhere in the shrine.

The twins are on their umpteenth game of tic tac toe in the dusty soil. The man from the morning trip fidgets with his shoelaces. The children throw bread crumbs at the ducks, and the older group closest to the pond talks up a raucous bar tale, something violent or dirty enough for the giggly shushing and hissing to start.

A distant howl rings out somewhere farther inland, away from the docks. Atsushi clamps down a shake of fear. Behind him, the others have quieted, seats abandoned, squinting into the darkness. If only his eyes weren't poisoned—he would hear, smell, and see. The hospital posters had been vibrant in the gloom, that first day before the venom set in..

Another howl, joined by a chorus of others. It is almost seven o'clock. Whoever Yosano is, she would be winning the betting money tonight.

Tanizaki jogs over to the edge of the pond. "It'll be a soft landing below," he says, rubbing the back of his neck. "You have to - just. Just try to jump, and it'll be okay, here—"

A murmur of assent passes around; someone mutters what other choice do we have? while the rest of them stay silent. Tanizaki hands them each a few glossy leaves. He pops his own share of leaves into his mouth. Chew and swallow to breathe underwater. Just in case. Roll up your pants. Put your socks and shoes into your bags.

Tanizaki flings his knapsack into the pond, the supplies for their journey swallowed by the dark water without so much as a bubble. Atsushi ties a plastic bag around his leg cast, picks up his backpack and crutches, and limps to the back of the group, feeling the surreal press of the week all over again. The twins are before him; they turn to smile weakly at him.

"O-okay, I'll start. Whenever I pour—" Tanizaki lifts a tin canister, "Two of you jump into the circle. No need to aim. It shouldn't be a long fall, but if we're backlogged and you can actually feel the water, then chew."

A backlog. Rescuing the other two-thirds of them, the mass of unconscious, wounded patients that couldn't be checked out of medical care without raising suspicion. Three to two. Three-hundred people saved for every two marked with the sapphire spell like the one Dazai had casted on Atsushi's back. A small percentage of bystanders that had saved many in the end.

It only takes a fall, and he would leave Yokohama behind, the only home he had ever known. We're going to another home, Kunikida had said, and that was more than enough for Atsushi.

Tanizaki stoops to swirl the pond with the lump of crystal in his hand, slowly churning the shin-deep water into a slow current of grass and fallen leaves. Someone holds a lit match for him at the helm. Minutes pass. They shift from foot to foot in their places, checking watches and cellphones in the crawling pace of time. The sounds of the city are distant, horns muffled by leafy canopy of the trees, the tallest skyscrapers a world away. Water laps at his ankles, a steady rhythm pulsing from the shallow end of the pond.

Then the swirling seems to take over by itself. Tanizaki stops and pockets the crystal. The temperature of the air plummets, waving in a pocket of cold. It's a sore relief for his burning skin and eyes.

Waxy petals from a calla lily—one ring of light. Powder, smelling of peaches, brings a second ring of light. The crescent moon, a gash of brightness above, peeks out, fish white. A stubby candle. More lilies, the stalks and leaves this time, petals moving in time with the rings. It's another silent film. One with a chance for a better, happier ending.

Tanizaki unscrews the tin canister and pours the first drops into the center.

"Jump!"

At the head of the line, the first two vanish beneath the glowing waters.

No gurgles, no splashes; they have made it through.

Another lit and extinguished candle revives the current. The woman from before is lifted from her wheelchair and eased into the passage. A shadow bending its knees, ready to leap in after—

A shout: Kyouka's voice.

Cloth whipping like a flag in the wind. A ruffle of a smooth, slippery material—silk. Satin.

A shout: Tanizaki's voice.

Atsushi angles his crutches to turn, maneuvering the short distance to the edge of the shrine. Down the hillside, Kyouka careens to the end of the pebbled path, winking blades in hand, an uncapped bottle expelling pea green smoke from the bottles lining her waist. She looks like she's holding her ground, the spells on the steps lighting up, spindly lines and red crescent moons snaring the enemy in thick vines, enough for her to turn to another, and another.

"Something's wrong!" she shouts. "They couldn't have gotten here this fast without something—"

Tanizaki appears as a blur to Atsushi's eyes, the wobbling rings of light still spinning just below the surface of the water. His form shakes. Kyouka is yelling something, dodging and parrying against her swarm of attackers.

"I've got to—!" Tanizaki pours another drip from the tin can. Two more make it through. "I've got to keep opening it," his voice shakes, then hardens in resolve, "or else no one's leaving here. Who can—"

"I've got it!" Atsushi flings himself forward, as do some others' silhouettes. He digs his crutches into the dirt, his injured waist burning in protest, and catches the cool object someone—a twin, the sister—flings at him.

A single rose, thorns removed, winds around a revolver.

"Bullets," the twin pants, extending her hand. "He said that he didn't know how far along we were - but the silver shouldn't kill us, prepare yourself—"

True to her word, the silver bullets scorch his skin when he cups them in his hands, smelling like the vase of daffodils, the offered water back at the hospital. It's poison for vampires, milder poison for those on the verge of becoming one.

Atsushi's on the verge of panic—he'd never touched, let alone loaded a gun, but the rose, the yellow rose, shifts at his touch and unfurls a little leaf and readily accepts a bullet. He drops the rest to the ground, palms stinging, blood singing in his ears.

Atsushi aims. He wants Kyouka to live; he wants to live. He angles for a vampire at the fringe of the group and squeezes the trigger. A silent silver line whizzes out, flying over the attackers' heads and disappearing into the darkness.

The others have nicked a few trees, one bouncing off the pavement next to a booted foot. Close. Not close enough. Keep going. Chest heaving, Atsushi collapses onto his rear, finding and feeding another bullet to the rose. He breathes. Lowers the muzzle. Again, he aims.

This time, the shot hits someone. A cloud of mist, dark against the sodium lanterns below, rises from the folds of a cloak. The vampire collapses. One less for Kyouka to have to deal with.

The ground steadies his elbow. He must've bit his tongue: the bitter taste of the leaves pressed in one cheek fizzles out, coating his teeth. The others find their aim, or the imbued magic has found it for them. The crowd thins. Kyouka has one in a headlock. A few more crescents and lines etched on the pavement burst into sparks and trap the vampires before they could climb the steps, silver bullets finding their way into the immobilized targets.

"Jump!" Tanizaki's voice rings out again, more strained than the last time.

The girl flinches, makes a move to stay, but her brother tugs her by the arm. Together, they sprint back to the pond, just in time for the next pouring.

Below, Kyouka waves her free hand, a knife catching the light. Her attackers lay strewn about the path, unmoving—Atsushi doesn't know if they're dead or unconscious, but Kyouka gives them a bloody thumbs-up, motioning them to go. Sheets of white unfurl from her pockets as he watches, folding and unfolding into shapes. Birds. They glide off into the night, lifted by an invisible wind.

A signal. Like those blackbirds—

Atsushi follows the others rushing back to the pond, cloaked in the cold air once more.

Tanizaki offers them each another handful of leaves and waves another pair through, hair sticking to his forehead in lank strings. A wide-eyed patient holds open a canvas bag for them to drop the revolvers in. Atsushi lets go of the weapon, and the rose closes up the moment it leaves his hands.

"I'm sorry," Tanizaki says when it's just him and Atsushi left. "About your hands..."

Atsushi can only smile and shake his head, taking a breath and leaping in after the last pour. The silence is muffled, and the lights go out. The water parts at his feet; the column of darkness ushers him in.

Above, a flock of pale wings rise to the night sky, doves made resplendent by the slip of the moon.

Chapter Text

"You know, they could've called it the Sacred River of Piss and I would've believed it."

Atsushi steps out of the boat into blue skies, knees creaking, a summery breeze sweeping over his skin. There isn't a single cloud above. Maybe there will be no rain, today. Today—Saturday, July 9th, if he'd been counting correctly. An enchanting sight for sore eyes.

"Would you?" Tanizaki whispers to him, nodding toward the speaker.

"I don't think I'm that gullible," Atsushi replies. It's amazing what a near-death experience can do in the way of making friends.

"You're not," is the light-hearted reassurance.

The boat sinks under the lake as the last passenger places both feet ashore, vinyl awning swallowed by the glassy water. Squinting, he spots other groups further down the shore, lines of soon-to-be Sleepers trickling into the shaded forest, chatter fading with the distance.

The trees are quiet. The grass is damp underfoot. They walk along the shore, passing carpets of moss and dew, bunches of wildflowers, yuzu trees bowing with over-ripened fruit.

*

They had waited for the sun to rise in the Gilded Passage, an endless stretch of golden sea occasionally broken up by a person, eyes screwed shut and clutching a lily with the stem dipped in liquid the color of egg yolk. Or someone stirring a cauldron of melting fruit and honey, lips moving above a wrinkled book.

The sun had risen, the air squeezed with invisible energy.

The people—witches and magicians, Atsushi has a faint idea of which is which—had held the passage open, letting them clamber shoulder to shoulder in the boats to the end of the horizon. They'd slept in the boats, luggage and folded jackets and hats used as pillows, one jug of the rosebud potion passed around before they could close their eyes. Strips of bandages were handed out to those who had handled the silver bullets, along with a gritty ointment that soothed his blisters.

Before Atsushi had drifted off, Tanizaki had been talking with another hunter in the fog. The conversation was carried out in hushed, awed tones about Dazai's success despite the setbacks. Speculation about which inept soldier couldn't keep their mouth shut, why the enemy had been alerted a hair too early to be explained away. Plans intricate enough to carve out a safe road for hundreds to escape under the coven's nose.

He'd felt a quiet rush of pride well up inside him. Even if Dazai didn't need it, and likely not from someone like Atsushi.

Sometimes, there were splashes of oars behind them, snatches of conversations up front. The vapors rose up thick and heady, suffocating the whole place. But the passage had radiated a certain calmness, the flat plain of water dappled in unearthly sunshine, that made up for it. Now, in the mountains overlooking the lake, the sun seems dimmer, the voices clearer.

"How's your leg?" Tanizaki falls into step behind Atsushi, his bright shock of hair muted in the shade. "I could easily get one of them to carry you. Or piggyback you, if you want."

Atsushi shakes his head, trying to stand up straighter. "I'm doing okay, Tanizaki-san. Am I slowing us down?"

"No, no." Tanizaki glances down at his watch. "We're making good time. They're saying the passage will be operating until late tonight."

Atsushi nods, eyes trained on the steps immediately in front of him. At least his irises no longer burned in rings pulsing through his skull, even if the world alternates between being a touch too blurry and then too wildly vivid, every fern and wildflower on the ground hot brands of color.

One of the children starts to wail at the front. Tanizaki murmurs a quick apology before rushing up, plucking a dandelion puff from the ground. His mother tells him to make a wish, and he sniffles before sending all seeds flying in a one huff of air.

It's pure silence after that.

The forest opens up to a worn path. The ground stays thankfully level as Tanizaki waves them onto the trail, trees becoming sparser. At a small rest area they come across a water tap, where Atsushi splashes his burning face and refills his bottle, wetting his dry lips. Some people dump the entire contents of their bottles onto their head, soaking their fronts through before filling them up again.

They hear the car before they see it.

Tanizaki raises a hand to stop their group. They retreat into the foliage, waiting. Atsushi flattens himself behind the nearest tree trunk. A car—a minivan, gunmetal, mud splattered on the sides—roars by, then stops. The engine cuts off; the windows squeal as they roll down.

A single dove, light feathered in the daylight, dashes above their heads.

Tanizaki slips out a handful of dried flowers and leaves from his back pocket, murmuring a few words into his cupped hands and flinging them into the air. Another dove, identical to the first one, flies to the road.

Two slams of a car door, and Tanizaki waves at people stepping out—a man in a baggy windbreaker, a woman in overalls, checkered sleeves rolled to her elbows. They both smell of smoke.

"Oh, it's Tanizaki-kun! You made it," the woman says. She picks her way around the shrubbery and into the shade, mouth stretched in a yawn. The man stays put near the car.

"I did." Tanizaki sighs, sounding three times his age. "How are you, Yosano-sensei?"

"I'm here, aren't I?" She gives him a little lopsided smile, teeth glinting. "And I'm a few thousand yen richer."

"They - uh, the werewolves didn't cause you any trouble, did they?"

"Not at all. They enjoy nature and leave everyone else alone. It's a peaceful existence, don't you agree?"

"O-of course."

Yosano looks around Tanizaki to give their group a cursory once-over. "Well, we all look like shit," she declares, sweeping dark strands of hair behind her ears. "Is there anyone we - yes Ranpo, we - can help?"

The crowd parts—the middle-aged woman who had gone from a wheelchair last night at the shrine to being carried this morning is ushered to a side door, Yosano checking her cast, brandishing a packet of pills while mumbling about the piss-poor state of emergency healthcare under her breath. Atsushi is careful to stand up straighter on his crutches and make himself half-hidden in the back, unwilling to hog up a seat while the children follow Ranpo's instructions into the back of the car, clutching their parents' hands.

Through the crowd, Tanizaki meets his eyes and immediately frowns in protest, but stays quiet at Atsushi's adamant shake of his head.

"There's another ride about thirty minutes behind us," Yosano says, waving a parting hand. Atsushi could have sworn her eyes lingered an extra second on him and his broken leg. "We're using the same signal until sundown. See you all in a bit."

Ranpo revs up the car even as Yosano is getting to a seat in the back, their hollering audible through the windows.

*

Miyagase Lake, Atsushi had read, is at times turbulent enough for the fish to swim blind, the waters closest to the dam so cloudy that the ducks and swans can't see their own feet.

Of course, he doubts the truthfulness of a tour guide ad, taped to the storefronts he passes on his walk home beside ones for hair growth creams and energy drinks—but the place really does smell nice. Rich soil, the scent after rain. On the riverbank below, wild mint grows.

Atsushi rests his crutches on the crumbling rail, half-listening to Tanizaki converse with a waiter. Or someone who doubles as a waiter, he's learned to guess. They've stopped at the end of a road, on higher ground, outside a tiny cafe with painted red shutters and tidy window-boxes in front. A rusted metal trough is pushed up against the wall, bursting with fragrant leaves.

"Wait a moment, I'll get them," the waiter says. He disappears into the cafe, his circular glasses flashing in the sun.

"Gather around please, everyone," Tanizaki calls. "Try to get in a single file, if you can."

The man returns with a glass pitcher and a large sun hat over his head. The liquid froths at the top, bubbles simmering above an reddish dark matter as he walks over to their group.

"This is Sakaguchi Ango," Tanizaki introduces the man, who nods briskly before setting the tray down on the closest table. "Sometimes the venom leaves a connection between you and the original vampire - we need to make a list so he can track them down later. Take care of it on both ends, yeah?"

Sakaguchi dips his fingertips in the pitcher and hones in on the nearest person, who barely has time to look up before a few droplets are flicked on his forehead.

"Whoa - hey, what's the deal, man—"

"He's clear," Sakaguchi says calmly. The crowd shifts uneasily as he submerges a hand in the pitcher again. "Relax, please. It doesn't even stain."

Another flick, and Sakaguchi comes closer to where Atsushi's propped against the railing. It's then Atsushi notices the liquid turning a bright green as Sakaguchi touches it, fading to a lighter hue as it touches skin. A couple people barely lose the neon intensity. A few others cause the liquid to turn pink. Sakaguchi gestures for Tanizaki to lead them to the side before moving on to the next, Tanizaki waving his hands and talking quickly to assure them everything's alright.

When it's Atsushi's turn, Sakaguchi blinks once at him, arching a brow. "They got you in the eyes, huh." A cool splash of the liquid lands on his cheek.

Atsushi nods, throat strained at the man's presence. Sakaguchi is definitely one of them —he doesn't need to see someone's fanged grin to tell anymore.

"Clear."

Atsushi lifts a hand to his wet cheek. The liquid is the color of pale jade on his fingertips.

At the end of the semicircle, Sakaguchi splashes Tanizaki, muttering about needing a control. The liquid stays red, this time.

"All good?" Tanizaki asks, wiping the droplets off his forearm with a thumb.

"They should be," Sakaguchi replies. He motions to the people on the side, attempting an absent smile to their frozen stances. "Your Sleep is due sooner than the rest, that's all. Make sure they're dropped off at the right house," he says to Tanizaki. "And," He turns to the patients with the pinked droplets, "your connection to the vampire is still intact. You'd better come in for a bit so I can cut the threads, then catch the next ride down."

The rest of them leave the parking lot, deserted except for a lone motorcycle beside the entrance that Atsushi has trouble picturing Sakaguchi using, and head down the sidewalk. Noon approaches, but the surrounding air stays cool.

Ten minutes in, another car rumbles past, and another pair of doves are exchanged before Tanizaki guides Atsushi by the crook of his arm to a seat without preamble. Atsushi doesn't realize how exhausted he is until he sinks down into the cushion, leaning back into the worn leather.

"We're almost there," Tanizaki assures him, patting him on the shoulder, and steps back to help the others in.

*

The camp turns out to be a sprawling mass of people, every yard a fluster of activity down a curving suburban street. One moment they're passing through a foggy gravel road; the next, the sprigs of tiny white flowers on the rearview mirror shudder, glow, and fizzle out, the layers beyond the road peeling back to reveal the neighborhood.

Cars in varying states of disrepair overflow the driveways, crammed bumper to bumper on the curbs. On the houses with porches people with clipboards and walkie-talkies direct the tide, while people on roofs and balconies peer out with binoculars and telescopes. Bundles of incense peek out from between parted curtains.

Tanizaki had assured him Kyouka is all right, just that she couldn't climb in after them, as a separate passage for the undead runs parallel to the Gilded Passage. The full-fledged vampires are most likely huddled safe in a dark room now, somewhere in the maze of barbecues and cauldrons and stretchers fashioned from wooden planks.

Atsushi scans the crowd of people, breathing in the new tangle of smells—laundry, grilled fish, sliced fruit—and it's only when he realizes he's subconsciously searching for a head of brown hair that he stops.

Their driver pulls up to a square beige house. Ropes of ivy riot down the sides, covering the seams in the siding. Tanizaki barely gets to thank her and slide the car door open before people notice them and whoop, those free-handed rushing over to help.

"Jun!"

"Naomi!"

A swish of a raincoat; a young woman rushes out from a neighboring driveway to gather Tanizaki in a bone-crushing hug.

"How are you?"

"Still alive," Naomi says, stepping back. Tanizaki did mention he had a sister in the hunters, some time between reading chapters of Atsushi's novel and explaining the basics of the supernatural world at the hospital. It feels like a decade ago. "I should be asking you that."

"I'm fine." Tanizaki returns her bright smile, shoulders loosened. "I just can't believe it worked, and that we're actually here."

"I know. It wasn't easy, moving this many people out of the city."

Tanizaki nods, and Naomi sweeps over to greet the driver, Haruno, as they climb out of the car. Someone brandishes a basket of pastries. Another person procures a tray of mismatched mugs and glasses filled with fresh water, warm welcomes going around.

The hunk of bread is warm to the touch. Atsushi's hands itch under his bandages. He takes a bite, and the custard bursts with flavor in his mouth.

Tanizaki leads them through a gate to the back of the house, the back porch cluttered with flowering bushes and emptied pickling jars, halved milk cartons brimming with shoots. Further back, a greenhouse sits fogged with condensation.

Atsushi hangs back as the others play rock, paper, scissors for the first showers. Tanizaki steers him to a sofa, where he finishes his custard bun in peace and zones out until Tanizaki, also on the verge of collapsing, reluctantly waves goodbye to him and other hunters arrive to show them to empty rooms.

He remembers taking the first dizzying steps down the hallway, eyes heavy as lead, then opening a door and smashing his face into a pillow at long last.

*

Night.

Curtains wave in a cool wind, ghostly sashes swaying back and forth. Something lies damp on Atsushi's forehead—a tea towel, crushed mint nestled inside its folds. Long shadows fall on the floral wallpaper, grapes and leaves gleaming silver.

He's alone in what used to be a single bedroom, now squeezed with two futons, one of which is occupied, and a twin-sized bed that he now sits up on. He feels—better. Light-headed, but good. Calm. On the verge of a fall down a sheer cliff, but maybe with the security of a parachute.

His clothes from the last morning are still on. He spots his bag and shoes propped up near the door, a slice of flickering light spilling onto the floorboards.

"Isn't it past your bedtime? Better get your beauty rest or else you get twice as cranky as you usually are, it's a proven scientific fact—"

"—piss off. As if I can sleep now." A muffled retort. "I agree, probably - but they may have followed them—"

The voices are both familiar and unfamiliar. Atsushi tosses the covers off and pads over to press his ear against the door, careful not to disturb the other person sharing the room.

"—had to go through either Sakaguchi-san or Fukuzawa-sensei. There are more wards being casted even now as we speak—"

"Go get some tea, I'm sure I saw a pot on the stove. I'll check the maps upstairs."

"—fine. I'll be down there if anyone needs me."

"I'll come with."

Atsushi steps out into the hall just in time to see Kunikida's blond ponytail vanish around the corner. He heads for the source of the voices—a wooden archway leads into a study of sorts, a labyrinth of cherrywood shelves. A bubble of excitement rises up despite everything—all these leather bound, gold-embossed books kept in loving condition rather than languishing in the dust. A shelf of them probably costs more than his and his roommates' rent and belongings and then some.

He almost bumps into a rumpled Ranpo heading out, but the man simply grunts a hello and continues walking.

"Atsushi-kun! How are you feeling?"

Dazai and Oda sit next to a brick fireplace, unlit, a crimson Turkish rug swirling beneath their bare feet.

"I'm okay," Atsushi says, rubbing at his temples. The room is cool and airy as the shadowy bedroom; his fever simmers in the back of his mind rather than actively boiling his brain matter. He steps closer, noting the rounds of white china on display, an oil painting of ballroom dancers above them.

Dazai appears as an oversharpened figure, looking unfair even in a plain buttoned white shirt and slacks, an open book on his lap.

Atsushi meets his eyes. "How are you, Dazai-san?"

"Fine." Dazai points to the man on the opposing leather couch with his foot and wiggles his toes for emphasis. "You've met Odasaku-san, haven't you? Or Oda-san. He says he remembers you."

The bay rippling at dawn. The moon setting. "Yes - of course I remember. Hi." Atsushi returns Oda's warm smile, noting his gaunt face, littered with old scars. Even as he asks, he realizes the answer: "Are you also—?"

Oda nods. "Most everyone in this house is a vampire, or will become one."

"Unluckily, the few humans here include Kunikida-kun. He's stinking it up. All work and no play makes him a smelly boy."

Atsushi's pretty sure that's not how it goes, but—"How is he?" he asks, looking from Oda to Dazai. "And the others?"

"Peachy." Dazai hums. He wedges the crocheted owl in his book, snapping it shut. The Hound of the Baskervilles. "By the way, Tanizaki told me about yesterday. Or seven days ago, if you want to think of it that way."

"...Oh."

"About how you got your palms burned, how you handled the roses - which look, we match." Dazai lifts up a sleeve, showing his forearm swathed in its usual bandages.

Atsushi gives him a weak smile. "Maybe just this part." He points to his wrist, where his own bandages stop while Dazai's continue on. Then he shakes his head, remembering himself. "Sorry for interrupting. I - I'll go back to the room now - unless I need to move somewhere else?"

"Nah, you weren't interrupting," Dazai says, unfolding himself in his seat. "Just informal strategy bickering, and that ended half an hour ago. They're just waiting up for the last group to arrive, like we couldn't handle showing a few lost ducklings their beds and fetching them some water." He stands, walking over to a large bay window crowded with vases. "Of course, if you really want to leave, I'm in no way stopping you. But I could use some help gardening..."

Dazai pats an orchid, its leaves wobbling in a way that has Atsushi internally wincing.

He's handed a small watering can, pouring into whatever pots Dazai sprinkles with fertilizer. He recognizes some herbs from the garnishes on the dishes from the restaurant—basil, coriander, along with orange hibiscuses the size of his outstretched hand.

"What's her name?" Dazai asks. He looks tired, the circles under his eyes grayer than before, but there's a faintly maniacal glint to his eyes.

"What?"

"Her." Dazai points to a plant with heart-shaped leaves. "She looks like an Aurora, am I right?"

"Maybe?" Atsushi says blankly.

"Here's your food, Aurora-chan," Dazai coos. "And this is Atsushi-kun with your drink. Eat and be healthy, mon cheri."

Atsushi lets out a breath through his nose and waters the plant as asked. "Please don't flirt with the plants, Dazai-san. They may not survive it."

"It was one cactus. Just one."

"Please tell that to Watanabe-san," Atsushi counters, ignoring Dazai's pout. Although with the evidence of his boss's handmade bookmark in hand, Dazai may already be in the head librarian's good graces.

"Ask anything you want, and you shall receive. Oh, where's the other princess?" Dazai flits over to the second window, Atsushi trudging after him, the same shadowy foliage quivering in the night breeze. " Aurore and Jour, Dawn and Day, o' children of the lovely Briar Rose..."

Dazai begins humming a horrifying rendition of Once Upon a Dream, pausing only to poke at an aloe that Atsushi guesses is the unlucky recipient of Jour-chan.

"I have your cell phone, by the way," Atsushi tells him, watching the soil darken with water. "And the knife you stuck in the pile of newspapers you gave me."

Dazai turns to look at him more closely. "Did you have to use it last night? The knife, I mean."

Atsushi shakes his head. "I didn't have to use either of them. They're in my backpack - I can get them back to you now, if you want."

"No need," Dazai says pleasantly. "They're yours to keep. Last time Kunikida-kun checked, I have six different cell-phones. You never know how many you need for diversion tactics. Or for prank-calling some coven earl I've once known."

"That's...interesting, Dazai-san. But I can't really take them, without compensating you, you know."

"Consider them a gift." At Atsushi's hesitation, Dazai grins. "Or as compensation for dealing with me. You will, won't you?"

He launches into another song, and Atsushi tries to shush him, but his warbling gets obnoxiously louder and more and more off-tune until Atsushi sets the watering can on its stand and covers his ears to avoid the rest of the onslaught.

Oda watches them, a cross between curiosity and amusement in his expression. "You're the librarian Dazai's been talking about, Atsushi-kun?"

"Yes - Dazai-san, stop." He bats away the fingers, and Dazai lets out a sniff of surrender, retreating back to his chair. "Yes, unless he befriended more than one librarian?"

"I've only heard about one," Oda says, flashing an enigmatic smile.

"Shh, Odasaku," Dazai whispers, throwing himself onto the couch. He looks the slightest bit caught out, eyes narrowed at his friend. "I need to maintain my dashing mysterious stranger image, or else the trench coat gets creepy in the fall."

*

They stay there in the dim light for a while, Dazai half-heartedly picking up his book, Oda relaying polite conversation with Atsushi about his five children (all adopted, he tacks on, at Atsushi's gape), the family cat and dog (Bean and Morisuke), and their countryside home (estate, Dazai corrects, whining that it was somehow cleaner than his flat in the city) on the other side of the lake.

He had also been born human. He'd turned about a year before Dazai did, seven months before Sakaguchi Ango (You've met him too? Dazai asks Atsushi. Grandpa glasses, always looking tired as hell?)

"We defected at the same time," Oda continues. "They had a bounty on each of us, until the war with Tokyo's coven started. Luckily, Dazai had a connection with the hunters who would be willing to take us in. It was a long shot, vampire hunters taking vampires in, but it has worked out better than expected."

Dazai sighs, leaning back in his chair. "Ah, those were the fun days, weren't they?"

Oda raises his eyebrows. "Were they?"

"Of course. Stealing from blood banks, jumping into dumpsters at a moment's notice...and let's not forget Ango's accidental shoplifting."

"You threw a shoebox at his head and told him to run. Loudly, I might add."

"I didn't expect that he would do it! He was supposed to open it up and find my origami tofu in there and be amazed."

"I see," Oda says. "I don't think Ango would have been pleased with you either way, though."

Atsushi bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling.

"But how can you be so sure, Odasaku-san? In case you haven't noticed Ango's rather a repressed man, he could be into collecting stamps in his basement for all we know—"

Far away, the front door opens. Voices echo throughout the lower floor, followed by the thud of shoes being tugged off. The last rescued group had arrived. Dazai and Oda stand, Dazai softly pulling on Atsushi's uninjured wrist to tug him out of his seat. Despite the circumstances, the contact is still warm, oddly comforting, as the first week they'd met. Atsushi tries not to linger on it.

"You're not in pain, are you?" Dazai says.

"No." Atsushi considers his body, the lack of heaviness or shooting pockets of fever from that morning. "Not at all."

Dazai grins, teeth shining in the candlelight. "Me neither. I heard it's a vampire thing. Feel up for a grand mansion tour after this?"

*

Atsushi falls into an easy rapport with the hunters. It's near effortless; no one seems to expect or want anything from him. Kenji and Tanizaki stick close to him, previous friendships holding steadfast even as his Sleep nears. Kyouka brings a deck of cards to his room at times, and she teaches him games beyond his Go-Fish repertoire. Her calmness is infectious; she tells him about the Silver Roads, a dry desert beside the Gilded Passage where they use carriages instead of boats, land instead of water. After they wake, they would use it to travel.

The doctor, Yosano, assigns him cratefuls of oranges and tangerines to peel. It's a skill he's adept at from months working at the restaurant. The citrus scent permeates his hands, lingers even when he helps Kenji digs up ginger roots in the fields behind the greenhouse, polishes crystal balls (some iridescent and clear as glass, others resembling sapphires, smoky quartz, a purple deep enough to be black) or lacquered bowls with turpentine and beeswax. He pins bushels of herbs to clotheslines to dry. He carves the lumpy wax off of used candlesticks and altars with a butter knife, washes stones in soapy water reaching up to his elbows.

With each passing day, the crowd thins. Someone comes around and drips emerald liquid onto each of their arms once a day. Those with the right hue are taken aside, talked to, and then are guided somewhere underground, where it's cooler and safer for their Sleep.

Atsushi's grateful for the work, even as his fever climbs and his joints ache.

The chores distract him from thoughts of an impending doom. They give him a sense of progress rather than a choking stagnation, distract him from the possibility of being raised from the dead, or getting choked in some other way on fate's spinning wheel, where he'll prick his finger and, unlike a fairy-tale princess, no one actually wants to kiss him, so he'll be stuck in a cursed existence for a millennium or two.

*

"Usually, half of the good spellwork is done beforehand," Kunikida says, holed up in Ranpo's garage with Atsushi that third dawn. The brewing space is humid with steam from six boiling cauldrons. Yosano had given Atsushi a kerchief he now wraps around his sweaty head. "An experienced vampire will lose to a human throwing the right kind of bottle magic, if they manage to detonate it at the right time."

"Is that what Kyouka had on her?" Atsushi remembers the green smoke the night they escaped into the Gilded Passage, working with the etchings. "There was a flower - a carnation, I think, that stopped some of the vampires. The spells kind of - froze them in place?"

Kunikida nods, plucking a bruised tangerine from the dud basket like Yosano instructs them to. (Dazai filches them straight from the crates and dilutes them in glasses of water.) "Miller's Brew. Some big name witch made it in the seventeenth century. Somewhere in Austria. Yosano adapted it for our needs."

Kunikida probably knows the exact year and city, but Atsushi doesn't press him. "Is magic easier for vampires?"

"In some ways," Kunikida replies. Gnawing on his lip thoughtfully, he walks around the cauldrons, frowning into each concoction. "I guess they - you will find it instinctual. Even that blockhead hardly uses measuring cups but manages to outperform Fukuzawa himself sometimes. Ugh." He tosses the peel into the designated basin and pulls up a chair next to Atsushi's. "Anyway. You'll end up making better spells if you want to learn, kid."

At Kunikida's offered hand, Atsushi gives him a towel to help dry the utensils.

"But making the summons, like at those altars upstairs, is easier for humans," Kunikida continues, pushing his glasses up his nose. "Some of the older authors describe it as spirits being angry at the undead. They recoil from vampires, especially."

"Does the coven have any humans employed?" Atsushi asks. Kunikida gives out information for free, verging on an encyclopedic knowledge in magic that Atsushi wholeheartedly appreciates.

"No. The coven's weak in getting their weapons enchanted, or getting them to stay enchanted for long - which is how the early hunters managed to resist long enough for their numbers to flourish."

"So we do have a chance," Atsushi murmurs.

"Of course," Kunikida says with surprising indignation, vigorously polishing a candelabra. "We have more than a chance. It'll take time, yes, but Yokohama won't be at the mercy of the coven. There are already skeptics among them that are tipping the scales even more."

"I - um, didn't mean to imply that the hunters can't win." Atsushi gently pries the candelabra from Kunikida's grip and sets it on a tray beside a paper fan and a canister of tea; Kyouka had said something about casting fire that evening. "Sorry. It's just...the coven seems so ancient, and all-knowing." Not to mention bloodthirsty, desperate, and immortal. "And they can't be happy with you all taking us away."

Kunikida's severe expression softens. Gingerly, he dries a ladle and sets it next to the fan. "There's nothing to apologize for, brat. I know."

Atsushi picks up a handful of stones next. "Saving all of us, though, and protecting us for over three months...it can't be easy, can it?"

"No, but I'll do it over again. We'll do it over again, any time." Kunikida glances at him. "Did Dazai tell you about what we do on a small scale, under normal circumstances?"

"About the nobles in the coven?" Dazai and Oda had joined him at dinner—their breakfast of sorts—and relayed a past scuffle with the coven back in March. A glass of pig's blood for each of them, a bowl of plain white rice for Atsushi. He's beginning to feel the effects of hypersensitive taste buds and smell receptors.

"Yes, those," Kunikida says. "Some of them keep humans sleepwalking to them each fortnight, or seduce them consciously, if some lord takes it upon himself to train a damned Carmilla."

"Delivered groceries," Atsushi absently echoes Dazai's words. He pushes his stool back under the center worktable and washes his hands under the faucet.

Kunikida wrinkles his nose. "I hate that his half-assed analogies make sense."

Atsushi lets out a quiet laugh. "They do, don't they?"

Kunikida snorts and stands, making his way back to the cauldrons again. "If your groceries are bound to you by magic and wake up feeling like they just missed a liter of blood, then I suppose."

"But you manage to free them."

"That's the goal," Kunikida says. He takes a stick of cinnamon from a jar on the back shelf and stirs the surface of a potion with it. The amber liquid hisses and brightens. "So if we free those humans but not a horde of Sleepers from the coven's grasp just because it's hard, then what's the point?"

Atsushi smiles to himself. "You would have still saved those humans, Kunikida-san. That counts for something, right?"

"But not without trying first? That only weakens your principles," Kunikida replies, back to frowning.

"What if you've tried all you can," Atsushi says. "But you still can't save everyone?"

"Hmph. Then you try some more."

They clean up in silence, the completed tray set on a folded towel, Kunikida muttering that he would monitor the cauldrons until the next shift and plucking a broom from its hook. He taps on the nearby wall clock. "Go on up. Isn't it past your vampiric bedtime?"

*

Outside, the sun shines weakly in the mist, but Atsushi unfolds his umbrella nevertheless. The vampires' residences are further down the street, close to the edge of the forest. Most of the cars are gone, the barbeques and lines of laundry delegated to backyards or tents by the lakeside. The only noises belong to the mayflies darting in and out of the shrubbery.

He lets himself in the back door and is greeted by the aroma of brewed tea. Fukuzawa, the very same professor of biology at the university, is feeding someone's toddler at the kitchen table. According to Tanizaki, he owns several of the boats down at the docks, both for mortal marine studies and for supernatural Gilded Passage travels.

All the wandering cats in the neighborhood seem to adore him. A tabby is curled at his elbow; two black cats blink drowsily on his lap.

"Good morning," Fukuzawa greets, looking up at him.

"Morning, Fukuzawa-sensei," Atsushi responds, inclining his head. At the kitchen island, Oda and Sakaguchi, deep in conversation over a spellbook, notice and nod as well.

"Hey!" Kenji peeks up from petting a cat near the cupboard. His straw hat is perched on his hair, ribbon strap fraying at the ends. "You look better."

"Thanks," Atsushi says. Kenji seems to have made a quick recovery after the night of the shrine escapes; the cuts on his face are scabbing over. "You do, too."

Kenji nods. "Good food and sleep goes a long way." He straightens and dusts the fur off his shorts. "And I'm happy your Sleep is later, Atsushi-san. You can prepare a bit more than the others."

Atsushi swallows around the unbidden lump in his throat. "Yeah, me too. I can help out a little more."

Kenji smiles, looking toward the kettle on the gas stove. "Sakaguchi-san made tea for everyone, by the way. There's chicken on the grill, too, if you want."

Atsushi smiles his thanks, picking a teacup from the drying rack. For someone with one of the most dangerous jobs in the group—a liaison in the city, negotiating back and forth with volatile coven members—Ango finds the time to brew—and mix—tea that is flavorful without being overwhelming to their senses of smell and taste. The others have begun to replicate his work for the few who haven't gone to their Sleeps yet.

Atsushi finds a teapot labeled Non-Human!!, underlined twice, and pours himself a cup.

"How are the horses, Kenji-kun?" Atsushi watches Kenji coax another cat over with a piece of meat.

"Healthy," Kenji says, grinning to himself. "Balthazor likes to eat the thistles next to the river, but Edgar and Melody prefer the grass up the hill. They let me pick some to bring home for the magic, too."

"Oh - you're casting today, aren't you?"

"Yep! After sunset. Do you want me to wake you up then?"

"That would be great. Thank you," Atsushi says.

Kenji nods, smiling brightly.

Atsushi finishes his tea and washes the cup in the sink. He bids goodbye to Oda and Sakaguchi, who have moved on from debating the presence of rose petals in confusion spells to the merits of instant coffee for the hunters' stockpile.

Upstairs, the original man in the futon the first night has long departed. Atsushi is the sole occupant of the bedroom. Two days, said Yosano, who had been in charge of the emerald potion the previous night. He has labeled and packed his belongings to be out of the way during his hundred days below the floorboards.

*

"Restroom," Dazai says.

Atsushi sets the flashcard onto the pile and holds up another one.

"Thirst." Dazai conks his head on the table, feigning a snore. "One hundred percent. A-plus. Can I go now?"

"Five out of five isn't really impressive, Dazai-san," Atsushi says. "What about - this?"

"Run. To run. How about six out of six?"

Atsushi shakes his head, putting that card down as well. Kunikida had insisted that Dazai review his Thai with someone because he can't be trusted to study by himself.

"Paper. Sky. Slowly. Hey, look." Dazai leaps to his feet, pointing out the window. "A black swan—"

"Dazai-san."

He deflates, comically slinking back into his chair like a chastened child. "Right, right."

To seek out allies in the upcoming months, Dazai is leaving for Bangkok in a few days. Or, more accurately, call in some favors culled from his coven days, as he'd explained it. Judging by the rate he's going now, Atsushi doubts he'll have any trouble with the language, but he can imagine Kunikida giving them both the evil eye tomorrow if they quit now.

"This idiot once told Amsterdam's coven leader to poop in her desk drawers," Kunikida had said, socked foot tapping out an impatient march on the floor. "And asked her how an enormous raccoon became her wedding dress."

"Kunikida-kun, please limit this exposure—"

"And then he proceeds to apologize in Russian, the fucking nerve."

"It was Italian, and an honest mistake, Atsushi-kun, don't believe his slander!"

And so Atsushi sits across from Dazai in the cherrywood library—Ranpo's, he'd learned, who inherited this lakehouse as a teenager. His friends from America sometimes visit, Yosano had remarked whilst chopping cattails and sweet-peas on the big wooden chopping block she keeps in the back patio. It is their vacation spot in the countryside, close enough to Tokyo and Yokohama in case a change of scenery is desired. It explains the presence of western-style ottomans and bed frames and paintings in the rooms.

Halfway through the deck, the moon gone milky behind clouds, Dazai gets up to retrieve a match and relights the oil lantern between them. Generators supply electricity for their camp, enough to power enough medical machines and freezers, but they save where they can. The vampires' low-light vision is a happy benefit.

"Can I take a seat?" Dazai mumbles at the latest flashcard. "Why is that even here, I can take a seat whenever I please."

"Even if a king is talking to you?" Atsushi asks.

"Especially if some king is granting me an audience. Less posturing, more dragging out the skeletons. We'll get to the good stuff sooner if we skip the airs."

"You're good at that stuff, though." Atsushi lifts another card up.

"'Where is the train station?' Maybe, but I'm also good at annoying Kunikida-kun and Ango, and that's much more fun."

They reach the bottom of the deck, Dazai massaging his forehead as if it were some strenuous mental exercise instead of breathing for him. Atsushi bites his tongue to keep from blurting out, "You really are smart and handsome" or something equally embarrassing. He doesn't know how they became friends, but here they were.

Dazai gets up and stretches, mumbling about checking the orchids. The dim light casts stark shadows on his face, deepening his cupid's bow. Atsushi tries not to stare.

He thinks, This crush has definitely lasted more than five minutes.

***

At twilight, the last of Kenji and Kyouka's spelled wind and flames tucked into neat little jars, Dazai prepares to leave for Bangkok. Kunikida had made him swear up and down not to get distracted by some beetle or odd creature and make them late again, but the joke's on him; Dazai's fingers had been crossed behind his back.

Clothes, umbrella, plasma. Four years, and his suitcase still looks the same. Herb satchels, peppermint oil, dagger. He contemplates bringing The Hound of the Baskervilles, hardback among the mess on his dresser, but there's plenty of work to do in the next week, hardly enough time to read or explore the city. Not that he won't try to reverse that order.

"Dazai-san?"

Atsushi steps into the room. Dazai almost wants to scold him for attempting the stairs on his crutches (vampires heal fast, but not that fast), but knows it won't stop him. They're both stubborn as hell.

"Come in, Atsushi-kun," he chirps, sliding the door open.

Atsushi wavers in the doorway, seemingly lost in thought, then hobbles in. He's in a faded sweatshirt, a hand-me-down that's too big for him so his collarbones peek out. His neck is smooth and untarnished, as usual, skin picking up some of the remaining light outside.

He betrays none of this, of course. "Do you see any spotted beetles?" Dazai says instead. "I hear Kunikida-kun is looking for one as a new pet."

Atsushi, to his credit, doesn't bat an eyelash. "Kunikida-san is waiting on the porch for you. He looks impatient."

"Six or seven on the Richter scale?" Dazai asks, and closes the clasps on his briefcase and shoves The Hound of the Baskervilles in its outer pocket. He can always read on the Silver Roads, once counting cacti and palm trees becomes too boring.

"Five, for now," Atsushi says, a small smile gracing his face.

"Ah. Semi-destructive, yet non-deadly."

He fiddles with his watch and straightens his shirt, sneaking furtive glances at Atsushi. He wonders how he's coping, what he thinks about his impending slumber. Knowing Atsushi, Dazai doesn't have to offer platitudes, nor flimsy bits of advice. He's strong. He'll face it dead-on.

And yet.

In a split-second decision, Dazai flings out his arms, whacking his fingers on a bedpost, and pulls Atsushi into a hug. The same pleasant warmth is still there, compared to the day Dazai had casted the spell on his back. Dazai doesn't necessarily believe in fate, but whether the stars crossed or the right rocks smashed at some opportune moment in time, Atsushi had gotten tangled up in his life. Both of his lives, now.

"Sorry," he says, softly.

"For what?" Atsushi muffles into his shoulder.

Dazai weighs his words. "It must be terrifying for you. When I can't see far enough to know it'll be okay."

A beat of silence. He breathes in, then out, part of him not believing he'd dared to touch him again.

"That's okay," Atsushi says simply. "I know you're doing all you can." He pulls back slightly. "I - Is your hand alright, Dazai-san?"

It doesn't even hurt, and yet Dazai can't resist. "Kiss it better?"

For half a second, he expects Atsushi to walk right out of the room. But in the next second, Atsushi catches his wrist and brings the pinky to his lips, knocking Dazai's breath clean out of his lungs.

Atsushi looks up at him. "Better?"

God. He knows Atsushi doesn't mean to be coy or flirty, but it's all Dazai can do to not embrace him again and lean down and kiss him breathless, wind his arms around his slender waist and draw him close.

Dazai nods. He steels himself, and—presses a cool kiss to the corner of Atsushi's lovely mouth.

Chapter Text

On the first day, Dazai travels south through the Silver Roads. The hot nights of Bangkok come in a row, a string of sizzling neon signs and bottle green waterways and the smell of seafood cooking under bright fluorescent globes.

Curious vampires, smelling foreigners in their midst, trundle up to Dazai in the open. They are surprised at his fluency in their language, and offer just as quickly if he has satisfactory accommodations for his stay, if he needs help getting anywhere, if he needs to see anyone higher up in the rungs. Despite running from it for the past few years, give or take, Dazai finds his reputation still carrying its weight in gold.

Bangkok's coven is welcoming and open, miles away from the stuffy cloisters back home. Rumor has it that some of the uptown clubs have a partnership with humans. The knowledgeable ones, at least. Buy me a drink and I'll give you one. Disastrously scandalous, if any of Japan's highbrowed elders catch wind of it. Those morally corrupt, human-loving, ethic-breaking vampires, building interspecies connections in dance clubs instead of mapping hunting grounds, seeking friends where they should be seeing prey, blah, blah, blah.

Dazai immediately asks them where the closest such bar is.

His legs have gone cold from sitting in the carriage for hours, though he had finished his book: Beryl Stapleton freed, her conniving husband dead, detective and doctor leaving to see an evening opera like the repressed Victorian couple they were. After, he half-heartedly enchanted chunks of quartz—dowsing lights, in case the others couldn't find him—and tried to take a nap as the phantom horses clattered on.

The scenery of the Silver Roads washed together in grays. He'd thought about the cellar beneath the lakehouse; counted trees with leaves shiny as tinsel; thought about Atsushi's pretty hands, simultaneously calloused and delicate; doodled sceneries in his notebook; thought about lowering Atsushi into a bathtub filled with lilies, his body pale and lifeless.

*

Dazai steps into a rooftop club—sticky countertops, pungent perfumes, the tang of new paint on the walls—and orders a rum on the rocks for the first human who meets his eyes. The community here favors a small jeweled circle as a symbol for offered blood, usually perched on a lapel, as this one's, or worn as earrings or pendants for easy recognition.

He turns a cool shoulder to the other man's flirtations, pretends not to understand his suggestions to move to a more secluded corner of the dance floor. Dazai cheerily motions at his wrist (foreigner, foreigner, bad Thai, sorry ) rather than biting at the man's proffered neck, feeling all sorts of wrong at even entertaining the thought.

Without batting an eye, a bartender slides them an alcohol wipe and a pushpin of local anesthetic. The man, shrugging off Dazai's coldness, focuses on his free drink, and Dazai manages to swallow his warm mouthfuls in silence.

*

"You bastard," Akutagawa says as soon as Dazai sets foot on the boat. It is his and Gin's, a roofed rickety thing floating a ways off the main channels. He undoubtedly detects the bar's lingering scent on Dazai. "Mixing up business and pleasure and then bumming a ride on top of that."

"No, no, Akutagawa-kun," Dazai replies, fanning his shirt to get the cologne off his person. It really is irritating when it's the only thing he can smell. "You misunderstand. I'm only a poor rogue who wanted a meal without the hunting. Lovely city, by the way."

Akutagawa cranes his neck and sniffs in more deeply, then frowns in confusion. "You - don't reek of indecent activities, surprisingly. Hmph."

"As I was saying—"

"Did you indulge in drink too much? Is that why you can't perform?"

"How unpleasantly vulgar! Gin-san," Dazai looks over to the quieter sibling across from him, "between you and me, your brother is an angsty teenager who doesn't deserve any of us. Thinking he's so high and mighty—" Dazai dodges a kick. "And I'm sober as a dead rock, for your information."

"How can rocks be dead," Akutagawa snaps.

"Oh, don't take it literally."

Gin's eyes sparkle in amusement.

Kunikida and Ranpo meet them at the edge of King Rama's park, as agreed upon. They disembark at the familiar pier on the south end, where a well-meaning crew worker asks if Akutagawa could use a tissue for his coughs. Dazai and Gin pretend not to hear and go on ahead.

"Nakajima is doing fine," Ranpo says blandly as soon as Dazai gets within earshot.

"Really." And Dazai hadn't even gotten the chance to subtly weasel the information from either of them.

"He doesn't look it, but the bastard's relieved on the inside," Kunikida says, stepping forward to squint at Dazai.

Further up the steps, Higuchi and Chuuya (goddamnit) emerge from the shadows. Like the Akutagawa siblings, they have abandoned their black satin cloaks and jeweled brooches in favor of normal clothes. Mostly.

"That hat, like, went out of fashion eighty years ago." Dazai puts on his fakest smile and prods the silk flower monstrosity on top of Chuuya's head.

"How about you shut your trap," Chuuya snaps.

"Trying to conceal the fact that it's hollow up there? Is that why you constantly lose at Go? It's okay to admit you simply suck, you know—"

"Meet me outside, you fishy fucker—"

"Can we please stop fighting for a few minutes and get some work done?" Kunikida snarls, clapping a hand on each of their shoulders. The humidity has strands of his ponytail clinging to his neck, putting the risk for detonation approximately fifteen percent higher.

Chuuya, who has always found a kinship with Kunikida (god knows why) closes his mouth.

They follow Kunikida down a worn pathway, dodging the slough of tourists wielding selfie sticks and perspiring water bottles. Gin and Higuchi attempt to make small talk with Ranpo; Akutagawa grumbles out a report to Chuuya. Dazai lags at the rear, noting the slippery texture of the architecture that prevents running on the rooftops for half of them if they needed a quick escape, the palms providing sparse cover, the number of people to shove aside if spells are cast. Finally, he settles his gaze on the others' backs, an incongruous image in itself: Yokohama coven members walking side by side with supernatural hunters.

There can be peace, we can coexist, Odasaku had maintained many times, even as they'd stumbled across another drained body, Ango nursing a stake wound a centimeter from his heart. Even during those initial days on the run—heart leaping at every noise in the shade, picking dandelions and grass seeds from the sidewalks, breaking into a couple of blood banks when it became too much—Odasaku has always been the wiser one.

Now, on the other side of things, Dazai lets himself think about it. Lets the idea crawl into the realm of possibility. It's something dangerously close to hope.

He shakes his head to himself.

"We're already outside, by the way," Dazai mock-whispers to Chuuya, skipping ahead to avoid the fallout.

*

Five A.M. Kunikida and Ranpo groan awake just as Dazai is starting up another episode of a soap opera rerun on TV.

"The sun hasn't even risen yet," Ranpo mumbles around a mouthful of toothpaste. "You could accompany us to the estate and convince a dozen more vampires to join us just by batting your eyelashes at them."

"But I'm not," Dazai says, sinking further into the lumpy chair and bundling the blanket tighter around him.

Ranpo spits and rinses. "You're not," he stonily agrees.

"Ton-san is a fine interpreter, so you don't need little old me." Dazai flicks a bit of lint off his sleeve. "And I suspect my presence will hurt rather than help."

"Why would it?" Kunikida butts in, towelling his hair dry. Dazai barely resists pointing out his similarity to a drowned rat.

"I'm going to sleep in a bit," Dazai says, ignoring Kunikida's flat glare. "Don't want a sleep-deprived vampire messing up delicate operations for you, hm?"

Dazai ducks an airborne granola bar.

"Sleep-deprived, my ass." Kunikida buttons up a shirt, scowling at the television. "Then what have you been doing last month? Loitering in the library when you don't have to be on campus until hours later. And in broad daylight too. Annoying the shit out of the librarians, especially—"

"Wow, Kunikida-kun, I never knew you cared that much about me." Dazai blinks innocently. Such reflections are best kept close to the chest. If Kunikida were to catch on to his feelings for Atsushi—Dazai shudders and changes the subject. "By the way, you would still go to school if the time loop didn't exist, wouldn't you? Can't have the student body's beloved senpai skipping his classes."

Kunikida bristles at that. "And so what if I would? Considering, of course, my duties to the rest aren't compromised, which could be carried out if one allocates time meticulously enough..."

But Dazai knows that Kunikida would skip his classes in a heartbeat if the slightest trouble to the hunters had happened. He's annoyingly moral like that.

"Such a diligent student, out to change the world," Dazai says, pointedly turning the volume up and yawning wide. Kunikida and Ranpo put on their shoes and head out the door. "And what a good set of minions I have to do that for me."

"Remember whose house you're staying at when we get back," Ranpo calls over his shoulder.

*

He passes a couple more hours like that, absently curled up in his chair, sketching battle plans and spell lines on napkin squares. He goes out to buy an iced green tea from the vending machine and mixes it with a glass of water. Chewing on gypsum powder to neutralize his blood-tinged breath seems unappealing.

He hasn't had a morning like this in a while. It's oddly nostalgic. Something—the scent of the bathroom soap, the pattern in the carpet—must be similar to his childhood home. He thinks back to that one-bedroom house, the checkered tiles, the browning hydrangeas by the roadside. His mother had dabbled in the supernatural when she was alive. His earliest memories were roses drying over the sink, corked bottles of oils, sets of tarot cards in seven (threes when you can, Osamu, sevens if not) different styles, the decks kept in carved jewel boxes that he'd take out and splay out on the low table like fans.

Even his family, his mother's brothers and cousins, were in the know-how. Dazai had picked up a thick tome's worth of tricks from watching and listening alone, not to mention the shelves of books and scrolls cramping whatever space they had.

He had been particularly good at picking up plant magic, something his mother had remarked upon. Just like your father. She had not said it like a compliment.

By the time he was managing alone, shuttled from house to house, relative to relative, he could enchant his own time loops, trapping fire ants in ghostly spheres as they scuttled in the same paths over and over. He stopped singeing his fingers on roots and leaves. He spent the quiet stretches of time honing his spells and inventing new ones, using his halves together rather than leaving them to war against each other.

His dead mother's bloodless face faded to a distant memory. Whether her blood was drunk by his father in a fit of rage or a random encounter off the streets one night, Dazai did not try to find out. He pushed it to the furthest parts of his mind.

*

On the sixth day, a dozen mercenary bands have signed up to help squash Yokohama's bloody uprising. As soon as they've eaten, Kunikida and Ranpo pass out on their beds, snores filling the small hotel room. Dazai calls to tell Fukuzawa the news, and they finalize the defensive locations on the eastern wards with Odasaku before sending the Thai vampires on their way.

As the sun sets, a bird pecks on the window screen, a message tied to its foot. It's an invitation from one of Bangkok's coven leaders to a little dinner party, a toast in celebration of their new alliance.

"In other words, a bullshit excuse for social posturing," Chuuya complains on the way downstairs, kicking a stone loose with his toe.

The buildings shine under the darkening sky, glass towers rising over the maze of rooftops. The air is thick with spices; ginger and cinnamon heated in pans, bean curd deep-fried somewhere in the web of activity.

Akutagawa makes an irritable noise, but looks resigned to the plans. Beside him, Gin fiddles with her smartphone, no doubt a banned item back home. Dazai can already imagine the elders whining about anything more modern than the lightbulb, something about illicit mortal devices are corrupting our youth! or the standard dramatic rant on humankind.

"What time did she say?" Higuchi asks halfheartedly.

"The usual time everyone likes. Nine," Dazai replies, wiggling his fingers. "For an atmospheric effect while getting good luck. But if we want the freshest feed..."

"We get there now," Higuchi finishes.

"Right-o."

"Your vocabulary disgusts me," Chuuya says.

"Is your decades-old ass unable to get with the hip and wild?" Dazai asks, toeing the stone down into a gutter.

"Thanks, I want to saw off my ears now." Chuuya, the devil spawn he is, tries to trip him in retaliation, but ends up hitting a woman's grocery bags instead, punctuated by an unpleasant cracking sound.

"...They're discussing how to best kill you," Dazai lies over the rapid-fire sentences directed at Chuuya, who's bowing at an alarming rate. "She says she'll feed you to the gators if you don't buy her a new carton of eggs."

"Don't believe a word he says," Akutagawa warily informs Chuuya.

"I know, I know - look, ma'am, I'm sorry, just let me know how much I have to pay—"

"Taken out of context, this could be a solicitation gone wrong," Higuchi observes.

"Fortunately for you," Dazai nudges Akutagawa, who instantly returns it back with ten times the force. His ribs smart. "Chuuya isn't interested in picking up just anyone."

Akutagawa gives him a deep frown. "Fortunately - for me?"

"He - or Higuchi - are more interested in making out with decades-old friends after a few bottles of sake," Dazai solemnly tells him, and is instantly rewarded with a blush blooming on Akutagawa's pale cheeks. "Hypothetically, of course."

"Hypothetically," Akutagawa echoes, eye twitching.

Cute.

*

"SNS worthy, isn't it?"

"What kind of name is SNS?" Chuuya yells back. "Good luck finding them, I can't see anyone in this - watch it, lady - sweaty mess—"

The coven leader's underground home spans the size of a mansion, thrumming with both humans and vampires by the time midnight strikes.

Every piece of furniture is occupied, candles flickering in shallow basins, champagne and Bloody Marys (ha) held in the arms of bonsai trees. Steam rises from the fountains. Tropical plants cast larger-than-life shadows on the walls; bromeliads in startling orange—the quality of the spells must be downright wicked, using those petals—and water lilies spelled to sing a few curse words when tickled.

The four of them, true to partying wisdom, had arrived at half past eight, and received glasses of AB-positive, centrifuged and mixed with a spoonful of whiskey and a sugary syrup, all the while the coven leader fussing over them, asking Dazai questions about Yokohama, the silver trade, the time loop.

"Everyone needs to cool their shit." Chuuya pushes through a tangle of bodies to a quieter alcove, handing flutes of champagne to Higuchi and Akutagawa.

Dazai finds a seat next to a lopsided circle of young-ish (read: less than fifty years old) vampires, hair done up in streaks of blond and red, a guy sporting a septum ring as thick as a pencil. Their giggles noticeably intensify as soon as he sits down. He fakes an interest in the bonsai tree on his other side.

The song from the main corridor changes twice, one pop tune after another, and he's parsing through the layers of spellwork on the tree bark when a pair of heels come into his line of sight.

"Care to dance?"

The group of tittering vampires are watching them in interest—her friends, no doubt. Across the room, Chuuya and Akutagawa also glance at him, but with a defeated, look-at-that-douchebag kind of air, eye-rolls spelling out how they'd expected the rest of the night to go for him.

Dazai gives her a smile in return, and shakes his head. "Sorry."

"Not even one?"

"Afraid not."

One by one, her friends gawk or glare at him on their way out of the alcove, leaving behind a wake of empty upholstery. Dazai eases himself onto the comfiest sofa, taking a throw pillow under his arm.

Chuuya gapes at him. "Not that I care, but - what's wrong with you?"

"Hm? What do you mean?"

"Don't play dumb, mackerel. We were already planning how to peel you away from a broken-hearted shitshow tomorrow. Akutagawa here was preparing for the egg and shoe trick, mind you, and then it's over before it began."

"Are you complaining? I can go after them and apologize—"

"No."

"Don't be jealous that you're not a hot commodity." Dazai blinks innocently, rolling over onto his side to face the wall.

"I really want to murder you right now."

"Go ahead. Just know that you'll see me at Philippi."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" Akutagawa asks, squinting.

Dazai doesn't respond, choosing to hum to himself. If only Atsushi were here. The surge of longing burning up his throat is unfamiliar, but not unexpected.

*

The coven has been pushed back to Nishi-ku, Ango texts him on the twentieth day. Increased aggression. Handling it.

Unless his math is wrong, it is currently five in the evening back home. Ango is up early. Dazai texts back a random smiley emoji, gauging Ango's mood, to which he receives a frowning face. Ango is relatively content; it must be forecasted for a cloudy day. He had always been the most sensitive to light out of the three of them.

The southern French countryside rolls past in tapering hills of yellow-green, the occasional cow pasture stinking his nose. When the train comes to a stop, Dazai lifts an empty suitcase onto the platform—empty, to be filled with fresh herbs for the others. The supernatural paths come with no annoying international customs, at least. Plus plenty of legroom, no bank-breaking fares. Only a moderate risk of encountering a hostile vampire or a juvenile werewolf on the way.

One taxi ride later, he enters a sleepy, cobblestoned town. The open windows above a bookstore let out the rich scent of coffee. A balcony overlooks the entryway, filled with wicker chairs. He checks the bouquet in his hands—a vampire bursting into a house full of witches isn't advised, if one didn't have a colleague to vouch for you through the language of flowers and magical signatures.

They welcome him in without a hitch.

Over coffee, Dazai hands them Fukuzawa's commission for the spellwork. Some tricky business about Yokohama's time loop, filling in months' worth of agreeable memories lest the citizens wake up to themselves transported through time, winter when it had been summer the day before. The mass panic would not be pretty.

He gives the witches some time to hash it out, and wanders down to the street level. He buys a paint set (Odasaku's daughter is showing an alarming amount of talent at an alarming rate), a novel (Gaboriau, for Ranpo to chew over for a good hour or two, if it's any good), and a small cat ornament in a glassblower's shop (he hesitates, mulling over Atsushi's likes and dislikes for an embarrassing amount of time).

"You're in love," a witch behind the counter murmurs on his way back in, so soft that he almost doesn't hear her. She taps her crystal ball, where the dreamy billows of clouds drift back and forth beneath the surface.

*

On the thirty-sixth day, Dazai boils his own pennywort potion on the comfort of home soil.

Ranpo's house creaks quietly in the night, every last one of the Sleepers safely tucked in the rooms underground, spells painted on the cellar floors to keep them safe if all goes to hell above the earth. Despite the planning, no one could get that many clawfoot bathtubs shipped without raising some eyebrows, and so they had to improvise. Empty fish tanks, woven baskets, even an actual coffin or two (the guy who had the Catholic mortician uncle was sketchy, to say the least, but beggars can't be choosers). Magic didn't like plastic or rubber if it could help it. Those stank of the man-made.

He ladles green froth into a clay bowl, dropping a few purifying mint leaves into the cauldron. They crackle and hiss, tendrils of smoke drifting off into the night sky.

He and Kyouka had returned from a scouting expedition with a long cut up Dazai's forearm and the black blood of feral vampires soaking both of them. They had driven their weapons (Kyouka with her knives, Dazai with a silver-tipped stake he'd bummed off Ranpo) into the ferals' hearts, bruised fingernails scrabbling slack as spirals of dust flew from their opened mouths. A tiny part of Dazai hoped they were freed, somewhere out there.

"Does it still hurt?"

"You scared me, Kyouka-san," Dazai says without turning around.

"Sorry," she states, humoring him. They both know Dazai heard her footsteps from the next house over. "Do you think you're going to lose your arm?"

"Ah, I can feel it dying," Dazai pretends to drunkenly sway on his feet. "Emergency surgery will be needed, as long as I can get a lollipop after. Stickers are for losers."

"What flavor?"

"Soda."

"You're a loser, then," she says blankly. "Orange is the only one worth losing a limb for."

Dazai fakes a loud sniff. "Ow. Better call the heart surgeon while you're at it."

Kyouka cracks a smile at that, her features untangling for a split second. Eight months ago, when she had cut from the coven and sought them out, an ashen-faced vampire with at least twenty other runaways near death on their doorstep, Dazai would have considered the sight a minor miracle.

"Would you like help chopping the lemongrass?" she asks.

Dazai grins and nudges the pile over. "Yes, please."

They work in silence. A light rain mists the grass beyond the awning as the work, birds wheeling in the space beyond. It was a hopeless case, trying to piece out constellations in Yokohama. Here, in the mountains, the stars steal a bit of his breath away, instill a living gust of wind that he didn't think had existed.

*

Dazai had been wildly procrastinating on a neurobiology paper when he first saw him.

It was late May, late afternoon, the library's windows propped open to let in a weak breeze. His body had dragged more than usual; too much sun in one day. A circle of books that may or may have not been related to the research topic was on the table.

Odasaku hadn't been surprised at his whim to return to university, even if the others were—his reasons were buried under a glib announcement over cards, nothing more. He didn't feel the need to pick himself apart; it was a puzzle, unraveling other people. Aimed at himself, much less fun.

Yosano had easily forged medical records to explain away the last two years, the missing exams from the tail end of a semester gone wrong. Fukuzawa taught at the school, which was no insignificant peace of mind, and maybe the normalcy did soothe him a little.

If anything, he would have something to distract himself as the political climate in Yokohama's coven got uglier. Their contacts in the coven were reporting territorial squabbles; elders pushing borders, advisors snapping at the first scent of blood, vampires aggressively finding their hunts. All they needed now is a flame to ignite the long spiral down, the same way they had a century ago.

Kunikida had picked out an armful of books, gingerly keeping them upright to the checkout counter. His parting glare had told Dazai to study.

The library had been sparse, no more than a few lazy taps of keyboards, a scritch of a pencil, a couple beside the window more interested in each other's eyes than at the notes in front of them. Most students were out and about under clear skies or catching up on sleep after their Friday classes. Too early in the term to worry yet.

At the counter, the pale-haired boy had smelled of vices.

Cigarette smoke, alcohol, grease. And yet none of it was his own—a different undercurrent peeked through as he talked with Kunikida, uncowed by the more pungent energies clinging to him. Clean clothes, steamed rice, honey. Dazai had encountered the type on occasion: those who are surrounded by decay but did not decay themselves.

"Have a good day, Kunikida-san!"

Kunikida's stride out of the library was markedly lighter, dissolved of its usual frustration. Dazai didn't think Kunikida noticed it himself.

Dark smudges laid beneath the librarian's eyes. He had a patch of burned skin (Dazai could pick out that smell anywhere, after—) between his thumb and forefinger. The next student in line left in the same fashion, a touch more uplifted, less weary. And the next.

The librarian's hands were work-roughened. His shirt was patched together at the waist, the threads not quite matching with the rest.

His smile remained bright.

*

On the fifty-fifth day, he waits for the bullet train at Shin Yokohama station.

Kunikida flips through his beloved pocket planner next to him, shoving Dazai away when he'd tried to read over his shoulder. The meat buns and lemon tea he'd bought at a Family Mart sit in a plastic bag between them, damp with condensation.

September had brought a cool slip of air to the forest outside the time loop, but the suffocating heat persists inside. Whatever the coven is doing, their spellwork isn't lacking. Or at least this spell's upkeep isn't.

Sighing, Dazai opts to people-watch on the platform.

He finds a pine needle in his hair. He'd fallen asleep in a futon stuffed with them, crushed and smeared on orange peels to mask his scent when they enter the city. Being expunged from the coven's books meant the magic—and its scent—no longer wrapped around him as a tight-fitting suit coat.

"Finished deciding when you're going to pee today?" Dazai nudges Kunikida.

"Idiot, I don't plan that."

"I suggest around twelve noon. Preferably in a public restroom so it'll be crowded. You'll get to talk with other people around the urinals and fulfill your need for life-affirming conversations with the salarymen on their lunch break—"

"Shut up, you're full of shit."

"Oh-ho, speaking of shit, you need to plan that out too. I forgot how high-maintenance being alive was."

The escalators dump a crowd of people onto the platform. Dazai draws in a slow, neutral breath of air. Nothing. The westbound train is rumored to see a few coven leaders today, heading to Nagoya for allies. Easier to blend in with the humans than risk the Silver Roads, where only the supernatural travel through. Yokohama is locked too fiercely in battle with Tokyo to spare a parcel of guards for that long a journey.

In his palm, Kunikida holds his standard pebble and clover ensemble. At the moment it is more reliable than Dazai's nose, which is tugged in twenty different directions the more filled the station gets. The mortal passengers getting on the train would never leave the city—the time sphere would hold them in a state of dreamless suspension until the midnight reset, and their day would begin again. Just as those passing through are put to rest, cocooned in glamours once the train strikes the magic walls, then out again.

At least, that's what a properly casted one would do. The coven has never had a spectacular record of handling mortal souls.

On the edge of his consciousness, Dazai detects a snap of sweetness. Marigold. Used for astral projections, lucid dreams, and—

"Something's wrong," Kunikida echoes his thoughts, shifting in his seat. The crowds press in, scents and voices slogging together, unaware of what's to come.

"Hold your breath."

A crackle breaks the moment, followed by a series of bright pops. Kunikida fumbles for the straps of his gas mask, nestled out of sight in the convenience store bag.

The crowd collapses in a ripple from the source of the uncapped potion. Dazai lies down with the rest of them, careful not to move too fast or slow. Kunikida squeezes himself between the vending machines behind their bench. His pistol is drawn.

Dazai slits his eyes open around the shoulder of a fallen woman. Her tube of lipstick has rolled a scant distance from her hand. Beside it, her compact mirror faces him.

There are three of them. In each of their hands is a branch of oak. Although the vampires are invisible in the mirror's reflection, their magic-riddled jewelry and clutched leaves are not.

Dazai understands.

The Blushes are wealth for those whom money mattered little to, now. Akin to having soft hands in feudal times or dusty swords over the mantelpiece. For the idle and frivolous, or those who wanted to appear that way. They planned to appear with the upper hand when bargaining with Nagoya's coven. Look how quick we're going to win this war, how much we can gorge. We saved you a slice of the glory, too, so hurry before victory is claimed.

The three of them could drink in the whole station to each have a Blush lasting long enough to Nagoya.

They had underestimated the hunters or forgotten about them. And that was just as well. Dazai notes the presence of his dagger in his pocket, the heft of it.

Kunikida fires.

The bullet strikes the middle vampire square in the chest, Kunikida rolling onto his side away from the train tracks and jumping back on his feet in a second. He aims at the one closer to him, the remaining vampire diving to the side, spine bunching up, liquid grace springing toward Kunikida's outstretched arm—

—straight through Dazai's silver dagger.

Her blood runs cold over the back of his hand. She spits up a furious mouthful of blood. Dazai wrenches his blade out of her shoulder, stops the path of her own dagger from the other side. The tang of iron is unmistakable—the three vampires did not expect trouble today. Not from their own kind.

There's the swishing of velvet, a hiss of metal. He dodges, parrying her strikes with patience. If she recognizes him from his coven days, she does not show it.

It ends quicker than he would have liked. A feign to the left, her injured shoulder jerking back on instinct, unseating her balance. Dazai pushes his dagger into her throat. Not a fatal strike, but enough to knock a vampire cleanly out for hours.

He looks over, and Kunikida pushes a knife through the third one, eyes grim behind his mask. They exchange a glance. Kunikida's shoulders slump in a sigh; he's already thinking about the mess.

One at a time, Dazai hauls the vampires over by their ankles as Kunikida etches out circles in a back corner, chalk lines wide as their arms outstretched.

"Getting foggy in there?" Dazai quips, pulling the last one over a chalk marking.

The mask doesn't muffle the annoyance in Kunikida's voice. "Just be quiet and cast the spells."

Dazai grins, uncorking a vial of saltwater. He dabs a finger at each point in the square, then rifles through his pouch for the knuckle-sized sphere of topaz. Reaching for the familiar tug inside him, Dazai coaxes the venom from the glands in their throats.

The floor mists over, and the spell eats up the chalk. His vial of saltwater fills with the golden venom. At least there are three vampires out of commission for a good while.

"They were after the Blushes, huh," Kunikida speaks up from behind him.

Dazai nods, corking the vial closed. He would have to find a good tree to empty the venom at, let the natural magic filter out the toxins in its tissues.

Kunikida steps over and swears under his breath. "All these people - it would have been fucking wasteful. And for what, exactly." He glares at one of the unconscious vampires, the bullet hole already steaming closed. "How are we going to move these gluttons? Carrying them out in broad daylight isn't an option."

"Mask and tag them for Ango's crew to clean up later," Dazai says, shrugging. "Unless you have a better idea?"

Kunikida glares. "Like you won't just shoot down any that I offer."

"It's called constructive criticism."

"Whatever it's called, no thanks. And I'll take care of masking them, before you start whining." Kunikida sets his small metal case of ingredients on the ground and cracks it open. He dashes fennel seeds onto the vampires' cheeks, clapping once to render them invisible to passerby. "If anyone trips over them, it's your fault."

Dazai snorts. He tosses down a few more herbs to box them in, discouraging any blundering human feet from crossing the line, and summons a pigeon to inform Ango of their morning. "We can't have that, can we?"

Kunikida ignores him, save for a mutter about sloppily done spellwork. He walks back to their bench and uncaps a bottle from the plastic bag, downing gulps of lemon tea.

They look up at the wail of a distant siren. Somebody must have stumbled upon the first of the slumbering humans downstairs, or the vampires' war has spilled into another place where mortal eyes can see.

Before the station is cordoned off, or worse, shut down, Dazai and Kunikida snag a ride on a train heading inland. It's mid-morning: the train is sparsely populated. They pass over a splinter of the Onda River, the city morphing into tightly-packed homes, tiled roofs. The summer rain starts up, right on time, lashing the windows and doors.

They stop at a familiar station. Kunikida is absorbed in his meat bun, so Dazai freely surveys the windows behind them, searching. Behind a crowded counter further down, a husband and wife bustles over steaming pans, their daughter a flurry of activity at the register. Their star-shaped bento is selling out as he watches.

How long ago did he stand here, the first bits of infatuation prickling at his thoughts? And now—look what happens to the people you associate with.

The train cannot move away fast enough.

Dazai doesn't pine. It's an undeniable fact that Atsushi deserves better than him. Someone with a good heart too, arms unafraid and open. Someone lovely and kind. Someone who can help Atsushi love himself far better than the clumsy attempts Dazai makes and stumbles through, unable to convey what he sees in him.

It is also a simple fact that he hates the idea of Atsushi being with someone else. Dazai would keep his feelings to himself, of course, if that were to happen. Lock in everything easily, retreat behind brick walls. He just wants Atsushi to smile, to be happy, and if it takes Dazai never seeing him again after this war, after waking up, so be it. Atsushi never did have any choice in this mess he'd been tossed in.

So, all right, maybe he is pining.

*

On the seventy-first day, Dazai watches the months be rewritten.

Sleep had eluded him, so he visits the house next door. With Fukuzawa, five of the French witches are in a study on the third floor, hunched over a mirror that takes up most of the space. The curtains are drawn; candlesticks burn on their holders of silver, as one of the witches had kindly warned him. Bottles of paint lay strewn about the floor, uncapped beside their cushions and boxes.

The face of the mirror has been etched into grids, a single square no bigger than a palm. Dazai pokes his head over Fukuzawa's shoulder, observing as two of the witches deposit bits of crystal and seeds into one such square, a tiny black-and-yellow night sky painted on.

They build up a story of the day, weaving rain clouds and tree trunks from the bottom up, dabs of gray paint and seafoam, a chunk of amber, a maple leaf. The mixture in the square bubbles and fizzes. They sketch out grocery trucks and train delays and radio broadcasts. One of the younger witches thumbs through an almanac, looking up weather patterns and phases of the moon. As they chant, they let the resin trickle down into the blocks of the city, into the people themselves.

Dazai steps back when Fukuzawa lends them a hand to seal that day's compartment, a final bow on top to make sure the time loop, once broken, sees and honors it. If it was broken.

The witches let out a collective gust of air, and the candle flames waver.

"Oh!" Another witch, previously engrossed in the work, registers Dazai in the room. She waves him over with a plump set of ringed fingers. "It's the half-blood prince! Sit down, sit down, boy."

Dazai pulls up a cushion to the mirror, beguiling smile sliding into place. Half-blood prince. He keeps his joke (why thank you, it's my favorite of the series) to himself. Who knows how old they are—witches have their own ways of extending their lifespans, never mind how up to date their literary tastes were.

"Would you like to help?" she asks him in halting Japanese, flicking a glance at Fukuzawa for confirmation. She points to the square they just finished. "Twenty-second of July."

"Of course, if you will allow it," Dazai says, stretching his smile wider. He doesn't have to fake his curiosity, here.

At their instruction, Dazai paints a foggy river in July 23, rolling a pebble at the center. The others follow with dustings of herbs and stones, smoke and sound, the same slow branching to a full day in the mirror, enough for the shards of the time loop to grow from.

*

On the ninetieth day, the first of the Sleepers begin to wake up.

They're ravenous, bewildered. Dazai remembers his own Sleep being filled with incomprehensible shapes and colors, then blankness, the sensation of drowning giving way to dryness. An ocean to a desert.

He hopes their Awakening is better than his, at least, in the lack of snarling coven faces all around, hazing rituals under the moonlight, his gums aching up a fresh hell. The hunters have amassed roomfuls of refrigerated animal blood, not to mention their own donations. Dazai and the other vampires on hand are bursting at the seams from drinking straight from the humans (Kunikida had adamantly let only Odasaku or Ango bite him, citing possible pranks up Dazai's sleeve) and storing the still-warm blood in their own bodies. Even Akutagawa and Higuchi manage to slip out of the city and pitch in, as human blood is too precious to risk its latent magic fading through outside containers.

Yosano brews up jugfuls of poppy seed tonics for the aching mouths, rearranged with new fangs. They had waited in the cellars until the first ones had opened their eyes, stirring in their flower beds. They lead the awakened upstairs as they become lucid enough to remember where they are, what they've become.

By the end of the day, Dazai's arms are littered with bite marks. He cleans the wounds with soap and wraps his arms up with his ever-trusty bandages (for once you have an excuse, tch). Yosano rolls her eyes, unsurprised, when he refuses to let her waste her magic healing them.

Dazai retreats to the kitchen, the sun setting behind the windows, and finds Chuuya nursing a cup of liquor.

"I've had enough of hugging people for a whole year."

Dazai snorts, stamping down the urge to jab at his teddy-bear size. "Too bad, how else do you introduce a beast back into polite society?"

"Shut your mouth."

"I didn't even know you were here today," Dazai smoothly continues. He hones in on Ango's pot of diluted tea on the stove, opening cabinets for a cup. "All the incense must have blocked out the Gross Odor of Nakahara. Honestly, it's like the coven's scent gets digested then farted out of you."

Chuuya's stool chair back, his mouth opening, but the staircase creaks behind them. Akutagawa emerges, wary-eyed, in the doorway.

"They put us in the house down the street," Akutagawa explains, face expressionless. He accepts a cup of tea from Dazai. "So that's why you didn't see us today."

"See, Chuuya, that's how you properly respond to a question."

"As if the asker didn't provoke me first."

Akutagawa sips at his tea.

Dazai drinks from his own cup, still feeling full in the blood sense. There would be enough, if he kept his spellcasting to a minimum, for more of those waking up tonight before he needed to feed again.

The tea makes no difference to the fullness. Yosano did mention vampires having no stomach or intestines—she had MRIs on file—amongst their other disintegrated organs. Food particles and extra water must pass clean through them, vapors breathed into the air or sweated out of their skin like some river salamander.

Ango had brewed green tea, he realizes. It reminds him of Atsushi. Atsushi and his chazuke, the way his eyes lit up that one June afternoon when Dazai had made a portion for him. Would he still like it, after he woke up?

Chuuya squints at him. "Jesus. You're...fuckin' smitten. Who's the unluckily girl? Or guy?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Dazai says, keeping his eyes trained on the horizon.

*

A massive laundry operation has filled the yards, clotheslines strung from one fencepost to another. The neighborhood is loud again: cellars are emptied, expended lilies are thrown into the fire, families are reunited. Dazai is bitten more times than he can count.

Some of the awakened volunteer to fight against Yokohama's coven, hellbent on vengeance or morals or otherwise. Those who don't are assured of their protection regardless, shelter and safety until the city is freed or otherwise.

During the day, the curtains and blinds are drawn shut in certain houses. These are close to the forest, for the newly turned burn easily. At sunset, Odasaku and Kunikida lead them through drills in the brisk air, pouches of common leaves and stones ready to use. The nights become punctuated with ward spells and bird summons, practiced pentagrams drawn on notepads. Bundles of sage are burnt to cast out the stray will-o-wisps.

The volunteers stay on the fields for hours later, learning their way around silver knives and bottled fires, Kyouka at the helm.

Dazai and Ango continue to sabotage the coven's weakening lines where they can. Ranpo and Yosano flit in and out at odd hours, offering insights and hiding places in the wards they frequented, sometimes making the trek into the city with them.

Fukuzawa sails down the Gilded Passage and calls in more favors, a handful of the others in tow. The Bangkok mercenaries are joined by vampires and witches and werewolves from New York, Tijuana, Seoul. The ingredient closet becomes stocked with unfamiliar goods, new herbs to use, glittering stones to hold. The flower petals are bright in the gloom.

*

On the hundredth day, the starry night yawns wide, a blanket of darkness covering the short walk to the last house on the street. Dazai's boots crunch on dead leaves as he crosses the front yard.

The cellars are almost vacant, a pair of hunters scooping out the beds of lilies and rinsing out the aquariums, baskets, and tubs. If they would have to haul them out again for another disaster, another mass-scale enchantment—Dazai supposes they'll do it again. He's tired of many things.

Atsushi looks the same as back in July.

His hands are folded atop his stomach; his face is smooth in death, eyelids relaying nothing about the irises beneath. The lilies have curled into themselves, dried from the toxins they breathed in, then neutralized. He does not breathe.

Dazai aches all over.

He pulls up a chair and sits with Atsushi, feeling heavy and useless, the hunters changing shifts and bidding him good night sometime later. The edges of the seat dig into his thighs; the wooden pegs squeak too loudly at every movement he makes. He rolls his sphere of topaz in his palms. Another Sleeper rustles awake in the meantime, startling Dazai, but another hunter hurries over to tend to them, calling him over only to supply blood.

He settles back in his chair and wraps a fresh inch of bandage on his arm, the pinpricks of pain vanishing as the minutes pass. The lone conversation in the room bleeds into the background. His watch ticks. Some of them did wake up late by a few hours, days even, it's stupid to worry, but—

A rasp of air, a wince—

"Dazai-san?"

Chapter Text

In the empty living room, Atsushi finishes up a section on Meiji-era literature when a weight sinks onto him, sharp chin digging into his shoulder.

"Have you ever been on Cosmo Clock 21?"

Atsushi glances at Dazai. His newly trimmed hair—or so he says, the tangles can give the illusion of a few lost centimeters—brushes against Atsushi's ear, his shirt collar pressed and smelling of the pine needles he sleeps in. Despite all its new sensations and pains, Atsushi is relieved that this new body hardly ever blushes.

"No, I haven't," Atsushi says, keeping his eyes fixed on the page. "Please don't tell me you're thinking of going, at this time?"

Dazai grins, scooting into his own cushion, to Atsushi's relief. "Actually, we are. Ranpo and the others need something that's already bright and attention-hogging enough to communicate underneath the coven's noses, so I suggested it."

"So you - we're going to sneak in. And change the Ferris wheel colors."

"Yep. The witches will need to tune their mirror with the time loop before it can work. We need to get the spells on the same resonance and all that. Smoke signals are exciting, aren't they?"

"I suppose so," Atsushi says, setting down his pencil and shifting deeper in the warmth beneath the table. The kotatsu is one of many brought from the attic and beat of their dust, along with Kunikida's old entrance exam prep books and binders of meticulous notes on the specifics of Yokohama's local universities. "When did you plan it?"

Dazai shrugs. "As soon as Ango's scouts find a clear path to us, and the witches and Fukuzawa finish their preparations. Minato Mirai seems to be the general location of the coven's main headquarters, after they got pushed back to Nishi Ward. If it's too dangerous, we might have to use a more...overt signaling tactic. Like flares."

"That's...could you even get away fast enough?"

"Exactly my thoughts." Dazai sighs, stretching out his legs from under him. "So we're going to try to take over the circuits of the Cosmo Clock first, or some other sparkly building along the bay. The edge of the time loop is in those waters anyways."

Atsushi hums in assent, absently picking at the corner of his page. He hated to ruin Kunikida's pristine workbooks, so he'd foraged around the neighborhood to piece together a stack of loose leaf paper. The leather-bound notebooks are reserved for the people showing promise in casting through occult symbols, things more complicated than a pentagram or a moon. It isn't his affinity.

"You don't have to go, of course," Dazai says, after a pause. "There are plenty of hunters and vampires to go. You don't have to put yourself in danger. You don't owe us anything."

He meets Dazai's gaze again. He had not heard him sounding so uncertain in a long while, if ever.

"No—" Atsushi takes a breath to calm his voice, touched by Dazai's concern, his need to make sure Atsushi knew he had a choice. "I want to help wherever I can."

Dazai nods, a small smile gracing his features. Not for the first time, Atsushi is struck by how handsome he is. Before all this is over, he doubts it would be for the last time.

He closes his workbook, shutting out the thoughts, and rearranges his pencils and erasers into a neat row. An empty vial sits on the corner of the table. Leftover poppy seeds stick to the sides. Thanks to Yosano's potion, the soreness in his gums had eased in the two weeks since he'd woken up. He still grazes the inside of his cheeks from time to time, fangs scraping out small tears that heal up within the hour.

"How was France, by the way?" Atsushi picks up the vial and stands, intending to wash it in the sink of the brewing garage. "Was it anything like the atmosphere in Bangkok?"

"A little, yeah. The coven I roomed with had humans with them, neighbors and such. Their leader's wife was mortal, even," Dazai says. He stretches a lazy hand toward Atsushi.

Atsushi rolls his eyes, but helps him up with amusement. "Let me guess - she was a total babe?"

Dazai sputters, mock aghast. "What do you take me for, Atsushi-kun? I didn't even notice beyond the human part!"

"You were the one who calculated, what, forty-three percent of the doctors in your hospital department were attractive." Atsushi leads the way down the hall, laughing under his breath. "We had a whole discussion about it."

"You remember? Of course you do," Dazai says morosely. "Well, that was before—" He cuts himself off, footsteps stilling on the wooden floor.

"Before what?"

"Nothing."

Atsushi lays his hand on the doorknob and glances back at him. The question on his tongue fades at the look Dazai gives him, dark with things unsaid. It makes his skin flood with heat, and his thoughts leap back to the day of his Sleep, to the dawn breaking in Dazai's room as he was packing for Thailand. Atsushi had kissed his hand.

In return, Dazai's lips had been gentle—and so close to his.

"Dazai-san—"

They (he? Dazai?) are saved by Kunikida running into them on his way out of the garage.

*

Up at this altitude, the air easily slides below zero at night. Atsushi is glad he'd packed his sweaters and warmest flannel shirts, buttoning them up to his neck when they head outside to practice their spellwork. They're sheltered from the worst of the wind in the veranda, but choose to be in the open yard if they can, where the link to the moon, the trees, and the streams feels the clearest.

November arrives in the form of scarlet leaves and gray rain, gourds and squash leaning on the porches. A few of the pumpkins had been carved for Halloween, a small festivity for the children at the camp and a way to celebrate the vampires' safe passages through their Sleep. The crumbling brick wall behind their row of houses now bears a glow-in-the-dark line of jack-o'-lanterns, drawn in varying degrees of artistic talent.

A reminder of what they could have been comes several times a week. An alarm of spelled geese flies through the neighborhood, squawking up a storm. Groups of feral vampires escape Yokohama's control and scatter in all directions, some inevitably winding up in the mountains with them.

Once, Atsushi had been digging up wild ginger with Kenji and Yosano in a wooded area at the edge of the wards. Kenji had done all the carrying and lifting, courtesy of the werewolf blood somewhere in him; Atsushi recalls moments in the library involving too many encyclopedias to not stop and stare. A musky odor, like bad sweat, had stung his nose. In the next howl of wind, a mass of fused ferals stumbled out of the fog, fangs bared in a scribble of limbs and veins.

The three of them had been more than enough.

A few choice spells uncapped from jars to drive back any lunging hands, daggers whistling out of their sheaths. Atsushi had felt his heart beat again, those tense seconds of grappling and stabbing before Yosano had thrust her favored jeweled knife into the last chest, whispering either a curse or a prayer under her breath.

*

Atsushi enters his room just as the sun begins to rise. It's the same house, Ranpo's mansion, he had been assigned before his Sleep, except he's on the ground floor now. The newly Awake had been assigned rooms like before—Atsushi had shared with two others during the first week or so, but friendships form, people sleep somewhere else and stay, and Atsushi was left to himself.

He's alone, in a looser sense. It doesn't ring with loneliness like the orphanage or the apartment.

The washing machine occupies the room next door, along with a freezer that shudders every time it comes on. People walk in and out often enough to rarely leave him in complete silence.

Atsushi changes into his sleep clothes and is thumbing through Snow Country under his blankets when there's a frantic knocking on his window—Atsushi opens things carefully now, his newfound strength had already left a dent in the plaster in one of the rooms upstairs—reveals Tanizaki on the other side. Panting for breath, he asks for Atsushi's help in an overflowing potion in the house next door.

They run through the cold morning. Atsushi chops up chives and skims off ominously bubbling pockets of froth from a cauldron. Tanizaki and Naomi hurry to quell their attempt of potion recipe from another continent, throwing in bits of ingredients and counting aloud as they stir beside him.

Half an hour later, Atsushi leaves with their profuse thanks and a vial of ice for his later use.

On his way back, Oda and Ango have settled into a pair of chairs on Ranpo's front porch, talking quietly. Oda has a pile of belts on the table, soldering brass clasps onto them for holding vials. Spotting him, they wave Atsushi over through the curtain of wisteria.

"Did Dazai get you anything from La Loupe, Atsushi?" Ango asks, a curious tilt to his head.

Atsushi blinks. "Yes, a cat—er, a glass figure of one." He keeps it in his room, out of harm's way on the dresser.

Oda and Ango exchange a look, then smile back at him, inadvertently exposing their fangs. It's still an unnerving sight.

"Sakura, Odasaku's daughter, got a paint set from him," Ango elaborates. "With nice quality oils too, from what I've heard."

"She woke up early just to be glued to the easel," Oda says, eyes crinkled in mirth. "It used to be five alarm snoozes in a morning, if I'm lucky."

Ango huffs out a laugh. "You're too good for this world, Odasaku."

Silently, Atsushi agrees. He likes to think the orphans under Oda's care had been adopted early enough to not remember any pain otherwise.

Oda shakes his head and drinks from the goblet in his hand. He swallows and angles the liquid up at Atsushi. "There's fresh lamb's blood in the kitchen, if you're thirsty. It's been filtered. Just warm it up."

Atsushi nods. "Thanks, Oda-san. I'll grab a cup when I get in." He wonders when this became a normal conversation to have.

In return, Oda smiles again, understanding without Atsushi having to say a word. "Ango would also gnash his teeth if I neglected to mention his new chrysanthemum tea, too. So for the sake of his enamels, I'm telling you to please try it."

"It's on the stove, last time I checked," Ango says, voice pleased. Tea and coffee for vampires involves precise measurements, milligrams of sugar and minute drops from a main pot. Ango has a knack for it; his delicate concoctions are frequently sought after.

In the kitchen, a few people are milling around. The rice cooker is empty after the hunters' early breakfast. Atsushi reaches over the egg shells strewn over the countertop and pours himself a finger's height of blood. None had tasted as sweet as Dazai's, that first night he had woken up and found the vampire sitting by his bathtub of lilies.

He listens to the hunters talking of a skirmish in a shopping mall and watches the herbalists run in from the backyard. The presence of magic in the camp protects the ivy and wisteria growing on the houses from the frosts, and the greenhouses are no different. Every day, the countertop is covered with fresh berries and plums.

Outside, the hunters struggle to haul pails of water in and out of the greenhouses—evidently, the pipes don't benefit from the same protection.

Ranpo wrenches open the backdoor, scarf wound to his nose, a scoop of fertilizer in hand. For the plants in his library, maybe. He yawns out a loud good morning to the room at large before heading up the stairs.

Atsushi turns his attention back to his glass. The clamminess in his limbs eases as the blood soaks into his body. It would delay his need to feed for a couple of days, the thirst for human blood primal in this phase. The older vampires only have to feed once or twice a month, if they lead a quiet life. More, if they use magic and fight.

"It is not a big secret that the quickest path to amassing power is to drink a glutton's share," Kyouka had told him over cards one day. "More so if the bone marrow is consumed in ritual."

Atsushi had remembered the newspapers, those first victims of the coven. No more of that had happened in the city's unending day, at least. The warmongers have been the first to kill but also the first to be killed, reckless in their eagerness for the front lines.

"The fresher, the better." Kyouka's mouth had been a disappearing line. "But nature's magic has its ways to cull in the excesses, fortunately. Most of the gluttons gain power too fast, and fall."

At the sink, Atsushi washes his glass and the rest of the morning's dishes with a soapy sponge. His tongue and mouth are coated with the metallic tang of blood. He takes a cup of chrysanthemum tea to bed with him to wash it down.

*

Atsushi thinks about the almost-kiss, sometimes.

It doesn't feel real, the same way it doesn't feel real that they're in the middle of a war, an invisible war fought with skirmishes and magic rather than bayonets and battlefield formations.

What had Dazai been thinking, that morning?

Atsushi had once thought unraveling the secrets of the universe was easier than getting an answer to that question. But Dazai had opened up, petal by petal, trusting his softer side to his small inner circle. To Atsushi.

He learns that Dazai's father had been a vampire and his mother a human. After she died, Dazai wandered the country before being captured by a coven further south and turned when they recognized his half-blood status, a cause for both fear and envy in the immortal world. He was the bastard son of a warlord. He hadn't seen his father since he was a toddler, and Atsushi doesn't pry.

He learns that Dazai has burn scars trailing up his right side. He'd been dunked in a cauldron during one of his early missions, too late for magical healing by the time he escaped and got to safety. His bandage habit intensified after that, a second skin that once helped with the chafing, now a small measure of peace for his mind.

Dazai prefers coffee over tea. Dazai has a weak spot for tropical hibiscuses; he has four on his windowsill. Dazai had left a bloody trail up the coast, mercenary and dog to the highest bidding coven. Yokohama's had simply been one of those, but there, he met Oda and Ango and stayed long enough to try to rinse his hands for good.

Atsushi doubts he had lived through half the things Dazai had went through.

When he voices this, Dazai tells him you could drown in a creek or an ocean and be dead regardless, then tickled Atsushi to break the silence until he conceded his point.

Of course, the kiss hadn't been on the mouth. A moment of sentiment, maybe. Dazai had been leaving for Bangkok that day, and Atsushi would be asleep before noon. And Atsushi did bring Dazai's hand to his lips first, soothing the stung pinky in some thoughtless rush of courage.

Atsushi had been kissed a grand total of two times in his life, both of which at the orphanage.

Sato Ikumi, pigtails bound in identical fraying ribbons, had been saying how she had kissed every boy in their arithmetic class. Her friend had pointed out, loud enough to hear from the swing set, that she hadn't kissed Atsushi-kun yet. So Ikumi, ten, had sighted Atsushi, eleven, across the yard, flounced over, pecked him on the lips, and skipped away giggling, just like that. There had been peach balm on her lips. He had vaguely thought that it was nice, a touch without malice, then thought no more of it.

Three years later, puberty causing most of the boys to shoot up in gangly arms and legs, shy Yamazaki Touma had cornered Atsushi in their dorm room. Their other two roommates had went down to breakfast. Touma braced a hand on the wall beside Atsushi's head, face mashing through a variety of contortions and colors (hilarious, if Atsushi hadn't been so utterly confused and slightly scared), before whispering can I try this? and pressing their lips together, which, too, was sort of nice.

Touma pulled away first, cheeks red, then ran out the door and never brought it up again. Months later, Atsushi had seen him and another boy in an empty classroom, hands under each other's shirts. Touma did not run away that time.

Atsushi recounts the abridged versions of the stories to Dazai, one night in the library. Basically:

"Um, yes, I've been kissed before. Twice. I...helped them solve their problems."

"Problems?" Dazai looks up from his chess board, in the middle of horsing around against himself, and frowns.

"A collection problem, and...a gay crisis, I think," Atsushi says, trailing off. He smiles to himself, wondering what had steered their conversation to this. Dazai has a skill of flitting through fifty topics in the span of minutes.

"Hmm." Dazai turns pensive. He picks up a knight, shakes his head, and puts it down. "Well, I hope the third time's the charm for you. You deserve a kiss with someone you actually like."

It's unexpectedly sweet of him. Atsushi swallows around a lump in his throat. "Er—thank you, Dazai-san. I hope so, too."

Their eyes lock across the table. Atsushi quickly looks away. He could have sworn Dazai's gaze had darted to his mouth for a split second. A trick of the light. His new vision was too sharp at times, verging on hallucinations. He buries his nose back in Frankenstein, where the scientist travels through the Alps, alone, and might have a situation to rival their own.

*

Dazai drives them to Miyagase Lake. Beside him, Kunikida clutches his armrest in a death grip, no doubt fuming at the healer's instructions for his concussion medicine.

"You - brake! Brake! Look before you turn, you idiot, that truck could have swiped us—"

Atsushi, Kenji, and Kyouka are crammed in the back row, two other hunters occupying the seats in the middle. One of them looks a second away from puking over his shoes.

Between the three of them who actually had a driver's license, Kunikida was advised to not operate heavy machinery, Kyouka was content with being their lookout, and the other hunter took one look at Dazai's determined face and deemed it a lost cause. Before Kunikida could say enablers, Dazai had shot out of the driveway in reverse, declaring how he basically has three-quarters of a license ("the Kanagawa examiners are simply loathful, anyone could fail under their nitpicky little hands at the end") and maneuvered them to the edge of the neighborhood.

Atsushi, who had shown an affinity with stones, would get practice in breaking enchantments. More specifically, enchantments on people. Certain vampires, the Carmillas, get their prey to come to them, the humans waking to a bruise on their neck and blisters on their feet, memories washed blank.

After Dazai jumps a curb making a left turn, Kunikida slumps in his seat and yells into his hands.

"It must be exhausting, being a Lawful Good all the time, Kunikida-kun."

"Will you just shut up."

"Now? I can't even say ‘duck' if an axe is thrown our way?"

"Don't waggle your tongue so uselessly asking stupid questions!"

"I can certainly waggle my tongue in useful ways, you know, if you get my meaning—"

"And I'll cut it off so you can never annoy anyone again—"

Dazai begins whistling a rendition of another pop song. He meets Atsushi's eyes in the rearview mirror; Atsushi shakes his head. At least he uses his signal light.

Dazai had resumed his disguise of a snapback and face mask with a jacket thrown on. The rest of them are in khakis, custodial shirts tucked in, or olive drab jumpsuits, playing the part of maintenance workers. Everyone had been brushed with pine sap under their chins, masking their blood scents. The coven aren't looking for them, too busy waging war to the north, but wouldn't take kindly to finding vampire hunters inside their prized time loop, either.

Out the window, evergreens rise up, somber and tall, the other trees shedding yellow leaves to decay on the forest floor. A freezing rain had lashed through that afternoon, turning their bark a wet black. Behind them, the sun sets, the hour earlier with each passing day. Soon the vampires could wake up, go about their night, and fall asleep without ever seeing a ray of sunlight.

The lake glitters under the moon, reflecting the starry sky. Dazai clicks off the ignition and they climb out.

Atsushi and Kyouka follow him to one side, to the edge of the forest, while the humans go with Kunikida to the lakeshore. Separate spells to enter the Gilded Passage and the Silver Roads.

"Aim for the shrine east of the Kashio," Kyouka calls out, reading from her phone screen. "There's been a lot of mind control happening in that ward."

One of the hunters nods, and begins taking out his candles and powders. It won't take nearly as long for four people to pass through, compared to that crowded night under the crescent moon.

Kyouka and Dazai guide Atsushi through marking lines in the soil, pouring a transparent liquid smelling of limes. He channels his magic to the bundle of red spider lilies in his hands, and the dark forest whisks them away in a shower of sparks.

They take a carriage through the sands of the Silver Roads.

After being waved through by posting of Taipei vampires at the new tower—guards to prevent Yokohama's coven from storming through, if they managed to find a way in—Kyouka guides the ghostly horses with a precision from decades of practice. The Roads' cacti and dunes blend to a smudge as they pick up their speed.

Dazai rifles through his bag, taking out a stack of notes for Ango, who had left the day before with his assistants, all dressed in the sensible shoes and visored helmets of mailmen, their latest disguise in moving quickly around his web of informants throughout Yokohama.

"By the way, Ango ran into some trouble and broke his glasses." With that, Dazai brandishes a pair of leopard print frames, fake diamonds glinting at the corners. Ango's glasses are a cosmetic thing. Like the rest of them, his eyes had been fixed during his own Sleep, but a link to his old self is hard to cut, according to Dazai's psychoanalytic musings. "Think he'll appreciate the replacement?"

Atsushi grimaces. "He'll probably throw them at you. That's why he told us where all the important items are before he left." He pulls out the real spare from his backpack, found in the top drawer in Ango's desk, as stated. The case opens to reveal the sedate circular glasses inside.

Dazai's mouth falls open. "Why - he doesn't trust me, after all this time of friendship?"

Atsushi pointedly looks down at the glasses. Which hapless grandmother he'd sweet-talked into lending them, Atsushi doesn't want to know.

"Et tu, Brute?" Dazai shuts the case, pouting. Atsushi has to remind himself that this is the same mastermind behind their efforts.

"Then," Atsushi says. "I'll guess I'll see you on the fields of Philippi?"

Dazai grins, glancing at Atsushi in such an odd, relieved manner that gives him pause. He flutters his lashes. "It's a date, then. Just ignore the civil war happening in the background."

Kyouka turns to give them an exasperated look. "As the twenty-first century would say, nerds."

Dazai chokes in laughter. Atsushi smiles back sheepishly, closer to flushing than he'd like to admit.

"We're about to exit." Kyouka guides the horses off the road to a slow trot. The humming of the magic grows. Glittering sand swirls above their heads, swallowing the tinsel-leaved trees.

Wind rushes past his ears, and the world warps. Yokohama's twilight, pink and violet, appears in a rush, pulling them in.

" Oof."

"Sorry."

Dazai's hipbone smacks into Atsushi's ribs. Kyouka's skull knocks against his own. They sit up in a grassy lot, a safe distance away from the main street. The backside of a 24-hour parking garage casts them in shadow, a few bulbs missing from its crooked sign.

Dazai pats Atsushi's smarting side in apology and adjusts the straps of his bag. "They're usually slower than us, so let's find them first."

They cross a busy intersection to the small shrine, lingering outside the entrance as casually as possible while Kenji squats, fascinated with an anthill, and Kunikida converses with an attending maiden. Spotting them, she smiles and bows, pressing a small package into Kunikida's hands. Most of the caretakers of shrines and temples are aware of the supernatural events around them, as the udon-bearing priests had before their escape.

"Didn't know shrine maidens were your type," Dazai eggs Kunikida once they're out on the street. "Then again, they're prim and proper, probably always on time, and earn their wages fairly."

"I'm not even going to dignify that with a response," Kunikida says.

"What'd she give you?" Dazai tries to poke at the canvas bundle in Kunikida's grasp, but is swatted away.

"Tangerines for our warding spells. They have a tree growing in their radius, so you'll burn your hands, dammit."

"Ah. We happen to be allergic to sacred-grown fruit."

"As I was saying."

At the next block, the six of them part with Dazai, who waves them across the street before the crowd presses in on all sides.

"He'll be fine," Kunikida says, noticing Atsushi glance back. "That bastard's like a cockroach, impossible to kill."

Atsushi can only nod.

They find an area riddled with enchanted residents, Atsushi's chunk of jade growing ice cold in his pocket. Kunikida and Kenji quickly heal a man they pass on the road. His eyes are already cloudy, footsteps jerky to someone paying attention. No doubt his coven host on the other end of the string had been reeling him in for the night.

Like helping a drunkard home, they lead the man back to his apartment—by the Kashio River, as Ango had determined—and Kyouka and Kenji split off with Atsushi to sweep the rest of the building. An excuse about checking the gas lines gets them invitations inside readily enough, toolbox and uniform lending them added authority.

Once in the privacy of a home, Atsushi blows a pinch of nutmeg at their shoulders, Kenji lights a sprig of sage, and Kyouka, the distractor, catches them as they start to sway forward. Atsushi drinks in the layers of magic through the borrowed sphere of lapis lazuli (for truth, a handbook in Ranpo's library had said) until the tiny circles on the nape of their necks recede and the stone warms in his palm.

They develop a rhythm to it. Atsushi becomes woozy with exhaustion and Kenji pries the lapis from his hands. With Kunikida and the other two hunters, they clear the rest of the area, working under a shared fervor despite the fact that their efforts are a temporary solution, a bandage on a mortal wound.

By the time Dazai finds them, Atsushi's piece of jade is no longer ice in his pocket, and the moon has come out. The human hunters disappear down the Gilded Passage with only minutes to spare until midnight.

*

"That's the wrong way to fold a crane, Poe."

"There's no wrong way, only wrong intentions to heaven."

"...I feel like some saying got severely distorted."

Atsushi exits the bathroom and crosses the foyer, where Ranpo had welcomed visitors that afternoon. Their scent is a mix of vampire and mortal, with the vampires smelling neither of Yokohama's coven nor of the pine forest around them. Toweling his hair dry, Atsushi passes the kitchen to his room.

Ranpo is sitting on a stool in the midst of his guests. Ango balances his laptop across from him, trying to turn the conversation back on topic. Ranpo's American friends had been persuaded into the conflict as well; snippets of English are thrown into the mix. Glasses of chilled blood and soda rest side by side on the counter.

Around the corner, Atsushi pauses at a faint light in the laundry room.

Oda sits on the washing machine, a crystal ball glowing in his hands.

Before Atsushi can walk away, intending to leave Oda in his trance in peace, Oda looks up.

"Atsushi-kun. How are you?"

"I'm doing fine," Atsushi says, pausing before the doorway. "How are you, Oda-san? Are your children alright?"

"We're all fine," Oda replies, smiling. He always had a rare but warm smile, he thinks. It lacks the traces of Ango's coolness and Dazai's ulterior motives.

In his lap, the crystal ball dims and goes out, returning to a regular smoky quartz.

"I was finished, anyway," Oda says, reading Atsushi's mind before he could apologize for interrupting. At the curiosity that must be on his face, Oda gestures around the tiny room. "I sat down in the first quiet room I could."

"Oh." At Oda's invitation, Atsushi takes a seat on the washing machine beside him, careful not to leap and bust his head through the ceiling. Ranpo wouldn't appreciate that. "Dazai-san did say to keep your divination a secret."

Dazai had relayed stories over the past months—Oda seeing a man's appendix about to rupture in a few hours, hunters walking into an ambush on the wharf. Things saved by his foresight. Oda did not get to choose what cards the future showed him, but could narrow the scope and lengthen the time ahead from years of practice.

"It's not a huge deal. The less people who know about it, the better."

"Most of the hunters use those," Atsushi points at the crystal ball, remembering polishing those like it before his Sleep, "to scry, right?"

Oda hums. "In my time in the coven, I was their seer, of sorts. People didn't really know my name, not like Dazai's—but my venom did fetch a high price."

Atsushi turns to look at Oda, eyes widening. "You mean they—"

Oda nods.

"Oda-san, you would've had to be put under, again and again—" Like a brute hand holding a captive in a basin of water, near drowning, letting them catch a breath before pushing them back down. It would explain his scarce scent, repeated damage to his venom glands tied to other anatomy. Atsushi's stomach turns cold.

Oda only nods, matter-of-fact. Atsushi hears his heart begin to beat, betraying his otherwise relaxed posture. "I was brought back, at times, to divine before being put under again. But I was usually too weak to even sit up and see the crystal. Dazai and Ango would sneak into my chambers and give me blood. They might have saved my life, one of those times. Or more."

Atsushi swallows and looks down at his hands.

Tanizaki had mentioned the underground venom trade once, the vampiric game of genes without breeding, draining prized coven assets with clamor and sport. Neither of them knew how close to home that particular market was.

I'm sorry, Oda-san. He doesn't say it aloud but hears Kunikida's voice saying, you don't have to apologize, it's not your fault.

"I'm glad you're here, then," Atsushi says instead, looking up. "Dazai-san and Ango-san—they wouldn't be the same without you."

Oda's smile returns. "I wouldn't be the same without them, either."

Atsushi listens as Oda's heart fades to a stop. As with Dazai's past, a tacit agreement stands that there's more to the story than the facts retold.

They change the subject, Oda offering to help with Atsushi's scrying. Atsushi agrees, and manages to conjure up an image of the lake in the confines of Oda's quartz sphere, tree roots aglow beneath the soil in a surreal landscape.

He lets the scene rope him in like a dream, shapes and sensations muddying the water and air as he scrambles for purchase, to stay lucid. Oda sends out tendrils from the outside and nudges Atsushi's mind to concentrate at key places, the scene sharpening until Atsushi could smell the grass, see the silvery flash of fish scale in the water. He maps the natural patterns of energy with Oda's guidance. His presence keeps Atsushi's soul from drifting away.

Oda might have been renowned for his divination, but he is well-versed in all forms of crystal gazing.

By the time they part, Atsushi feels lightheaded from the magic expenditure, but buoyant from his progress. Oda heads one way, intending to check on Ango now that the kitchen's inhabitants had turned to more serious tones, and Atsushi turns to his room next door.

But with a step in the hall, Oda stops and looks back at Atsushi.

"You make him happy, you know."

Atsushi opens his mouth with an automatic who? but Oda's gaze gives him pause.

"His plans are going well—with all the vampires and resources coming together..." Atsushi falters, the words weak to his ears.

Oda shakes his head, kindly. "I can read it in his face. I'm glad."

*

Vampires no longer dream.

Just as their hearts no longer need to beat and their lungs only expand to talk, some ancient magic has switched off his unconscious brain waves. Atsushi lies down and wakes up without moving a muscle. No more nightmares to leave him in a cold sweat, gasping for air.

On days without work in the city, his alarm wakes him as the sun sets behind the mountains. There is little need to comb his hair, which now grows at a snail's pace, but there are mirrors throughout the mansion, enchanted to show the vampires' reflections in living strokes of a painting if the glass is fed a handful of shiso leaves first.

He drinks half a cup of human blood every other day. There's an hour of group training, where he spars with Kyouka in the backyard, away from the greenhouses and laundry lines, sometimes drawing onlookers after dinner. A warm shower, then practice with stones or herbs or a crystal ball until midnight, and he would climb the stairs and read in the library where Dazai would be, the nights he was home.

Atsushi hates it, the waiting. The knowledge that Dazai is in danger out there, in the city teeming with those he had defected from. Those who would crave his head if his disguised appearance and scent doesn't hold up.

"What will you do, after this?" Dazai asks, one night.

Some nights, Dazai lets Atsushi replace his bandages for him in the quiet of his room, baring his lean, scarred torso in a wordless act of trust. It had left Atsushi's hands shaking with the roll the first time he'd been asked.

Tonight, Dazai sports a few fresh wounds in addition to the old burn scars and fang marks on his skin. He'd been stabbed with silver while moving an injured hunter out from a rooftop, where the coven sentinels had been perched.

"I don't know," Atsushi answers honestly, carefully dabbing the ointment around the cuts.

He tries to imagine it, going back to normal life, or as normal life could be after being turned. He would shelve books, carry plates in the restaurant, and see Dazai, Kunikida, and Tanizaki a few times a week at the university library, if they even went back to school.

Occasionally, he might meet up with Kyouka and the others, if they wanted to keep in contact. A small, selfish part of him dreads it, losing this closeness behind. Perhaps they would let them stay until the newly turned could venture out into the sunlight and find a means to feed on their own.

"I'd...I would go back to work, and try to study for my entrance exams in between. Store up blood packs for when I really need to, sneak into supermarkets for pig's blood, maybe."

"But you wouldn't get to practice magic that much," Dazai says. "Drinking human blood once a month - it's only for those who don't want to cast. Or can't. You are good at it. You learn fast."

Atsushi smiles at the compliment. Dazai, with his back to him, doesn't see. "I do like it. Especially when the right stone..." The feeling of magic welling inside him, then let loose, resonating through his bones. He shakes his head. "But I don't need it, once the city's safe again."

"I'll make sure the donors deliver to your home, once they start. Some of the hunters have a system in the works already. There'll be opaque packaging so Yuuki-kun won't freak out. I'll deliver it to you myself if I have to."

"His name is Yuuto, Dazai-san," Atsushi chides him, a swooping feeling in his chest that Dazai wouldn't break contact with him, at least. "But I think you already knew that."

Dazai hums, rubbing at his watch. "So, what do you say?"

"Who says I would want to see you?" Atsushi jokes. Beneath his fingertips, Dazai's spine tenses. Imperceptible, if Atsushi isn't touching him. Surely he isn't—he doesn't—A realization hits him.

They are both idiots, thinking that the other would be so quick to forget this chapter of their life, heavy as it was. That their friendship means more to them but is disposable to the other.

Praying that he isn't reading Dazai wrong, Atsushi says, "I would stay if you'd asked me to, Dazai-san."

Dazai lets out a breath. Atsushi's hands fall to his sides, and Dazai turns to look at him.

"Then, Atsushi-kun, would you stay with us, even after the coven falls?" Dazai's mouth curls without humor. "Or even if they don't?"

"Of course, if you'll let me," Atsushi says, a part of him still hesitating, still waiting to be unwanted, pushed out into a cold morning without a second thought.

"The hunters won't lose you," Dazai says."You won't lose us, either. We'll move our headquarters back to Yokohama when it's clear, but we won't disband for a while, if ever. You'll be welcome to come and go when you want."

They're close, the individual hairs on Dazai's fringe visible, lashes shadowed in candlelight. Atsushi's painfully aware of Dazai's bare chest, a hand's breadth away.

I hope the third time's the charm for you, Atsushi-kun.

"I—I'll do your bandages now, turn around, please—" Atsushi hastily replaces the top on the tin of ointment and picks up the roll of bandages.

The methodical loops he makes around Dazai's waist, neck, and arms calms the pulse in his veins, loud to his ears. Dazai must be able to hear it, but tactfully doesn't comment on it.

*

Another week passes. Other vampires and magic users pass through the neighborhood, both from the region and out of it. Fukuzawa quickly finds them a job to help with, be it in the physicians' house or a brewing room or Yokohama itself. The French witches, with the added help, are etching out the lost days on their mirror, shading in the details to leave less to chance.

Break the time loop, end the war, reform the coven.

Over the months, a group of rebels in the coven had aligned themselves with Fukuzawa and the rest of the hunters. They had been with Dazai in Bangkok, Fukuzawa in other places, recruiting mercenaries and other resources. The first time Atsushi had seen them, he was struck by how vampiric they seemed. A pallid one and his cravat, a blonde woman with a ruby brooch high on her throat. All wearing embroidered satin cloaks and sashes from another century.

He's training outside in the snow when they arrive. Kunikida points them out to him: Akutagawa and Chuuya, Hirotsu and Higuchi. Sometimes, only Akutagawa and Gin show up to sketch out maneuvers; the next day, Kouyou could bring along half a dozen of her herbalists and healers, lending their labor as a peace offering.

Dazai doesn't tell them about the mirror. Ango keeps his spies moving as usual. The rebels don't dare to bring more than three or four soldiers at a time. Trust is a fragile thing for the foreseeable future, especially with the newly turned vampires and their human families under the hunters' protection.

Atsushi keeps to himself when they visit, though snatches of their conversations ("So I was saying to him, there are other dates you can take her out on. You don't have to puke through a five course meal to satisfy your—your little brain's needs!" "What little brain??") make him hope that the alliance, the first in almost a century, he's told, will last.

*

He gets shot.

Twice, in fact, but the first had been a regular bullet intended for Tanizaki. They are buying time for Naomi and another hunter to rush a bleeding victim to safety, drawing the coven vampires away and into the park nearby.

Kyouka is locked in a furious exchange of blades with the leader of the splinter group, leaving Atsushi and Tanizaki against the underlings. A fountain had been tipped over when Kyouka had knocked one on the head against its basin, pigeons scattering. Water bursts from the shorn pipe.

"Your left!" Tanizaki calls.

Atsushi dodges the spew of hot liquid by an inch. He retaliates with his dagger, vertebrae popping in his back with the force.

"Weak scum!" the vampire hisses, clutching his wounded neck. The dagger had earned its mark.

Atsushi rushes to the next vampire, glad that the curry powder rubbed on their clothes had masked their scents. Tanizaki's human scent, especially.

He sees the burnt grass first. The flames catch on his sleeve. He rolls on his side to put them out on the broken water line, hooking another by the blade. He unscrews a jar; a rope of ivy climbs forth. It holds two of them in place for Tanizaki to cleanly knock out with his stake. Venom extraction, if they had enough time to draw the chalk lines afterwards.

They fight to the last one. The vampire, realizing she's outnumbered, whips to Tanizaki with a bolt of clarity, old-fashioned pistol unclipped and aimed.

"You aren't—"

Atsushi blocks the bullet, the metal leaving only a hot touch on his head before glancing off. Behind him, Tanizaki lobs a bottle at the vampire.

A thousand ice chips sprout from her skin as she falls.

The breeze moves past, thick with the smell of herbs. They look at each other.

"Thank you. I—I guess that brew was important after all," Tanizaki says, scratching his head.

They smile at each other, the heat of the fight still roaring in his ears.

Dark hair loosened in its braid, Kyouka lugs over her own fallen enemy a moment later. She and Atsushi split a stick of chalk and draw the usual shapes on the pavement. Tanizaki strengthens his illusory spell to keep any unlucky pedestrians from rushing into the park.

"Do you think this will be enough?" Tanizaki drags a vampire over and holds up a vial of saltwater.

Atsushi unclips his own from his belt. "Probably, with this."

With Kyouka's approval, Tanizaki casts and Atsushi observes. Both of their vials fill with the golden venom, mist pooling at their ankles as the spell completes.

A dove breaks through the tree line, warbling out a string of music notes. Naomi and the other hunter had met up with Yosano's team and are heading to the meeting point. The fountain has quieted to a stain on the ground. The three of them exit the park.

It's a warm night, as always. The people on the packed streets swim by: drunk businessmen, clerks closing their stalls, high-schoolers after cram school. There are puddles on the sidewalks, leftover from the morning's rain shower. They go under the overpass of a train track, buttery light spilling from the station onto the crosswalk.

It's about a fifteen minute walk to Atsushi's apartment, where Yuuto would be winding down (or up, knowing his roommate) as he had for the past cycles of July 2nd. Did Itsuki, their other roommate, ever go home from the hospital? Or does he stay overnight, a comfort to his sister with the sprained neck?

With luck, they would be freed soon. He hopes the witches' mirror, a reflection of the city in one dice roll of the future, would treat his roommates gently, if not fairly.

The stench hits him first, sour sweat and rotting meat.

Kyouka shouts to Tanizaki, making several heads turn before the illusion spell is cast. Atsushi takes out a dowsing stone from his pocket, charmed to detect the presence of Ferals. It's glowing when he holds it up for them to see.

They hurry into the closest side street and duck behind a parked van. Nothing. The smell wafts over, stronger.

Carefully, they spread out along the street and head further down, past the prismatic glow of a vending machine, under an open window letting out the aroma of baking bread from three stories up. And above, on a fire escape, stands a clump of bodies.

Atsushi and Kyouka launch themselves at them, knives unsheathed and shining.

He catches one at the shoulder, pushing it down steel rungs, echoing bump by bump to prevent it fusing with the others. These have weapons in their gnarled hands. Although they wield them clumsily, Atsushi can smell the silver in the bullet as a shot goes off, arcing to the sky.

A cloud drifts up; Tanizaki frantically casts spells on the ground, bottles fizzing under his guidance.

The Ferals have fresh blood on their clothes, Atsushi realizes. A wash of dread drops into his throat as he guides his dagger up once more, Tanizaki's spells slowing their mottled limbs.

"No—"

Another shot goes off, and Atsushi's hip blooms in pain. Gritting his teeth, he crashes into the brick wall of the building before regaining his balance, unleashing his own tangle of ivy on the feral vampire leaping at him.

—past him, vines going taut too late, the vampire landing on top of Tanizaki below.

They move in unison: Atsushi wrenches the Feral off of him, Kyouka finishing it off with a thrust to the neck.

"I'll call them! You take care of him!" she shouts, rushing back up to the last snarling Feral on the fire escape in liquid grace.

Tanizaki is clinging to consciousness, his glamor flickering around them with his eyelids. Stumbling, Atsushi tears off his backpack and rips out a clean towel, pressing it to the gashes on his abdomen. The Feral had run him through with its claws.

"Tanizaki-san." Atsushi presses the weight of his shoulders on the wounds. Ignoring the screech in his hip, he takes one hand off to rummage through another pocket of his backpack, finding mint leaves that he mashes to a pulp between his fingers and throws onto Tanizaki's stomach. Atsushi would heal, but Tanizaki is mortal. Alive and fragile.

"Hurts," Tanizaki mumbles.

Kyouka has her herb case open and ready when she lands. A poppy paste for pain, bandage and gauze dipped in a cherry-red tonic. A few minutes later, the bleeding slows, and stops.

From Kyouka's dove, Naomi and the other hunter find them kneeling in the alleyway. She clutches her brother's hand until the wail of sirens kicks in and grows closer and the paramedics climb out. Yosano's favored hospital had been alerted and sent her (or a fellow supernatural physician) to their aid.

It will be alright, Kyouka murmurs. Naomi steps into the ambulance after her brother. It would have to be.

All around them, the dust of the Ferals rise up and scatter in the wind.

*

"You scared me, you know."

Atsushi pauses in folding his washed clothes on his futon. Dazai leans against his bedroom door, smile not quite reaching his eyes.

"I'm okay," Atsushi assures him. A healer had pressed potion bottles and lemongrass into his hands when they had gotten home, sans the Tanizaki siblings. True to wisdom, Yosano's colleague had been at the ER to receive them and ask no questions at the cause of injury for the paperwork. "I would have survived, even if I was human."

The worst part had been the silver bullet being tugged out from his wound, but that was over quickly. His hip is already itchy, a sign of healing flesh. It saps his energy, but he's too jittery to sleep just yet.

"I knew all those things, but I didn't think." Dazai kicks away his slippers and sits down on the floor beside the futon. He's already in his pajamas.

"I would say ‘don't hurt yourself,' but you think too much," Atsushi says. "Enough for all of us combined."

"Aw, thanks for the compliment! What was it—you're pretty and smart, signed by Nakajima Atsushi?"

"You asked that, I just agreed because it was easier." Flustered, Atsushi smooths out the wrinkles in his shirts and stares at the space behind Dazai. On the dresser, candles burn on their stand. The glass cat sits and gleams, tail tipped with black. Beside it, the requisitioned revolver from earlier, peony twined around its barrel. The Ferals had overpowered their coven handlers a block over and stolen their weapons, leading to the blood on their tattered clothes.

"So you admit you were complicit in it, and take full responsibility for your words?" Dazai preens, fangs peeking out.

Atsushi groans. He sets his clothes aside and almost wishes he didn't: the space between him and Dazai is too small for comfort. "I guess I'll have to."

He takes his pillow and hugs it to his stomach. Dazai asks about Snow Country next to his empty teacup, to which Atsushi tries to compare it to Sasameyuki without spoiling it, and Dazai slaps his hands over his ears when he almost does.

A dove flies through his window and carries a message of Tanizaki's stabilized condition. Atsushi doesn't bother hiding his slump of relief, drooping onto his futon. Through the gap in the curtains, he notices the stars, brighter than in the city.

"You should drink," Dazai says, lifting his chin from his hand. "It would help with your wounds."

"What—no, you should save it," Atsushi protests. He racks his brain for a memory of when he had fed from Dazai. Other than that first night he was awake, he comes up empty. All these weeks since his hundredth day, Atsushi had bitten the other senior vampires, even Akutagawa on one joint operation on the banks of the Ooka, except Dazai.

"I've drank from three other hunters today already." Dazai pats his belly. "I'm bloated with AB negative. Help me out here."

Even as Atsushi is about to argue back, his magic dips, a shallow flow centered on his hip. His head feels made of air. "If you're sure. Thanks, Dazai-san."

"I wouldn't offer if I didn't mean it~" Dazai looks down at his arms, but seems reluctant to disturb the fresh bandages coiling from his wrists to his neck. He clears his throat, then smirks. "Unless you want to bite me at my femoral artery—" Atsushi chokes, "mind drinking from here?" Dazai taps his jugular, shaded with recent bite marks.

Not trusting his voice, Atsushi nods. He sets down his pillow, and scoots closer to Dazai on the wooden floor, not wanting to drip any blood on the futon.

"Don't you need a numbing agent?" Atsushi asks, eyeing his neck. Different vampires have different sensitivities at different pulse points, or their semblance of them.

"Nope," Dazai replies. "Just don't drink too fast, if you can."

Their knees bump as Atsushi leans forwards, unhinging his jaw. The scent of pine curls in his nose. He bites, and Dazai's skin breaks cleanly. Lukewarm blood flows over his tongue.

Copper hair tickles his cheeks. The angle unseats his balance; Dazai's hands come up to catch him at the waist, careful not to brush against his wound.

His touch is a brand through Atsushi's sweater. His blood tastes, strangely enough, sweet as candy.

Atsushi presses the puncture dry with his tongue and pulls back. His head has ceased to float away.

It definitely isn't a trick of the light, this time.

Dazai glances down at Atsushi's mouth. The palest blush colors his face, a sight Atsushi had never thought he'd have the luck to witness. His irises thin, becoming rings of brown.

The hand at his waist lifts to touch his jaw. The dam breaks; they lean in, Atsushi half in Dazai's lap, reaching a hand out to wind around his neck, a ghost of a sigh leaving Dazai's lips.

He closes his eyes.

The thump of the washing machine startles them both, followed by yelps and curses from the hunters next door starting their laundry.

Before he can pause and properly freak out on Dazai's lap, Atsushi flinches away. He takes his teacup and saucer, then hurries to the kitchen to wash them up. No one is there to see his cheeks aflame. He finishes and stands at the sink, watching the droplets bead together, gather down the drain.

Were they—had he—

When he walks back to his room, guilt and happiness and a stone-plummet akin to love warring inside him, not sure what to say or how to explain his inexperience with any of this, Dazai is gone.

*

The next sunset, Atsushi's eyes are dry from a lack of sleep. He stands before a counter, careful not to jostle his hip, and peels shrimp and chops scallions for the upcoming hot pot, a celebration of sorts for their assembled forces and allies.

Kyouka is gone on a mission for Ango. Tanizaki, who had been shuttled through the Gilded Passage before midnight, slumbers across the street under a nurse's watchful gaze. When Atsushi had visited him earlier, he'd been relieved to see the color in his cheeks. His friend asked him to read Sasameyuki, his own paperback copy on the nightstand, and they made it into book two before Tanizaki drifted off into sleep.

And so lost, fidgety, and too tired to practice magic, Atsushi wanders to the house down the street under his umbrella, where the largest cauldrons bubble and the cooks bustle around in a racket that drowns out any thoughts, and asks for work. The house is a solely mortal residence, owned by a husband and wife who have been hunters since their university years. The blinds are open, letting the sun slant over their mismatched furniture. Atsushi doesn't avoid it as religiously anymore; he and the rest of the new vampires have moved on from their frail newborn phase.

Kunikida is already cleaning a slab of pork when Atsushi enters the cavernous kitchen. He greets him, placing his chopping board next to his. Kunikida responds with a wan grimace. The recent weeks have left everyone bruised and sleep-deprived.

Dazai is also in the city, pursuing a scheme of sorts near the bay. According to Kunikida, their efforts have honed in on Queen's Square and Cosmo World, the area a solid coven stronghold. The time loop is rumored to be down to three spokes, the past spellcasters either captured or killed in battle. At least one of the three is known to be holed up in a luxury hotel, kept under heavy guard.

Infiltrate the theme park, and they could have a launching point to root out that spellcaster. Magic is unstable going from three to two. With a strong enough shove, the time loop could come crashing down.

"What was up with him this morning, though," Kunikida gripes. "I was stupidly eating a banana for breakfast and was expecting a joke, but no. Dazai's already dressed and geared up and—you know what he said to me?"

"What?" Atsushi asks numbly. If Dazai had told Kunikida about how he had fled their almost-kiss and said something about how it isn't really that serious or how he was only looking to let off steam, he doesn't think he can bear it. Picking apart that memory, tossing in his sheets, had given Atsushi an array of possibilities but no certain one.

But Kunikida goes on, "That bastard just said ‘good morning' and walked off. I think that was the most civil conversation we've had in months. No, years."

Atsushi laughs, heart rate easing back down. "So you drove their team there this morning?"

"Yeah, I dropped them off at the lake so Dazai wouldn't cause an accident. A few of the rebels were waiting, Akutagawa included. My guess is some kind of sneaky business at the port. A human's scent would be too strong to be useful out there."

Atsushi nods, crossing the room to swap out his bowl of scallions. The cooks are engrossed in their own conversations, one thanking him before handing him another bunch to chop.

His mind stretches away, to the city. The war could be over soon, before the new year. Danger wouldn't lurk behind every corner. The coven wouldn't be able to inflict their cruelty on innocents if the rebellion is successful.

He would stay with the hunters—even now, it brings a giddy warmth. He would stay with Dazai, learn from him, seek comfort in his presence. Even if they never became anything beyond friends.

Back then, behind the library counter, he wouldn't have believed that this would happen. Becoming immortal, traveling through the unseen. Magic bent to his will. The terror he'd felt when the kyonshi had first attacked, when the wheel of fate was arbitrary and beyond his reach, has disappeared. Or rather, his courage has built up like layers of sediment over time, slow and sure.

He doesn't want to lose it.

With a scrape of his knife, Kunikida finishes his work. He washes his hands, puts on his jacket, and nods to Atsushi, heading out the entryway to the foyer and front door. He must have had his own reasons for coming to this house. Thoughts become poisonous from staying idle for too long.

As he turns back, there's a squeal of tires on asphalt. Shouts ring from the street.

Across the kitchen, the cooks pause in their clatter. Atsushi sets down his own knife and glances out the window, through the climbing roses, where a car—Ango's—has screeched to a stop.

He flings open the front door, where Kunikida has halted midway down the sidewalk, his heartbeat audible in his chest. A figure is running from Ranpo's house, reddish brown hair windswept. Oda. A wooden stretcher is tucked under his arm, Kenji holding the other end.

A car door opens. Ango sweeps around the side and ducks into the backseat, straining to lug a silhouette onto the stretcher with the others' help.

Dazai, unmoving and covered in blood, is lifted out into the cold autumn air.

Chapter Text

Another nightmare thunders through. The fever wracks Dazai's body in waves, eyeballs locking and unlocking and quivering in their sockets of their own accord. Stop. Atsushi doesn't look away. His fingers trace out circles on clammy skin, willing Dazai to wake up. In his other hand, the stems of the bouquet of irises braid themselves, threes and fives and then none at all.

Stop. Stop. Stop.

Three petals flutter to the ground. The room's dust seems to settle in a hush, the only sound the ticking of the golden-trimmed clock on the mantel.

When they open, Dazai's eyes are wild, too bright.

It takes him a second to remember where he is, cloudy eyes turning clear upon meeting Atsushi's own. It takes him another second to regain a handle on himself.

Atsushi takes the tea towel from Dazai's forehead, peeling off wet mint leaves clinging to his skin. He wrings the towel in the bowl and soaks it in the fresh brew, star anise and pink rose petals floating atop the glassy surface.

Dazai is too quiet. Too pale, too withdrawn, too unlike himself. His cracked lips, impervious to jelly or balm, shape out a thank you.

Atsushi reads the first chapter of a novel aloud, and Dazai's limbs gradually loosen as best as they can. He doubts Dazai understands it, with his flickering consciousness, but keeps his voice even, willing the wobble of tears out, hoping the comfort of a dreamless sleep would be granted to his friend.

It is almost midnight when Dazai surfaces in the shallows.

"Kiss it better?"

With a pang of a memory, Atsushi sets down the book in his lap. It seems like a lifetime ago that he had heard this request.

After a moment's hesitation, he leans over and, sweeping copper hair from his target, brushes his lips against Dazai's burning forehead.

*

The grocer fumbles with a rickety wheelbarrow of oranges, a couple rolling out into the rainy street in twin dull thunks. He rights its course, only to clatter over a pothole several strides later.

"Do you mind messing up a bit more? We're playing our part a little too well."

"Shut your mouth, Sakaguchi," Chuuya hisses at Ango. "I don't see you offering to push." He shoves a wayward strand of hair back under his woven straw hat. Like the rest of their hats, the sides drip with rain, obscuring their faces from view.

Atsushi sidesteps a cyclist to gather the fallen oranges. The fruit is from the hothouses, laden with spells; they wouldn't bruise too easily.

"How the hell did you guys manage to bring this through the Gilded Passage anyways? Last time I checked, boats sink under this much weight."

"None of your business," Ango replies smoothly. "Just keep pushing."

Akutagawa appears at the next crosswalk and motions them to cross the road. He holds out a hand, shielded by his torso and borrowed windbreaker—a patrol of five is in the vicinity. Minato Mirai crawls with the coven, day and night.

In truth, it had been Kenji and his strength and a massive horse ("a palomino!") that swam and bore the burden of their harvest in the passage. The spell's offerings had to be increased for their size, which the magic of the Gilded Passage happily ate up. A harvest whose citrus scent masks anything hidden amongst it. A cart loud, but not too loud, distracts from the benign worker pushing it.

Pedestrians scramble to dodge Chuuya's determined path through the streets. Ango, glamored to be without glasses, mole, or hair, and Atsushi exchange a glance under the brim of their hats and shrug, following the haphazard path carved for them. If any coven member stops them, Chuuya would be recognizable for his position as some tongue-twisting title in their ranks and recant a predetermined lie about the cart and boring brewery business. Ango's already disguised scent is swept under the citrus cloud, and Atsushi and him would play the part of clueless grunts. The secret part-time rebellion would slide under the coven's noses some more.

They are near the ocean, close enough for Atsushi to taste the salt in the air. It conjures up stomach turning memories: a moonlit bay, a fallen train carriage, broken glass. At least it's daytime, with gulls squawking up above, the sloped roof of the InterContinental Grand piercing into pearly sky. Their destination lies parallel to the hotel, a shark fin of reference on the horizon.

At the next crosswalk, Higuchi sits on a bench, legs crossed, her headphones in without music.

The coast is clear.

The apothecary door opens with the chime of a bell. An unassuming pharmacy at the front, a supernatural healing service in the back. The alley behind the shopfronts is a dead end; Akutagawa keeps watch as Higuchi and Chuuya park the cart of oranges beside the business next door, which, coincidentally, is a grocery store. Parcels that have been hidden under the fruit are secured under Atsushi's and Ango's arms.

Incense sticks smolder in a ceramic vase. Containers laden with dried candies and herbs are stacked against a wall, room for a peeling poster of city pop to stretch to the ceiling. Face turned toward it, Ango lets his glamor fizzle out on its own.

Opposite, the shopkeeper rings up a purchase for a regular, judging by their easy conversation. A dialogue that the shopkeeper must have had more than a hundred times already, but his enthusiasm does not wane as they discuss a husband in the hospital and a child down with allergies.

The werewolf has a scar across his nose and a white beard obscuring his mouth. His gentle mannerisms are disarming, his accent near indiscernible. Yosano had informed them that he had held this shop for decades, the foundation smack above a crisscross of energy lines, fending off vampires, werewolves, and witches alike to brew under the multiplied strength of the moon in peace. Chuuya added to the mysticism by whispering that the werewolf's shop used to sail as a flying whale, curing villages of gout and cataracts before vanishing back into the clouds with the people's memories of the fantastical occurrence.

The customer leaves, the peppery scent of a sapphire spell floating with them.

The owner turns to them with a start.

"Mr. Herman," Ango greets, stepping forward.

"Sakaguchi-san," the werewolf says, recovering himself. "You bear good news, I hope?"

"I'm afraid not. This is Atsushi-kun, one of ours."

Hesitantly, Atsushi returns Herman's nod and steps forth to slide over a card, half moon sketched on the paper by Yosano, smaller sigils skittering across like letters.

Herman dips the card in a half-filled beaker on the shelf behind him. The card bursts into flames.

"I'd know a colleague's signature anywhere, but you can't be too sure nowadays," he says, dusting his hands of ashes. He glances to the back, where a frosted glass door Atsushi guesses leads to the back part of the shop, then the alleyway. He takes a whiff of air. "I'm assuming those two - or three - are with you as well?"

"They are," Ango confirms. "Higuchi, Chuuya, and Akutagawa, if you remember them."

"I do, though I distinctly remember them being on the opposite side." Herman raises a bushy brow. "But if they're with you, I'll have to make do. Makes me wonder what I've missed, with my nose to the grindstone since their time loop came down."

Ango gives a short laugh. Atsushi can never tell if he's being amiable or not, with his guard up like now. "The coven doesn't know, either, so don't worry."

Herman nods, though astonishment lingers in his eyes. Akutagawa and Chuuya head in, stomping their boots on the mat and hooking their hats on the umbrella rack beside it. Terse greetings are exchanged. Ango's spine stays perfectly straight from Atsushi's point of view.

Herman leads them through the glass door.

None of them had wanted to resort to this, calling on a werewolf with no allegiances that lives too deep in Minato Mirai for comfort. The past days had been a whirlwind, sweltering cauldrons and occult spells, Yosano barking out orders until her voice was hoarse and they raced to identify the poison. One created by doctors and witches employed in the coven's laboratories, monstrous underground rooms devoted to churning out weapons of war.

With complex spellwork, Yosano determined the poison to be lunar-based, drawn from the effect of the full moon. The next one of which was more than two weeks away.

The werewolves in the camp were summoned, and the few that had magical leanings in potions tried—and exploded their cauldron mere steps into the recipe for a tentative antidote.

And so they are here, following Herman the werewolf wizard through a casted fog as he calls for his assistant to man the shopfront.

The backroom is freezing. The cauldrons, potions, and ingredients must be stored elsewhere, away from prying eyes. Herman gestures them to the loose semicircle of chairs and flicks on the radiator.

"If you all are seeking me, it must be important."

"We have a poisoned patient," Ango starts, voice betraying none of his distress back at the house. Despite being on the same expedition that fateful afternoon, Dazai had slipped off under his watch, moving into what his actual plan called him to do. "It's one Yosano-sensei or the other healers haven't encountered before, so we concluded that it is an experimental one."

"They're desperate, and so grasp at straws. Dangerous ones," Herman notes.

"One of the few things we're sure about."

"Do you have a sample?"

Ango takes a vial from his waistcoat pocket and places it in Herman's hand. "The...patient is also a vampire. Symptoms are nightmares, fever, and dry heaving. The organs are rejecting moisture. Almost like that red masquerade toxin used at the turn of the century, except...."

"Those victims were cold as ice, and the poison looks nothing like this," Herman finishes, turning the vial in his hand. The extracted poison is mixed with blood leftover in Dazai's body and shimmers like molten metal. Eyes closed in concentration, Herman channels the fog hanging over them to swirl around it. "This must have been brewed using moon magic, yes?"

Ango nods, holding out a folded piece of paper. "Yosano-sensei has sketched out a potential antidote, though trained werewolf herbalists are in short supply."

Herman makes a hum of agreement. Unfolding the paper, he scans the page. His eyes widen. "You all deciphered this? Are you sure—"

"We're sure," is Akutagawa's surly reply. Beside him, Chuuya schools a blank look. Neither of them claim to be fond of Dazai, but accepted that many things, including their rebellion, depended on him.

"I would need mangrove root, and a certain kind of sumac from the States, and—"

Ango sets forth his parcel and plucks at the bow of twine on top of it, releasing floral and foul smells alike.

Herman looks at each of them as if he's seeing them for the first time. "This is one important patient."

"We treat anyone under our care as our own," Ango replies in a mild tone. "So, can you do it, Mr. Herman? The crescent moon shines tomorrow night."

"Yes. I may need to tweak the drafted recipe a few times, but I can assure you I will have an answer. There's no such thing as not enough moonlight, here."

Ango digests this, then rifles through his pocket for his brocade bag and its enchanted crystal coins, half of which are the coven rebels' contributions.

Herman stops him.

"As for payment, Dazai-kun has saved my wh - shop from certain death in his youth. Consider this to be a debt repaid." A shine flickers in the werewolf's eyes at their expressions. "The coven wouldn't have used this poison, nor infused so much caustic energy, on just anyone. I hope he got what he risked himself for."

Their silent group exits the apothecary out the front door, where the summer rain continues to plummet on the tin roof. As Chuuya dons his straw hat, he turns back to Herman.

"Keep the oranges."

*

November passes into December.

A layer of snow builds on Atsushi's hair every time he walks outside, thanks to his chilly internal temperature that has his human friends yelping every time they accidentally touch skin-to-skin. Chopping wood near the creek becomes an official chore, rotated around, though they discover dried kindling catches and burns beyond normal time spans with a blend involving black pepper sprinkled in.

"As the cliché goes, desperate people do desperate things," Kunikida says over the noise of supper, referring to the skirmish at the stadium that afternoon. A children's game of tag has knocked over several trash cans and chairs in the picnic area, tripping around their legs if they aren't careful.

Every few meters down the tables is a portable gas stove. The hot pot is in full swing in the park beneath the glow of oil lanterns, smelling heavenly.

Atsushi sips a diluted broth he'd managed to cobble together after the cooks had brought everything out. The results aren't bad, considering the tired half-assery that went into it. They had been on the receiving end of one too many beet bombs that afternoon, and his chaotic sleep schedule is catching up with him, missions and ward breaches thrown on them at a moment's notice.

"Some people think this celebration is a last hooray before doomsday," Naomi says with a edge of irritation. She ladles vegetables into a thermos for Tanizaki, who is still confined to bed rest. "They're saying that this is a consolation before we're utterly eradicated by the coven vampires."

"They're talking sh - dirt. Argh. Children are present. And we're moving along fine, despite the setbacks." With an air of finality, Kunikida jams his chopsticks into his noodles.

There had been some fuel to the naysayers. The camp morale had dipped with Dazai's injury and subsequent poisoning, though the details are kept closed among those who know.

Publicly, Dazai is held in high regard among the hunters and mercenaries, to Kunikida and Chuuya's endless grievance. His name is most likely praised by those on their side as often as it is cursed by the coven. Plus, there is that rumor of him being the mysterious handsome heartbreaker of noble descent, to which Kunikida scoffs and says he had not gotten involved with anyone in years, much less in the recent months, and Atsushi pretends his heart doesn't give a lurch of relief at that.

He supposes Dazai does look cool from afar, if one didn't talk to him. Cue a mental image of Yuuto and his classmates peering through study room windows.

They echo Naomi's goodbye as she dashes off to eat dinner with her brother. Ranpo and Yosano bicker down the table over the color of cooked fish. Kenji wolfs down his third bowl of steaming filling.

Kyouka takes large gulps from a teacup, scribbling on her notepad. She looks up, meets Atsushi's eyes, and returns his smile. Her eyes silently ask after him.

The lanterns flicker and dance, and the cold feeling in his chest spreads—he misses him.

The short walk back to Ranpo's house takes Atsushi through frost-yellowed grass and leaf piles that crumple under his feet, houses dark save for a few windows adorned by candlelight. Night blossoms burst open, perfuming the air; jasmine in one garden, primrose and candy-striped flowers called four o' clocks in another.

Atsushi's thoughts thrum through him.

I have to tell him. If he didn't, Dazai and his keen eyes would figure it out eventually, no doubt. The fearful, pessimistic part of his brain lends another urgency: after Dazai's risky maneuver a week ago, he doesn't want anything to not be said between them too little, too late, if it came down to the worst of it.

They had almost kissed. He doesn't deny it now. But that had only revealed Dazai is physically attracted to him, a wonder in itself. In truth, there is less than a sliver of a chance that his love is returned, and this longing would have to fade one day, unrequited.

Atsushi pushes open the familiar door, Ango's and Oda's scents indicating they had been here not long ago. Oda's is mixed with crayon and pencil shavings; he had obtained some papers to let his children attend their second term in Sagamihara, ever since the time loop descended and attending school in Yokohama was a definite no-go, and takes time to meet them at the train station each evening.

At his entrance, the healer keeping watch looks up. He is happy to be lent a reprieve and dashes off to snatch a bit of the hot pot.

Dazai has not been asleep.

The room's narrow bed has been pushed to the side, making room for a porcelain tub overflowing with red poppies. Dazai is propped up on a cushion, reading, a pitcher of Herman's antidote nearby. The gray tinge to his skin has lifted; his mouth and eyes have taken some moisture back into them.

Dazai throws him a weak grin. "Funny, how our positions got reversed after only a month." His voice creaks with dryness.

"You mean the bedside vigils?" Atsushi asks, sinking down into the healer's vacated stool, drawing up his knees. "It's hilarious."

It's the most they've spoken since that late afternoon when Ango rushed him back for help. Or rather, that night before, when Atsushi had been healing from the bullet wound in his hip. In between, delirium and soothing nothings that he doubts Dazai remembers between the nightmares and fever, cramped internal organs that refused blood of all kinds.

"I don't hear you laughing though. What's dying and almost dying a second time between friends?"

The bed of poppies has lost its luster, he notices. A few sunflowers and mint sprigs close to Dazai are wrinkled, crumbly like soot. The price of helping absorb out the poison.

"Ango-san told us what you did," Atsushi blurts out. "After you were brought home. I didn't believe it at first, that it hadn't been an accident or ambush but you - you—"

"It had to be done," Dazai says quietly, staring up at the ceiling.

"Did it?" His heart constricts, a wretched squeeze in his chest.

"After I pretended to give myself up, they took me right to the center of their operations. Even the elders were just who I expected to see."

A swell of anger, white-hot, rushes through Atsushi. At Dazai for flinging himself into danger without a second thought, or the coven's idea of enacting revenge, or this entire messed-up war, he doesn't know. He stays silent, unable to trust himself to speak. The fury morphs into fear and solace the next minute, wounds scabbing over. Dazai is alive. Dazai is awake.

He picks at a stray thread on his sleeve.

"Some of them call themselves doctors, the nerve," Yosano had said, grim-faced, fingers stained with crushed herbs and potions.

They had gathered in Ranpo's library that night, Dazai's teeter-tottering condition stabilized for the time being.

"When they weren't harvesting the life out of him, Odasaku saw something in his crystals." Ango gestured for his friend to talk. From their shared glance, they must have discussed this many times before, no doubt with their friend now slumbering in a forced unconsciousness.

Oda cleared his throat and stepped forward. His solemn voice carried over the small gathering: the crystal had shown him a vision years ago. Spindly scribblings on paper and parchment, gathered over months before he'd realized their significance. A recipe for a concoction, a blood substitution. A future where vampires didn't have to rely on human blood.

If vampires could feed from elsewhere, it would upend the elders' tyranny over mortal society. No more time loops, blood farms, glamors. No more Carmillas. The elders could no longer hold weaker members under lock and key, those who could not or would not hunt for themselves.

That afternoon, Dazai had retrieved Oda's coded notes.

"They thought they could decipher it eventually," Dazai says at the present, reading Atsushi's thoughts with his usual ease. Poppies rustle as he shifts. "Of course, it's only a distraction for stealing the second thing." The uncurled smirk makes him resemble his old self. "Guess what?"

Atsushi sighs, but a bubbling relief radiates to his fingertips. "What?"

"You're supposed to guess."

"...The ultimate secret to growing cacti?"

"Hey, now. I don't like to be reminded of my failures."

"Luckily for you, you don't have many of them."

They both glance down at Dazai's discolored face and neck. The cuts disappear into his pajamas, leading to similarly wounded skin.

"I wouldn't call that a failure," Dazai says with a wry smile. "I knew what I was walking into." He looks at Atsushi, the corners of his lips dropping. "That doesn't make it any easier, does it?"

Atsushi wrenches his eyes away and shakes his head, the suffocating ache returning in his hollowed chest. Dazai knew he would have to endure hours of torment at his old coven's hands for the heist to work, and chose to go anyways. "What was the second thing?"

"I gathered the details on the time loop." Dazai curls his fingers over his stomach. "Ink blotted them to Ango's notebook before I made my escape. Over the excitement of Odasaku's notes going missing and my alleged capture, they left them lightly guarded."

"You really thought this through, huh," Atsushi says to a poppy, thinking of Dazai escape through air ducts and elevator shafts while injured as he had been.

"I did," Dazai murmurs.

God, he'd almost lost him. A lump of emotions wells up, heavy and unstrung as tears, leaving him with the old feeling of being breathless. Before the cautious part of himself can catch up, he's wrapping his arms around Dazai, careful not to disturb the flowers as he hugs him tight. The undercurrent of clean laundry, lavender, remains below the pungence of herbs and poultices.

"I haven't dreamed since I Slept," Dazai says close to Atsushi's ear. His collar reveals no bandages beneath his pajamas. To air out the malignant magic and let it seep into the flowers, perhaps. "I saw you."

Atsushi closes his eyes. "I...did I die?"

"Many times, with the others."

They hold each other in silence. He had grown up in a dearth of affectionate touches, suspects Dazai has too, but he could learn to get used to this, he decides.

Pulling back, Atsushi notices a silver dagger encrusted with rubies on the desk. "You kept it?"

"Nicked it off one of my captors. I had it cleaned. It's pretty, isn't it?"

"That's one way of putting it," Atsushi says slowly. A morbid keepsake, but he can see why Dazai would hold onto it, polish the silver to wield as his own. He doesn't have to squint at the engravings, exquisite despite having faded with age. He shifts his gaze to the windowsill, starry night and beginnings of frost behind it. "Have your hibiscuses been watered?"

Dazai smiles. "Nope."

Picking up the watering can, Atsushi dribbles water on each pot. The bright blooms seem undeterred by their owner's recent health. One of the others must have been channeling their magic to them to contradict the fumes in the room.

When he finishes, Dazai beckons him back over and tells him hold out his hand.

"It's not a beetle, is it?"

"So little faith in me..."

Atsushi relents. Dazai deposits a cool sphere of something in his palm, a burst of magic leaping up his veins.

"It'll be more useful to you, in the field. It's good for extracting venom with. And before you say you can't accept it," Dazai interrupts bemusedly, "know it wasn't mine to begin with."

Atsushi turns the topaz in the candlelight, casting honeyed reflections on the walls. "Then, thank you."

The air settling, they catch up on the more mundane going-ons at camp. Atsushi remarks on Chuuya's humorous stories to which Dazai pouts and huffs. Ango and Oda, who can brew a quality camphor tincture between them in half an hour, had burnt a batch of pumpkin cookies in the wood stove. In the back of a plumbing company van, Kyouka had taught Akutagawa and Higuchi how to play Uno while Atsushi manned the binoculars on a coven elder they were tailing, then disabled when he made to attack a drunk couple leaving a restaurant.

As the clock on the mantel chimes nine, Atsushi notices a sweat beading at Dazai's temples.

"How often do you take the antidote?"

Dazai's eyes fade in and out of focus. His fever must be creeping back up. "Yosano-san said to aim for a liter every hour. But it's nasty," he tacks on with a whine.

Nevertheless, Atsushi reaches for the pitcher sitting in a bucket of ice and refills his glass. In truth, it smells medicinal, bitter.

Dazai sips, wrinkling his nose. Upon draining the glass, he snatches a mug of vampiric coffee gone cold on the nightstand and washes it down.

The next murmured words from Dazai's mouth startles Atsushi so much his heart starts beating, hammering in his chest.

"What did you - I don't understand—"

"Then I'll say it again," Dazai says, features otherworldly in casted shadow. His adam's apple bobs as he swallows. A human action, through and through. "I've fallen in love with you."

Atsushi can't contain his gasp of air. What had been lodged in this throat all this time had been said aloud, to him, by the person he'd wanted to say it to. He clutches the sides of the stool, reeling.

With you. I've fallen in love with you.

"It's stupid, I don't know when I realized," Dazai continues, voice gone soft and scratchy. "Maybe when that woman, Airi, came up to you for saving her boyfriend's life. Or when Yosano told me you had dirt on your crutches because you traveled several kilometers from the lake so someone else could have a seat. Or maybe since the first week we started talking to each other."

Atsushi should stop him, his throes of fever coupled with this couldn't be good for him, but is rooted in place, tongue leaden.

Dazai exhales, looking more conflicted that Atsushi had ever seen him. Brown eyes bore into his, studying him. "Sorry. I thought you knew."

"W-what?"

"In those manuscripts on magic you read, you haven't come up on sweetened blood?"

"It's been alluded to," Atsushi replies, head spinning back to the scrolls and books he had poured over to understand himself, his new powers. "I remember one said vampires aren't just barrels to store blood in. We change it in small ways."

"That's right," Dazai says, sinking further into his pillows and flowers. "A cursed or diseased vampire turns their blood sour or bitter. And one in love turns their blood sweet."

Then, when I fled, he thought—

He thought I was rejecting him—

For the second time that night, Atsushi surprises himself.

He leans down and presses their mouths together, noses bumping in the process.

He must have surprised Dazai, too, for the older gives a jolt before his lashes tickle against Atsushi's cheek, eyes closing, and he returns the kiss.

Atsushi jumps back a second later, the reciprocated pressure pushing him back to reality, rushing out an apology. A touch on his hand startles him.

Holding Atsushi's hand gently, Dazai smiles. It reaches his eyes. Atsushi sees only undistilled adoration there, a dizzying thing to be on the receiving end of. I kissed him. He says he loves me. He should say it back.

Then Dazai sits up and kisses Atsushi this time, halting any whirling thoughts.

The angle is odd, Dazai leaning out, Atsushi still half in his seat, but their lips slot together as easily as breathing. Dazai clutches Atsushi's fingers in his hand. The other one comes up to cradle his face. The tension sprung up between them melts into warmth, pooling where a distant part of him guesses his stomach used to be.

Dazai's lips are softer than he'd expected. If Atsushi hadn't already been sitting down, his legs might have given out beneath him.

It's an unspeakable times better than the first two kisses in his life.

*

Atsushi leaves Dazai to rest in peace in his bed of poppies, crossing the doorway different than when he'd entered. He walks downstairs in a daze, not believing that their kisses hadn't been a dream, touching his fingers to his lips that strain not to smile as he walks across the foyer and kitchen and down the last hallway, past the dark laundry room. At every turn the house sits empty, the dinner celebration not yet ending.

He cracks his window open in his room, letting the fragrance of night blooms pour into the space.

The pallor is still there, of course. The looming cloud that Yokohama is not yet free, that their tentative future could collapse at any moment.

He has something to live for. Somethings, more accurately, as it always had been, but added one precious facet tonight. He could hold this piece of the future in his palms, keep it close.

Hold it, cupped, like a topaz sphere.

*

Miniature skyscrapers. Phases of the moon. Freshly painted train carriages. The week of September 5th saw a string of thunderstorms and gales of wind. The autumn equinox swept in a brilliant display of turning leaves all along the Ooka River. The Marinos barely squeaked a win over the Urawa Reds on home turf in November.

The mirror no longer looks like a mirror but a stained glass window, each small pane a pulsing terrarium to a day gone by.

With the calendar caught up, the witches and wizards and magicians have time for a daily tea hour, ditching their tarot cards and almanacs for the back patio of the house they're quartered in, voices and laughter flitting about in dulcet tones. Fukuzawa and Dazai, who remarked he feels "fresh as a leaf of lettuce" today, join them in conversation.

"He's showing off," Kunikida grumbles in the kitchen, absently petting a dalmatian at their feet. Dazai has their guests enraptured by a story told entirely in French.

A pair of them had made macarons in this house to go with the tea. The whole floor is a pleasant cloud of vanilla and raspberries.

"Is it good?" Atsushi asks, nodding to Kunikida's plate.

"Kind of sweet, but alright," Kunikida considers. He studies the pastel confection between his fingers. "If they make it the blandest thing ever baked, maybe it'll taste like the real thing for you." He scowls. "Not exactly real, per se. It's all a matter of perception. 'Tasting more suitable for you' would be more ideal."

"It's okay, Kunikida-san," Atsushi says, holding back a smile. "I get what you mean."

Outside, the witches are in hysterics at Dazai's gesticulating hands. One tugs him by his ear and bonks him on the skull, insisting on serving him another cup in a matronly fashion.

Kunikida and Atsushi snort in unison. The dalmation cocks his head to the side.

After, the three of them walk to the park together, Fukuzawa remaining to help with other internal affairs. Atsushi feels Dazai's gaze flicker to him from time to time, their gloved hands brushing together as they cut through fields of barley grass.

It has been only last night that they kissed. Atsushi feels aware of his presence more than ever. Somehow there's a shift in the air, their eyes meeting across a room without preamble, one's quiet footsteps a touch louder to the other than before.

On his other side, Kunikida remains oblivious.

"So. I heard about the coven brigade you defeated, Kunikida-kun," Dazai begins conversationally. "The hunters in your team wouldn't stop swooning, I swear. 'Oh, Kunikida-senpai, the ponytailed chevalier against the thirsty dragoons of the night! Marry me!'"

"If I recall correctly," Kunikida replies in a dangerous low tone. "Everyone in my team that day is either over fifty or has a wife and kids."

"And I hear nothing that's stopping you," Dazai sings back. In the shadow of their sleeves, his fingers latch onto the tips of Atsushi's. "Wouldn't it be exciting, being a homewrecker?"

"It would be for you, I'm sure," Atsushi says, amused, concealing his fluster at the hidden touch. Kunikida makes a noise of assent.

Dazai sniffles, pushing his nose to the air. "As I would have you know, I'm an upstanding citizen. No scarlet letter shall ever burn on my heart, no matter how pretty Hester may be. Or Dimmesdale, for that matter."

Atsushi twitches up a brow. "How would even you know if they're an adulterer?"

"Good point. Hmm." Dazai pretends to stroke his nonexistent beard. "Tan lines on ring fingers can only reveal so much. So does body language. But if they pretending to be single when they're not, no blame should fall on me in the first place."

"Gah, this is a prime example of creating problems for yourself," Kunikida grumbles. "What a waste of brain cells."

"Uh, it's your problem, Kunikida-kun, I'm just trying - helpfully, mind you - to think up a solution for you."

"No thanks," is the response through gritted teeth.

Sighing inwardly, Atsushi changes the subject to Miyamoto's Pressed Berry Elixirs, Fourth Edition, and Kunikida is distracted from his ire in the restored equilibrium. Out of the corner of his eye, Dazai glowers exaggeratedly but goes quiet. He squeezes Atsushi's fingers once, and their hands retreat to their proper pockets.

They reach the bonfires, flames bright against the pines and spruces rising up around them. Ignoring Dazai, Kunikida casts Atsushi an apologetic glance before power-walking away to join Ranpo and Kenji and others roasting marshmallows and warming their hands over one fire, leaving him and Dazai at the edge of the park.

They take a step, and Atsushi ducks an awry spark just in time, the caster shouting apologies behind it. The new vampires and hunters are casting small time loops throughout the space, blades of grass waving in preserved winds, taking turns breaking them with experimental potions, markings, and spells to prepare for the real one.

He looks at Dazai, who looks back at him with a small, open smile.

"Shall we?" he asks, grazing the small of Atsushi's back with his hand.

Atsushi flusters and hurries off to Kyouka's group, where they're boiling a sugary concoction in a cauldron, skin tingling all the while. Old doubt seeps up, buoyed by the sheer impossibility of Dazai—as if Dazai wants someone with his feet barely wet in the realm of romance, someone inexperienced and fumbling with ghosts in his past, someone who couldn't catch up with him.

But when he chances a look back, the enveloping weight of Dazai's presence (warm, always surprisingly warm) remains constant. I love you. I'm in love with you.

In the distance, he grins at Atsushi and skips off to another bonfire, understanding without a single word spoken. Atsushi doesn't have to keep up. They would take each step one by one, together.

*

Dazai continues to improve. It would take time to determine if any long-term damage had been enacted, Yosano warns, but he's moved from the bathtub of poppies to a proper bed. His parched insides soak up blood once again, though his reservoirs of magic have not yet returned.

He relies on Atsushi to cast simple charms for his plants and piles of maps and notes, invisible ink spanning the pages as Dazai studies them with a blank face, the same expression back behind glass walls and Atsushi felt he could only stand back and watch. With Ango's help, Atsushi binds Oda's notes (apple peel, cardamom, jade stones) in an worn book, to be unlocked by one of them once the war is over and they are all safe. He ignores the if lurking in that condition.

This afternoon, on the rare occasion they're all home together, the trio—Dazai, Oda, Ango—sit in the shade of the veranda, laughing and sipping coffee that is more water than anything else. The sunset burns out in the distance. Atsushi glimpses them in passing the back windows, curtains undrawn, and smiled to himself before making his way to his room.

His latest mission had left his shirt torn at the shoulder, the result of leaping after a coven member intent on hypnotizing the locals of Kounan-ku. He, Kyouka, and Akutagawa had returned to the lake covered in blood and potion froth, none of which were theirs, and the driver had offered Akutagawa a washroom in his house while Kyouka had trudged up to her third floor room.

Lately, Dazai and Ango have been assigning the three of them on missions together, citing their smooth teamwork that Atsushi silently agrees on. Akutagawa, despite his silk cravats and disdain for 21st century culture and moments of moodiness, has grown on him. Sort of an asshole, sort of a friend.

Once Atsushi emerges from the shower, toweling his hair, tossing the torn shirt over a chair to be mended later, there's a brief pounding of footsteps, raised voices. Before he can open it, there's a knock on his door.

"Atsushi-kun? Are you decent?"

Atsushi turns the handle and finds Dazai still in his winter coat, smelling of the outdoors.

"That works, too. Ango tells me have a bad habit of barging into people's rooms." Dazai grins.

"Is something wrong?" Atsushi studies his face, recognizes a layer of calm on the surface. Too-forced. He opens the door wider to let him come in.

Dazai's shoulders loosen, and he kicks out his house slippers. The folded blanket slopes as he sits on the futon. "We were sitting outside, as you might've saw, when Odasaku had, er, a headache. A premonition of a premonition?"

Atsushi blinks in return, stomach sinking at where this is headed.

"So we ran and fetched him one of his crystal balls. He did his fortune-telling thing, and was down - in - there for a while. When he came back up, the first thing he said was 'fire.'" Dazai's gaze unfocuses, trailing off to the side. If Atsushi feels exhausted, Dazai, whose system still fights to flush the poison out, must be dead on his feet. "He saw familiar houses burning up. They had flowers on them."

"Are - is there any chance it's not us?" Atsushi asks, already knowing the answer. There aren't any other neighborhoods like this for vast lengths, none of which are intertwined enough with Oda to be shown to him.

Dazai shakes his head. "Odasaku recognized old man Kobayashi's climbing roses in the vision. And then there's this house's wisteria and the maple tree outside. Someone has, or will, find us out."

So soon. This peaceful place in the mountains will be touched with grubby hands intent on harm. Atsushi steels himself. "What can we do?"

"We'll need to clear out, split off into other safe places. The soldiers and combat hunters, you and I, are going across the bay. Odasaku's going to lead the civilians south. Divide the doctors and healers between us." Dazai laces his fingers together, cogs in his skull already racing six paces ahead. "Kunikida's already rounding up the casters so we can leave them a few...surprises when we get here."

"Can we cast anything water-related to prevent this? Or make it not as bad?" Atsushi rifles through his memories of pressure plate spells, flipping through a mental catalog of the ingredients room. Cattails, duckweed, willow bark, kelp. He and Kenji had harvested a few water lilies last Friday, enough for summoning water fountains out of soil in a heartbeat.

"Ah. A witch from Seoul is contacting her river nymph friends at this moment," Dazai says, turning to observe him. "We'll put some spells of our own up, too. Care to chip in? Yosano-sensei is gathering volunteers at the physicians' house."

"Of course." Atsushi heads to his dresser, unwinding his potions belt and securing his stone pouch, the topaz sphere a comforting presence and weight. His exhaustion from the mission melts away, a fresh determination as a live wire running down his joints and limbs. "How long do we have?"

"Odasaku sensed a week, but we're trying to wrap up in three days."

Atsushi nods, preparing to grab his bloody jacket from its hook when Dazai stops him with a hand on his own.

"You can use mine," he says, easily slipping his woolen black coat from his shoulders and draping it over Atsushi's own. Though human skin might have deemed it cool, the leftover body heat on the fabric instantly soaks through to Atsushi, grounding him. "I have another one upstairs."

Atsushi hitches in a breath at how boyfriend-y this feels, and is all the more warmer because of it. Before he can talk himself out of it, he stands on his tiptoes and kisses Dazai squarely on the mouth, receiving a surprised exhale in return. Both of their hearts come to life, beating out in tandem.

"Does this mean I'll have to lend you my clothes more often?" Dazai asks, cheekily smiling down at Atsushi when they part.

"Please don't count on it," Atsushi says, turning away, but he's smiling, too.

*

They leave in a misty dusk, staggered carpools having begun since morning and taking separate routes. He and Naomi help Tanizaki step into Haruno's van. His punctured organs are healing but in a delicate state, so Tanizaki had been reluctantly convinced to leave with the other non-fighters.

"Sasameyuki is in the front pocket," Atsushi tells him once he's settled in his seat, backpack in his lap. "And I added in Some Prefer Nettles from Ranpo's library as well. Please take good care of it."

Tanizaki's eyes grow wide. "You borrowed it, or you took it without asking?"

Atsushi fakes a shrug. "Do you think Ranpo-san notices every book in his collection? It'll be okay, right?"

"No, no, no, it'll not be okay, I think he'll find me and murder me in my sleep and no one will ever know it was him like some Agatha Christie story. That's how scary it is."

Atsushi laughs, patting Tanizaki's arm, remembering first emerging from Miyagase Lake months ago. "You're more gullible than you let on. I asked for permission."

"Because I don't expect you to lie to me," Tanizaki replies, feigning mock-hurt. He catches Atsushi's wrist and squeezes it tight, a goodbye. "All that time with Dazai-san has added something to the kettle, I think." In the dark, Atsushi can't tell if the shine in his eyes is a knowing look or not. If anything, he's glad Tanizaki has been restored to less painful spirits.

The last passengers are loaded in. Haruno twists on the ignition, the doors are shut, and the van leaves in a cough of gas to the purpled road.

Ranpo and the American hunters and vampires—a guild, they call themselves, rather than a coven because of the cross-species cooperation—had elected to stay behind and keep up the illusion, ambushing any coven members or ferals who come. With luck, and the timeliness of the sprites and nymphs and witches called from the mainland, Oda's vision would not come to fruition.

Another smaller car pulls up in a matter of minutes, Kunikida at the wheel. As they had discussed, Atsushi places a bag of herbs and fruit in the trunk and his backpack in the shotgun seat, where he would play navigator for the night's drive. His eyes are able to read without light, and Kunikida trusts him enough to not play tricks with the directions or the radio.

Dazai emerges from the house with Kenji and Yosano, opening the back car door for them with some chivalrous bow that earns him a slice on the neck from Yosano and a puzzled look from Kenji.

"Got Girls' Generation all loaded up and ready to play?" Dazai asks cheerily, pulling the door shut.

"No, and don't even think about searching for the aux cord," Kunikida shoots back. Their breaths comes out in white clouds.

"How can I not think about it when you just said it? That's kind of conflicting, Kunikida-kun. Kind of like 'never say never' but you just said never and it is honestly—"

"Herman's antidote," Yosano speaks up in a deadly voice. "It doesn't have to be mixed in with peach juice or citrus powder if we are short of those by some unfortunate event...."

"I am the epitome of zipped lips."

Two hunters load up bundles of ingredients and a case of washed glassware in the trunk, calling out safe travels before slamming it shut. Kunikida starts the car, driving them around the cul-de-sac and circling back, offering Atsushi one last glance of the lakehouse and its tall windows and columns, drowning in honey and blue light.

*

The two hour drive skirts the southern part of Tokyo, late evening rendering the metropolis sparkling in jeweled squares and skylights, then through the aqua-line that leaves Atsushi and Dazai gritting their teeth at the roar of ocean and traffic above and around them.

Other than that, they arrive at Kisarazu, Chiba without a hitch.

To no one's surprise, the city has much better reception than up in the mountains. Instead of sending a dove, Oda simply calls Ango and Dazai to let them know he, his kids, and the others have arrived safely at an undisclosed location by the time they exit the tunnel and tolls. Better to not give away details on the phone, just in case.

Unlike the neighborhood in the mountains, their troops are scattered around town. Kunikida pulls up to a tiled house on a sleepy street, tucked behind a Lawson's and a car dealership and bordered by tracts of farmland, sensible hedges instead of flowers and ivy climbing every surface in sight.

Their host, a witch wanting nothing to do with any coven or conflict, had taken a vacation to warmer lands, entrusting her home to "Dazai-kun's capable hands." A note in her mailbox says they could use the apothecary setup in the basement, but do be careful, to ignore her cats as they could take care of themselves, and invites Dazai, Atsushi, and any other vampire allowed by them to enter the threshold.

Yosano claims the sofa bed, and then it's two to a room upstairs. Dazai immediately latches onto Atsushi's arm and tugs him into the guest bedroom so it doesn't smell like cats.

By the time they secure the perimeter with wards, banish stubborn will-o-wisps attracted by the magic, hang dried rosemary and thyme from the coat racks and bannisters (not without Kunikida tripping over a tabby and exciting a fit of claws that only Kenji can soothe down), they've worked up a sweat and an appetite. Yosano shoos Kenji to the washroom; Kunikida heats up cup noodles on the stove. Atsushi and Dazai retreat to their room with thawing cow's blood in a pitcher.

"And just like that, we're back to the human circadian rhythms," Dazai sighs, setting down the tray and unfurling their futons for the night. "Fukuzawa-san declared a joint meeting at six tomorrow morning, too."

"You must've had these hours before, when you were studying," Atsushi says, rummaging through his backpack for his pajamas. A forlorn thought occurs to him. "I might not have met you, otherwise."

"Your life might have been easier, but I'll selfishly thank whatever god's listening for the sun, anyways."

"It's not just the sun...?"

"It doesn't sound as romantic, though~"

Atsushi unwinds his scarf and frees the topmost button on his shirt, the chill outside driven out for the time being. He feels, rather than sees, eyes slide to his neck.

Flushing under his skin, he pads over to the window between the futons, latticed bars of aged wood set against something shiny, silver, in front of the crystal. Branches of a leafless tree bend beyond it, too far away to touch the pane.

It hits him how long it had since he'd been home, living in a hazy, detached version of Yokohama under different circumstances. June, drowsiness and heat. Summertime.

A chink of glass, silence, then Dazai snakes his arms around Atsushi's waist and back-hugs him, sending a shiver down his spine with the dry brush of lips against his neck. Dazai, of course, notices. "You never had anyone kiss your neck before, hmm?"

"I...can't say I have," Atsushi replies honestly, relaxing into the embrace. He feels Dazai's slow smile against his skin, sits down with him on a futon.

Dazai trails a slow path with his lips, Atsushi resisting the urge to squirm from the influx of sensation, not uncomfortable but new. He can't help the noise that escapes his throat when Dazai kisses his collarbone, though—they meet each other's eyes, Atsushi's mortified, Dazai's unreadable, and they burst out in shaking silent laughter, not bothering to hide their fangs.

It could be easy.

"Sometimes, I wonder if you're even real," Dazai murmurs, eyes curved in crescents. He leans back, propping himself on arms extended straight out.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Atsushi answers lightly, standing to pour himself some of the pitcher's blood. "I thought I was pretty real."

"It could mean a lot of things."

"Mmm?"

"Don't worry. All of them are good, of course."

"I...hope so."

Dazai lets out another laugh under his breath. "Would they be all good, for me?"

"Maybe, if you'd stopped fishing for compliments." Atsushi sets his glass down, coming back to hover over Dazai, who tips his face up to look at him.

Their lips meet sweetly in the middle.

Chapter Text

Two days pass, and then a hulking raven bangs on the casement above the sink, startling the four of them at the breakfast table.

"It's probably Poe's," Yosano bites out, setting down her marmalade and toast to undo the clasps on the window.

The raven squawks a throaty note and holds out its foot for her to untie the corked vial, rolled sheets of paper inside. Kenji dashes to the back door and flings it open, the raven blinking a curious beady eye before circling around and swooping in, landing on his shoulder. With gusto, it accepts the mandarin wedge from his fingers.

Atsushi and Kunikida wait for Yosano to fish out the letter, Atsushi's chest tensing with what news might have come. If he could still dream, the recent nights would have been full of roses and wisteria in flames, pine trees gouged and gutted. In the past, Oda's predictions could be avoided, if action was taken early enough, but the correct action, or how much of it, wasn't always clear.

Yosano frowns down at the letter, mumbles about atrocious handwriting, and reads aloud:

"'At midnight, a splinter group from the city's coven launched an attack in the Silver Roads. Your mercenaries met them blow for blow at the gate and tower, but a second group maneuvered through. Most of them were of the feral kind. Their handlers could barely keep them in their chains. Like in your Seer's vision, they carried weapons of spelled fire, mulled with numerous constituents.' Jeez."

Beside him, Kunikida rubs his temples. Atsushi had been on the receiving end of fire potions before, hastily brewed, but knows one crafted by an expert hand, left to ferment in sugars and ashes before being spelled, took buckets of water to snuff out a minor spark.

"'You and Ranpo have already laid down traps and charms in the forest,'" Yosano continues, coming forward to rest her hip on the table. Kenji pads over to listen as well, tearing toast into chunks for the raven. "'And so the enemy was slowed. Nevertheless, ferals are fast and strong, and they followed the trails of magic to the neighborhood, where they dripped fires onto the roofs. It was a stalemate until two A.M., when Haeun and her river nymphs from the Han turned the tides and we could get close enough to stake their hearts and banish their venom.

One house at the edge has taken serious damage. Ranpo's house is only charred on one side. Skirmishes continue to happen upon the hour, but we are only gaining in strength as the sprites and water witches are summoned from afar to dampen fires before they start. No deaths.' Turn the tides, did he even realize he made a pun—" Yosano shuffles through the other pages with scarcely concealed relief, lips curving up at the next sheet. "Ranpo wrote too, in fewer words. And some non-urgent inquiries about spellwork for you," Yosano hands Kunikida the remaining loose sheets of paper. "Another bird must have gone to Dazai, filled with confession letters if nothing else." She rolls her eyes and returns to her seat.

Ranpo, in truth, told of the same battle in three lines: They came with fire. Fought back with some extra help. Still fighting as of six, but we're winning, the last stroke skidding off and winding into a curlicue, a flourish simultaneously lazy and extra that tugs on Atsushi's mouth.

Kenji sends the raven off with their collective reply, Kunikida resolving to put off the younger hunters' askance for senpai's help until later.

They finish their breakfast in muted conversation, Atsushi taking a drink of donated blood to heal the slashes on his arm faster. Clean wounds, done by a silver-capped sword. He and Kenji had fled with a busful of people yesterday, some woozy with sleeping gas a coven colonel had released, intending to feed his battalion to power or himself to a Blush, they didn't know.

Dazai was leaving the house as they were pulling back in, fussed over Atsushi until he was assured that it looked worse than it was, then was shoved out the door by Kunikida, frazzled at their lateness to a mission by a minute (and twenty seconds).

Passing through the loop without attracting attention had been a priority even before the Silver Roads were breached. Too many openings into Yokohama would drain the nature inside of its energy, a source the hunters needed to amass enough magic to damage the loop. It is more than an illusory spell—it changed actions, wiped memories, altered travelers going in and out to believe that they had seen what they were going to see, heard what they wanted to hear. Particles of food drawn from bowels at midnight back into tins, convenience store packages, raw ingredients.

An urban island, not knowing it needed help; a blood farm.

Soon seemed to be the force behind the hunters' actions now. As long as the coven continued to be oblivious to the rebellion stirring in the shadows and Tokyo remained a bulwark to the north, they could be crossing the bay within the week.

Atsushi climbs upstairs to the empty room. Dazai had left early to scout the shore with Ango, the two of them guiding Fukuzawa's boat with a spell of kelp and gull feathers rather than operating the noisy motor. He had seemed exhausted returning from the mission last night—the time loop letting them pass through like jello, Kunikida had told Atsushi at breakfast, but quiet jello until a subordinate triggered a coven alarm. Atsushi had heard plodding footsteps down the corridor and Dazai wordlessly scooped up pajamas and headed for the washroom. When he came back, Atsushi had lifted his cocoon of blankets, and they fell asleep tangled in each other's arms.   

Now, Atsushi straightens the futon and pillows, letting Dazai's pine and lavender scent wash over him.

He stands and rests his arms on the windowsill when he finishes, the chill of the plaster seeping into his hands that itch to cast magic. He traces lattices behind crystal, mentally nudges the sphere of topaz in his stone pouch.

A robin crashes into the branches just outside, wing and tail blackened by disease. Atsushi knows that stench all too well.

The coven had somehow trapped the moon's favor with nameless acts, evident in the poison brewed for Dazai. The moon could refuse their call, whisper treachery in the wrong ear. It couldn't be trusted until freed from the coven's grasp. Its half-lidded gaze had shone bright last night, coaxing Atsushi to let the magic inside him blend with its, comforting as it had been before, those early days he was Awake and alive to newfound power coursing through him.

But he shuts out the pull, insistent even now, and calls instead to the harder-to-reach magic underground, the slumbering tree outside. The sunlight striking the walls.

Drawing a ring of mint on the floorboards, he pushes the magic into a hunk of jasper. The ink-black veins on the rock pulse, streaks of gold rising to the surface. The jasper bobs, buoyant, and Atsushi opens the window to edge it toward the bird.

The corruption is drunk out of its body and into the rock.

Panic rises to his throat when a cat leaps from the roof to the branch. A frisson of magic bubbles to his fingertips, ready to stop it in its tracks. Then a gentle tail curls around the belly of the bird—the cat crawls to his window, lithe movements keeping from jostling its injury, and deposits it in his waiting hands.

Downstairs, Atsushi helps Kenji arrange another purification spell on the bird, followed by a healing. They defrost cubes of frozen moss and ferns to steam over its feathers, tucking it in a nest of towels.

He and Kunikida track down a group of ferals to a rooftop, snarling up a storm above a street of people. In quick cuts of their daggers, they dispatch them to dust.

The cat is still there when Atsushi returns with a dish of salmon. It meows its thanks, the charm ringing on its collar indicating its part in the brood living in and around the house. Its amber eyes are unblinking. A cool wind ruffles its striped fur, white as fresh lilies.

*

"That bastard seems happier than usual," Chuuya gripes. "It vaguely pisses me off. No, scratch that. It really pisses me off."

Atsushi keeps his face nonchalant, nodding at Kyouka to deal him another card. "How so?"

Chuuya ponders this. "He's not as traditionally annoying, for one. His sugary fakeness has become, I don't know, less like being subjected to a cheery nursemaid that forcefed you vitamin D infused tea, not that I'm projecting or anything." Surreptitiously, Atsushi and Kyouka exchange a look across the table. "Guess almost dying changed his life perspective," Chuuya adds, then barks in laughter. "As if."

"You don't believe that?" Kyouka asks. She flips her card over, revealing her win. Swathed in glamor and burned incense, she does not betray any unease at being in her old coven's territory.

They're on a terrace outside the ritzy eateries of Queen's Square, playing a half-hearted game of blackjack with a pooled stack of one-yen coins. The shadows of the tall buildings shield them from the baking summer sun. Open doors usher out the aroma of chocolate cake and beef cooked in mirin, the pouring of an amontillado sherry, aged around thirty years, if Chuuya's specialized nose is to be trusted.

"Nope. I think it has to do with the unlucky object of his affections." Chuuya grimaces as Kyouka happily gathers the bets to herself. "He might have finally gotten them into his bed, or something."

Atsushi almost chokes, playing it off in a series of coughs into the crook of his elbow. Kyouka, amusement brimming in her eyes, deadpans, "Or something."

He and Dazai hadn't told anybody about their new relationship, but Atsushi would be naive to think none of them had guessed it. The other day, Yosano had raised a brow at a faint bruise he hadn't realized was on his neck, and asked in her Doctor Voice that he could come to her with any questions, if needed, to which he spluttered his thanks, maybe—maybe in the future, all the while fighting off traitorous thoughts in his mind's eye of Dazai's hands on his bare skin, chaste kisses turned hot, being pressed or pressing the other into soft bedding in a distant safe place.

Kyouka's vial of sand and pitted cherries on the table shakes, distracting Chuuya from connecting any dots. A large amount of magic had just been discharged in the area.

She takes a reading from the tremors of sand, recording the numbers on her phone to be texted once they got out from the city and its signal interference. "It's off the charts. So, possibly," she says, glancing up to the glass monolith that is the Tokyu Bay Hotel.

From the infiltration that left him poisoned, scaring Atsushi and their friends half to death, Dazai had discovered that one of the time loop's remaining casters resided in a hotel near Cosmo World, making it the current target. Close enough to the wharf if they needed a quick getaway, a busy enough area to blend in if need be.

"Great. They had to pick the one place I have no connections in," Chuuya grumbles. "With the InterContinental, at least half my force is shacked up there."

"I'm sure Dazai-san has other plans to get us in," Atsushi attempts to console him, knowing full well it wouldn't.

Chuuya goes pale, possibly reflecting on a cart of oranges. "That's what I'm afraid of."

In the effortlessness of being born vampires, Kyouka and Chuuya sweep to their feet and head back inside. Atsushi follows, trying not to gape at the opulence around him, mezzanines and dark wood and marble floors. Three years he'd lived in Yokohama, and he had never set foot in Minato Mirai for this long.

Kyouka unlocks the car beside the curb, none of them willing to risk being trapped in a parking garage and its sharp turns and partitions. The string of beads on the dashboard sway as they pull away, releasing a whiff of herbs. From the backseat, Chuuya jams his fingers on the AC, lolling his head on the center console at the stickiness on his collar. Kyouka chides for him to sit correctly, Chuuya huffs about how a car accident could kill him, a vampire, and Atsushi somehow gets roped in to debating why O blood tastes more refreshing than others while Kyouka takes the turn toward the aqua-line.

"Hold on—"

Kyouka slams on the brakes.

Chuuya leaps out, running back to the gap between two buildings. "Look."

The honks behind them fade as other people climb out of their cars and look down the side of the  overpass, hands to their mouths. Kyouka and Atsushi, having smelled the rot a moment later than Chuuya, rush out as well.

A corpse lies in the shaded stripe between a storied residence and a medical office, bloated and rigid.

"The kyonshi is back—!"   

A thin wail rises above the crowd. It spreads, rippling the horror past. A father ushers his sons back into the car, cellphones drawn out, someone curses when a dial for emergency services is blocked from the earthquake that, in their minds, happened mere days ago.

"They'll forget at midnight," Kyouka whispers in his ear, gripping both his and Chuuya's arms. "So should we...?"

Atsushi finds his voice. "It would incite them further."

Kyouka nods. "I can draw their attention away for a while. You two make sure they're beyond saving, then glamor the site."

As soon as the illusion of a car accident crunches on the road below, helped by Kyouka's uncorked shriek in a bottle, Atsushi and Chuuya glide down, buoyed by weightless charms that leave dissolving wisps of blue behind them.

The woman has two dots on her arm, red brown, and another two on her neck. She is completely drained of blood, pulseless.

Atsushi grits his teeth, relishing the brief sting on the insides of his cheeks. Someone would remember, after. It did not have to end here.

A draped cloth, a sprinkle of marigold. He and Chuuya work quickly, urging the grass and soil beneath her body to swallow her up, hold her there until the time loop is broken and the mirror could relocate her to ashes and a grave, maybe. Chuuya lights a candle, the air shimmering above the flame. Atsushi scatters crushed lilies in his hands and draws a box in chalk.

They continue on their way, brows beaded with sweat. Glamored police cars and ambulances rush to both scenes, the proper people appearing to smooth out the chaos, tucking the terror in.

The shrill shriek of the cicadas follows him for many years after.

*

"I'm attempting ESP," is the first thing out of Dazai's mouth.

He is upside down, head on the floor, fuzzy-socked feet braced on the walls.

"Alright," Atsushi says, blank-faced. He sets the leather briefcase down—lent by another hunter, a daytime accountant before June and its following spiral of events happened—with a solid thunk, the ingredients inside including whole peaches, an acrylic twenty-four color paint set, and a package of pink rock salt.

"I want to read the coven's minds," Dazai replies cheerfully. "No use making a whole web of possibilities when you can just pluck it from thin air."

"People can change their minds, though?" Atsushi lifts a brow in his direction before turning back around. He unpacks the peaches and fresh herbs and places them on the desk, bags open, to let them air out.

He had just come from one last briefing before the push tomorrow morning. Dazai, Fukuzawa, and Ranpo's plan, aided by the coven rebels and de facto leaders of the haphazard bands of mercenaries, witches, werewolves, and magicians, would come to fruition in less than twelve hours. Cosmo World was successfully infiltrated days ago, the controls for its Ferris wheel on the bay unguarded, the path to it shrouded by the musk of humans, sweating and crammed in the theme park's fences.

"But if you observe them for a while, you can predict what they'll do next. Like tuning into a radio station on the regular." A pout is in Dazai's voice. He lets himself topple onto the pillows behind him, absently threading fingers through locks of hair gone askew, dark in the dimness of their room. He looks up, meets Atsushi's eyes, and smiles.

Atsushi's cheeks warm in response.

"I think the coven elders would appreciate being compared to a radio station," Atsushi considers, hanging his outfit, also borrowed, for tomorrow. He can feel Dazai watching him. "Didn't you say some of them thought the internet is from the movements of ghosts in the sewers?"

Dazai snorts in laughter. "Yeah, according to their infinite wisdom. Cutting off the phone towers probably delighted their moldy little hearts. Seeing us work together with humans would broil at least one, if they could see us from their lofty thrones."

Atsushi listens for a trace of bitterness, but picks up none. The coven had trapped and poisoned Dazai, stabbed him, treated him as a dog at their beck and call while in it—but Atsushi doesn't know the whole story. Dazai doesn't act on vengeance, that much he knows. He gets a vacant, listless look in his eyes when talking about his days up and down the coast as a newly turned vampire, a sword and a pair of fangs for hire. He could have stayed and be rewarded an easy life in one of the southern covens, heaped with blood and riches.

One day Atsushi might understand it all, or maybe he won't. He knows how destructive dwelling in the past can be.

Clouds part, and Dazai's ruby-adorned dagger glints on the desk's upper shelf, a scabbard in the works beside it. In his spare minutes, Dazai spells woven leaves and acorns into a single curved shape, shiny as wood. He'd traded Yosano plums for tiny forget-me-nots that are baked onto the surface under the glaze. Seeing it eases some of Atsushi's nerves, the squeeze of what-if-what-if for tomorrow and the days after. This isn't a goodbye; they had to make it back to see the craft completed.

Had to, as if wishing it enough would make it come true.

"I want to open a bar in the future," Dazai says to the ceiling. "Serve delicacies to the vampire palate. Invite curious mortals in like those establishments in Bangkok and San Francisco. How does 'AB Positive Caramel Eclipse' sound?"

"Barely marketable?"

"I'm wounded," Dazai says, not sounding the least like it.

"I remember you said you missed lychee drinks." Atsushi recalls the early morning train ride. "You don't have to open a whole bar to get it, Dazai-san - can't you experiment in a kitchen by yourself?"

"O-ho! What a great idea. I can get Ango to be bartender. He has the hands of a master chemist. Surely he can give us Turned vampires a taste of the past."

"...As if Ango-san would have the time." Of the three, Ango's plans after the war entail securing more permanent alliances, establishing judicial systems for supernatural crimes. Laws and politics and diplomacy to keep another bloody year from happening, here or elsewhere.

Better to band together when more humans learn of our existence, was the grimmer motive left unsaid. There had been debate amongst the hunters whether to tell the truth to those impacted by this supernatural war or to keep the status quo, if they'd even be believed or have a metaphorical witch hunt on their hands. In the end, Fukuzawa had sternly called for peace first, arguments later.

Atsushi sits beside Dazai on the futon, and Dazai uprights himself so they're shoulder to shoulder. With a rueful smile, he laces their fingers together. It sends a thrill of emotion over Atsushi, the newness together with the familiarity, their friendship before their lips had ever touched.

They spend the evening absorbed in separate books, occasionally called out to help Yosano or Kunikida with a last minute brew or to answer a pigeon, in Dazai's case. The full moon comes to light the tree outside, boughs shivering in the wind. Dazai's magic had returned in rivulets and drops as the damage from his poisoning healed. He would not have to use much tomorrow, with luck. He would lead a small group into Cosmo World, coordinating forces in and out of the loop with the Ferris wheel lights and other spells.

Somewhere between reading a distracted chapter and the next, Dazai nudges Atsushi's arm to get his attention, whining.

With a light touch, Dazai lifts Atsushi's chin and kisses him hard.

Making out with a vampire when he himself is a vampire has its oddities. Their fangs clatter together, their tongues pricked if they aren't careful. They don't have to pause to breathe. And then there's his inexperience, not knowing what he's doing but figuring it out as he goes. Hands burying themselves in Dazai's hair and tugging elicits a catch in Dazai's throat. Being nipped on the earlobe feels strange rather than pleasurable. Swinging his legs over to sit in Dazai's lap so they're at right angles to each other, face to face, makes the room float.

Dazai winds his arm around Atsushi's back to grip his waist. Fingertips brush his ribcage. They kiss again, lips parted then closed, Atsushi lifting his other hand to cup Dazai's jaw. Their minds end up at the upcoming dawn, the dangers and possibilities of it. His movements gets clumsy with desperation; Dazai's does, too. A part of him fears for Atsushi and his role tomorrow, he knows, but it was not his choice to make. They hold onto each other tighter.

A dove pecking on the window reels them back to the frosty night.

They untangle themselves from each other with reluctance. Dazai's pupils are blown. His smile is open, incandescent. Giving him a small one back, Atsushi leaves him to answer the message and prepares his items for tomorrow.

After, when they had washed up and changed in their nightclothes, Atsushi winds fresh bandages up to and around Dazai's throat at his request. "Like drawing your covers up against the monsters," Dazai jokes half-heartedly, self-berating, letting a bit of his thoughts peek out. "Useless if there any are in the end."

"If it helps your mind even a little bit, it's not useless at all, Dazai-san." Atsushi finishes the last area and breaks the roll, knotting the freed tail.  "Do you want me to wrap your arms too?"

They part with a chaste kiss to separate futons that night, sleep alluding the both of them, the house creaking in the darkness.

*

His group pushes off the rocky coast at dawn.

Lips moving silently, Higuchi holds a clump of seaweed to propel their boat forward against the pitching waves. On her other side, Akutagawa huddles under his own rain poncho, bleary-eyed and cursing the hour. Dazai had planned for it to be this way—most vampires in the city would be heading for bed soon, unaware of the rebels and hunters slipping in.

Atsushi fingers his necktie, a slippery eel of silk he had adorned as the last piece in his disguise. Charcoal suit, leather shoes, shirt starched to the point of it standing on its own if he'd let it. The mirror in their room ate blackberries in exchange for showing an undead's reflection. The person looking back at Atsushi appeared young, an indeterminate age, a hard set to his mouth, tired eyes, gold irises dulled behind hazel contacts (from Yosano's stash, glamour could drain his magic reserves after a while), the look befitting a businessman fresh out of school and lacking sleep.

Dazai had pouted when Atsushi tied his own tie on the first try, a remnant of his restaurant's uniform, decrying the missed opportunity for a romantic moment before Atsushi picked up a pillow and threw it at him.

"Almost there," Higuchi calls out. At her behest, Akutagawa lifts a seashell and squeezes a wedge of lime atop it. Two vampires follow, one dusting salt and the other dribbling vinegar onto their separate shells. Preservatives, an offering to the time loop. The magic would repair itself behind them, leaving no trace of their entry.

They hurtle into a warm sunrise.

Higuchi guides the prow until they're within sights of the red brick warehouse, pulling to a stop behind a yacht. Eight of them shed their ponchos and jackets and clamber onto the pier. The ninth accepts the seaweed and sails off. He would keep to the waters inside the loop, waiting for a signal.

Besides Higuchi and Akutagawa, Atsushi and the other vampires are newly turned, their hundred days passed during the summer months. The coven wouldn't know their faces.

At the train station, Akutagawa sniffs at Atsushi and the three who would be going in with him, all dressed formally and cloaked in nauseatingly strong perfume—middling, to a human nose—albeit in different ones.

"They're good still," Akutagawa confirms, leaning back with a grimace.

"If you're going to cough, cough into your arm," a vampire chides, oblivious to the glare Akutagawa shoots him. "It's not sanitary otherwise, people will look at you weird."

Higuchi hastily interrupts before Akutagawa could show just how sanitary bashed brains are. "Everyone ready?"

Atsushi touches the inner pocket of his suit jacket for his stones, feels the peony wound around the revolver at his hip. The smell of silver bullets could pass, undetected, where a whole dagger or knife would not. The briefcase pulls heavy on his shoulder.  "Ready."

The other vampires echo the sentiment.

"We'll see you in a few, then," Higuchi says, and the remaining two fall in behind her and Akutagawa down the lightening street.

They buy their one-way tickets and find their train. His teammates are disinclined to make small talk, and Atsushi stands unwavering at the back, surprised by his own calmness. Another strange intersection of society the four of them are, thrown together by the circumstances. The taller woman looks comfortable in her heels and pressed clothes, the middle-aged man swallows and tugs at his tie, and the other woman, no older than Atsushi by a few years, plays with a charm bracelet on her wrist.

One stop, and they take the escalator from the innards of Minatomirai Station to the brightening surface.

*

The wastewater treatment symposium lies in a series of interconnected ballrooms on the fifth floor, droopy-eyed people cradling manila folders and tiny water bottles and milling about before the first round of presentations start. A roasting pot of coffee rises sour above the mix of smells. All are human besides the four hunters in their midst. Either the coven deemed the event beneath their attention, or they'd already nabbed their pickings over the past cycles. The time loop had prevented any dowsing from outside in, not for the lack of trying.

"Kajiwara Kou," Atsushi introduces himself at the welcome table. The name is on a tag in the stack. Four extra had been slipped in with the rest.

They are careful to blend in with the crowd, not wanting to cause far-reaching ripples in the loop. Make enough changes in a place, and the effects scatter out. Keep your ears open, pretend to study the packet, avoid meeting people's eyes. Kunikida would be at home in this conference, Atsushi thinks, with its neat text and banners, the researchers conversing in serious low tones and dressed in tastefully muted colors. The atmosphere of a library.

An ideal one, at least . Atsushi suppresses the urge to grin.

The heeled vampire heads off in the direction of the restrooms, purse slung casually over her frame. Her crystal ball is hidden in it. The shorter woman favors a modified pebble and clover spell, the man a tube of granulated sugar in his pocket. With luck, one of them would find the time loop's caster holed up in this hotel.

Seven o'clock, and Atsushi and the remaining two hunters head in the dimmed rooms with the flow.  

He uncaps a pen and arranges his expression to be attentive to the front. A speaker steps onto the dais, queues up the slides. Atsushi loosens the string on his stone pouch, pinned to his inside pocket. The symposium has rented airy rooms, wide and arcing windows that let in natural light—and a view of Cosmo Clock 21.

In the shadow of the back row, his stone of lapis goes out with a word and a prod. Atsushi guides it into a vent, nudging its innate magic to take hold and guide itself through the twists and turns, carrying a sliver of his consciousness with it.

The minutes stretch out.

The reality that he's in the coven's territory, alone in one of their chief hideouts, creeps up the back of his neck, chilly fingers. He is aware of each breath he takes in. He draws the resolve around him like a quilt: Kyouka's peace, Tanizaki's steady presence, the sound of Kenji's good morning . Ranpo's quickness of wit, Yosano's face as she holds a bleeding wound closed, Kunikida and his tart words belying his care for each of them.

Dazai's smile, his touches, the press of his lips against Atsushi's.

The lapis continues to climb.

The mortal hunters would head into Yokohama through the Gilded Passage, its waters undisturbed by the fighting in the Silver Roads. They would make landfalls over the next hour, wait for them to ferret out the time loop's spoke or for Dazai to make a decision to Plan B: brute force, using peaches, paint, and rock salt.

Up above, he feels the stone wobble, the thread going taut between them.

The Ferris wheel below blinks: yellow, then blue, then back again. Testing, testing.

Polite applause yanks Atsushi out of his second of relief, just as he senses it.

Flecks of magic gather and pool in a turbulent mass above the Tokyu Bay Hotel. He follows the crowd back out into the common area, keeping one eye trained on the swarm of energy stories above.

A volunteer shoves a cup of lemonade in his hands, tepid plastic to skin, and Atsushi fakes nursing it to look around. The other two hunters have vanished into their own searches. Fifteen past eight. The forces across the city are almost all assembled. Not much time is left.

The lapis meets the first wall of resistance. A flash: wind, open sky, cabana chairs. A viewpoint much higher than his. The balcony faces inland, away from the sea, level with the upper floors of Queen's Tower—  

Atsushi urges the lapis back down, removing his sight from it. He didn't know if the ward around the spoke had eyes, but wouldn't risk lingering longer than that glimpse.

In the restroom, he locks himself in a toilet and opens his briefcase. Closing his eyes, he warms a handful of pebbles—common ones, picked back along the lake—with a spray of a tonic. He stands on the toilet and feeds them up the vent, passing another five minutes in silence, glancing at his watch all the while, then washes his hands and exits the restroom.

As he heads down the hallway leading to the stairs, someone seizes his arm.

"Ah, it's him," Akutagawa intones. Teeth gleaming, he flicks glance over his shoulder. "Believe me now?"

Atsushi's eyes widen. Two black-garbed coven members stare back at him from behind Akutagawa, naked hatred and triumph mingled in their expressions.

"Trying to save your fellow humans, boy?" one of them asks. She circles around to grip his other arm.

"Too late now," the other one giggles, spiked tufts of his hair the same champagne color as his eyes. A Carmilla. Besides their famed beauty and lust, they could cast illusions airtight as tombs and wards of diamond.

He struggles to loosen their grip on his arms, thrashing against the painful twin squeezes in vain. His strength is a child's compared to these born-and-bred vampires.

"O-ho! He fights. What to do with you, what to do." The Carmilla's face is ethereal, a painted nail tapping on Atsushi's chin.

"Ebina-san would be pleased. He could break this one and eradicate all the rest. Hunters, pah ! They'll be the hunted."

"I found him," Akutagawa cuts in sharply. When Atsushi twists to look at him, he doesn't meet his gaze. His eyes are trained at the ornate wallpaper somewhere above his head. "He will be handed to Kouyou, not you glory pigs."

The Carmilla steps back and forces a shrug. "So we are. But we'll get some of the credit for securing one of Dazai's, won't we? Finders, keepers, golden leapers!"

They whirl him to the back elevator, the space devoid of people, causing Atsushi to suspect the Carmilla has already casted an illusion all around. One strong enough to fool another vampire's eyes, even.

The carriage starts to climb. His heart strains to leap out of his chest. His breaths come out in noisy gulps.

The vampires, of course, hear.

"Aw, poor thing." She yanks Atsushi inside the elevator. "Allying yourself with Dazai? Bad mistake."

"That half-blooded bastard uses people like burning through paper, I've heard. Bet you didn't know that, hmm?"

"Let's not talk about that traitor more than necessary," Akutagawa snarls.

"Aw, little Akutagawa-kun and his mountain-sized grudge against his old mentor. And I thought you two had been getting along better a few years ago. Guess turning his back on our kind is a bit hateful, hmm?"

"Shut up."

"I must say, Akutagawa-kun, your informants are top-notch." Though they tease him, they're afraid of him. "Who is that fair servant of yours? Hmm...ah-ha! Higuchi, I remember." A sharp smile. The Carmilla looks down at Atsushi, gone limp from a kick to the ribs. "I must say, this one's pretty too."

Akutagawa had flinched at the word servant, the motion felt rather than seen. "Of course our informants are better than yours, idiot. Now are you going to mouth your way on this chance to raise yourself, or let me claim all the accolades?"

The elevator slides open, and they tug Atsushi into a lavish room: jade statues, silver inlay on the wooden panels, a massive bed with rich purple covers. Vases plunged with fresh daisies and tulips, other flowers he doesn't know the name of. The spoke would not be here, with the comparative plainness in what he'd seen.

Cosmo Clock has shrunk with the distance, spiraling pink and green.

Kouyou emerges from the wardrobe, clothes folded over her arm. Her updo is flawless. Her painted smile is sweet.

"The lead has panned out, then," she says, heels clicking to a stop before Atsushi and Akutagawa. The other two vampires hover behind them. Gin emerges from the balcony, and Atsushi's briefcase is whisked away in her hands. She does not meet his eyes, either.

Other vampires emerge from the adjacent suites, curious expressions turning wickedly pleased as they take in Atsushi's scent.

"One of Dazai's," Akutagawa says in confirmation.

"Send for General Hada and any elders you can find," Kouyou addresses the two vampires. At their hesitance, she snaps, "Everyone here has witnessed that you have helped bring in this asset. You'll get your added reputation. Now go. "

They scurry off, leaving the rest of them to stand in silence, Kouyou assessing him with a cool detachment, Gin returning to stand at her shoulder. Atsushi hears the whispers: human in a wolf's den. A bargaining chip. Makes up for Dazai slipping away  two weeks ago. Grudging admiration: Akutagawa is such a perfect weapon. Kouyou-kun wins again.

Kouyou unsheathes a plain silver dagger, its polish catching on the horizon behind her. Soon the summer rain would fall, as it had over again. Kunikida and his team would have the mirror in place, angled to the sky across the Ooka River. Ango would launch his attack with the Thai vampires and werewolves on the eastern front.

Whatever happens now, they would have a fighting chance.

Atsushi takes a breath, wills his heart to continue beating, and steels himself.

"And what have we have here?"

The general is easy to pick out among his entourage, chest adorned with spotless crystal stars even as his soldiers are losing, have been losing, for months. The vampires that follow part to let the elders squeeze in front with him, pearls and inlaid gems stitched into their cloaks and gowns. A couple have Blushes high on their cheeks—Atsushi feels his gut plummet at the sight. He is glad Oda's Seen recipe is safe in the mountains, Ranpo and his neighborhood having guarded the houses against fire and ferals and driving the enemy back.

Akutagawa answers the general, shifting to an older form of speech without batting an eye, "One of my spies alerted me: this morning, a group of hunters—" A hiss passing over the crowded room, jeers—"will infiltrate this stronghold. For what reason, I cannot ascertain, my lord. I am not privy to what we keep in these walls, but knew they had to be stopped without inciting mass panic among us."

One of the elders waves a gloved hand, looking pleased. "And you did as you ought to, Akutagawa-kun. Know you have saved the coven a great deal. And Captain Ozaki," He looks at Kouyou, who stands straight-backed and regal, dagger in her hand, "though she is young, shall be amply rewarded."

"But how should we extract information from this human?" the general asks, disgruntled from being waylaid if only for a minute. Petty was the word Dazai and Kyouka used often to describe the coven. Or, from Chuuya, snobbish assholes. "I believe we should send for the potions chief at once, to brew a pennywort concentration, loosen his synapses a little—"

"Where is Nakahara-kun? Order him start a chalk wheel of his best instead, it would much more wise, surely!"

"He should be subjected to a third order spell, a message to the other hunters!"

"Speaking of which, where are the rest, Akutagawa-kun?"

"I have dispatched guards for them already."

"But how many ? I can pull some of my soldiers back from Minami for a morning, Shinjuku bastards can chase them all they want—"

"Oh, you're just wanting a military victory in this, leave this to the House of Scarlet Lily—"

"How dare you accuse me of putting our well-being and defenses before your noble clans' worth, which might I remind you, lost the favor of the shogunate in 1794—"  

Kouyou lets them squabble over his fate for a while, looking mildly amused. Akutagawa's grip on Atsushi's arm has loosened; his other is freed. In the chaos, raised voices and grandstanding all around, Gin turns to face the window. A silent message is conveyed between her and Akutagawa; Kouyou lifts her dagger, and must see the same thing in its reflection, for she raises her voice above the din:

"Now, I have heard most excellent suggestions from you all, but I must remind you—"

"Ozaki, see here—"

She plows forward with her words, "The presiding officer for these matters has the final say, no?"

Reluctant grumbles of assent, then blessed silence.

"Then allow me."

In a blink, Kouyou's dagger lashes out—    

—and whistles past Atsushi.

The general's neck blooms with red.

Atsushi wrenches out his revolver and unlocks the safety: an elder is knocked back by the bullet to her chest. Akutagawa had not reminded the guards to search him.

Later, when he would retell it to Dazai, huddled under the covers together, he would say the chaos that followed came in flashes, distinct frames in an old reel:  

Gin launches herself into the crowd at the side, sword unsheathed and doused in pale rosewater. Several fall from the first slice alone. Liquid movements: others fold from the force of a fury potion uncapped and roaring out the neck.

Kouyou unhooks more weapons from her sleeves, snatches them from the tables behind her, throws with deadly precision. A school of flying fish in freeze-frame. She calls out: she tosses a shortsword to Atsushi.

Atsushi whirls on the soldiers behind them, Akutagawa matching him step for step. They weave in and out of the fray. The fights are too dangerous, heated, to knock out with precision, his opponents' skills honed with decades of practice to not hold back. Atsushi knows he kills. He kills, and he does not take joy in it. Did not, will not.

At one point, other rebels spill into the suite, balancing the numbers. Blood spilled, spattered on the walls. Gin parries a stray blade headed for Atsushi's back and dives away. Other hunters appear, the heeled vampire—now heelless—sending smoke from pentagrams. The midmorning rain starts. Under a table, someone starts a sulfur spell and aims for Kouyou. Atsushi rips a bundle of flowers from a vase, hurls his sphere of topaz, breathes the sun into its glide. Powders fly out, disintegrate.

A distant rumble, like thunder.

Shards fall from the ceiling, some dissolving as soon as they touch the carpet, others passing through and continuing their descent. The sky is peeled back. The rush of rain stops. The raindrops become flakes of snow, mixing until they vanish entirely, gray on white then white on gray. The pressure knocks them to their knees as the time loop fractures and gives way..

*

"Show off," Chuuya says, a cup of hot tea in his hands. "Aiming for the chest would have been safer."

"Only if you think you're going to miss the neck," Kouyou simpers back. A smeared poultice of onions is pasted to the acid burn on her cheek, which she bears with dignity. The healers rush about, not having time for neatness.

Akutagawa grumbles something about do you want to hear the rest or not? and Chuuya and the others dutifully go quiet. Exhaustion dulls their usual level of snarkiness.

Atsushi leans back on the sofa in Chuuya's apartment, a designated safe house until Fukuzawa gave the all clear. The space is surprisingly modern, considering a vampire lives in it, but Atsushi knows skulls and coffins and candelabra-adorned walls aren't really Chuuya's style.

After the time loop fell and they fought to a standstill, Higuchi and a few hunters found them again, sporting their own battle wounds, Atsushi's lapis and pebbles in hand. Higuchi is well-versed in boundary spells. Given that Akutagawa distracted the physical guards from the floor, alerted by the signal from one of Atsushi's pebbles, she went to work disabling the wards protecting the spoke. She and others fought their own battle in that hotel room, the one Atsushi had seen through his lapis stone.

A pigeon then flew to Dazai, who had commandeered Cosmo World across the bridge: they had secured the threads from the spoke's hands and were ready to cut them. Once Kunikida affirmed the mirror was in place, Dazai sent out the message linked with a time: push.

They severed the threads just as all who could see and heed the Ferris wheel sent out blasts of magic to the sky.

It had been enough.

"She what ?" Chuuya squawks at Akutagawa's latest monotone retelling.

"I can confirm that Tanimura did, in fact, mention you by name," someone pipes up. "Hada was pissed."

"But his occult symbols aren't that refined," Higuchi says, tilting her head.

"Oi—"

"That's what I thought. They suck, usually," Akutagawa deadpans. "The elders must have mixed you up with the other top hat wearing cretin."

Chuuya shows him a rude gesture. "I'll ignore that last part and focus on the fact that that guy is two centuries older and has a beer belly and beard, we look nothing alike, you bastards—"

The surrendered coven is currently under lock and key, contained in a well-lit building, Tachihara tells them. He and Hirotsu had arrived bearing scrolls of filched spellwork, sending the conversation to another lively squabble.

Atsushi sits on the fringe, waiting as more news trickles in. Someone produces a pitcher of blood, and he's handed a glass. It soothes his nerves, grounding his leftover heartbeat. It hadn't been all for show, his fear as Akutagawa pretended to capture him, the coven penning him in on all sides. He didn't feel strong enough, until he was.

(Dazai would make up some greasy quote about courage and fear, and Atsushi would snort and know, internally, what he tries to say beneath it, maybe. He gets better at wading through Dazai's layers of thought as the years pass.)

The sunlight streams down—the winter sun. The calendars all say December. A thin spread of snow is strewn over the rooftops, people below bundled in coats, scarves, and sweaters. The storefronts glisten with holiday lights, crammed with poinsettias, tinsel. Atsushi doesn't know whether to laugh or cry.

By noon, Chuuya's apartment is crammed, noisy. People shift and squeeze, no one complains. Someone lights a row of scented candles, the scent of apples driving out all others. The perfume that had disguised Atsushi as human dissipates..

And then, putting an end to his anxious thoughts, Dazai texts him: lunch with ango n kyouka-san plus those people who can actually eat lunch?? A photo of Cosmo Clock 21 lit up in a myriad of colors is attached.

Minutes later, Kunikida knocks on Chuuya's door, bruised and bandaged but upright. "I illegally parked on the curb. Let's hurry."

Those within earshot laugh and wheedle him, his fame earned over the campaign, and Kunikida pushes up his glasses with a huff and nothing more. They call out a goodbye to Atsushi, vampire and human voices overlapping.

Once they're in the car, though, Kunikida doesn't start it immediately. Instead, he taps a finger on the steering wheel, deep in thought, before saying, gruffly,  "Glad you didn't die, kid."

Atsushi smiles, shifting his gaze to the road in front of them. "Same to you, Kunikida-san."

*

There are no heavy words needed as they reunite under the stoop of a yakitori restaurant, Kenji whooping at the promise of fresh meat inside, Ango nodding at Fukuzawa. Joy is evident on the more open faces; relief shines in every eye. Someone (Ango?) soberly wishes Fukuzawa's wallet good luck against the others' empty stomachs.

Kunikida, in his infinite wisdom, had called ahead for their seating. They file in, drawing glances at their general beat-up state, but no one comments on it. Atsushi sees no serious injuries, no one absent from a trip to the hospital. Yosano grins at him when he catches her gaze. Kyouka elbows him as she passes, saying conspiratorially, "I like your suit, but I think someone else likes it more than me."

Dazai lingers at the entryway. He catches Atsushi's sleeve and holds his hand in his, squeezing hard for a moment. His brown eyes are stark against the bright knit of his scarf. He is real as he had been this morning, kissing him goodbye. "I missed you."

"I missed you too," Atsushi whispers back.

The two of them, along with Ango and Kyouka, take turns grilling meat with the others, placing obligatory portions on their plates. The others beside them know to scoop it up at times. Lemon squeezed into a pilsner of half-beer, half-water makes for an interesting distraction. Calls go out: Oda, Ranpo and a few mountain magicians, then Tanizaki, Naomi, and Haruno.

"What are you doing." Ango raises a weary brow.

"Nothing, nothing~" Dazai smirks at his phone. When Ango is distracted, he shows Atsushi a line of texts to Oda—memeish photos of Ango at unflattering angles, the last one aptly titled NOSTRIL HAIRS.  

Across the table, Dazai's gaze comes to rest on him again and again the whole meal. First looking for outward injuries, perhaps, then staring with an adoration Atsushi would have been flustered with, not recognizing it for the shade of what it was once upon a time in the library. His heart has become more open now, he hopes. Open to both accept and give.

Fukuzawa's wallet does end up holding out and then some. He makes a valiant effort against rolling his eyes when he returns to their table, half of them groaning, betting money being exchanged. They part at the roadside in gales of laughter, ready to make the journey across the aqua-line to gather their things.

Kunikida drives, and Dazai pesters. The city blurs past, things different and the same. Kenji dozes off; Yosano types away on her phone, now with five bars of service.

Atsushi is warm and tired, nodding off at intervals. He lets himself forget to breathe, and his heart slows to a complete stop. The knots in his chest and back loosen, one by one.

Outside, the snow picks up again, melting as it touches the earth.

*

They move out out of Kisarazu and adjacent Sodegaura the following days, departing homes with thanks and, occasionally, promises to write. Those involved in magic are far and few in between, too isolated in life to not keep in contact.

Their particular witch instructs Dazai leaves the key in an enchanted flowerpot, and Kenji makes his rounds to pet the cats goodbye. Atsushi doesn't have to look hard to find the striped cat, the one that rescued the bird—now perched on the telephone line with its flock—from the tree. He offers it a bowl of tuna, and it accepts.

Kunikida and Yosano bustle around the kitchen and basement, washing glassware and wiping down counters, Kenji mopping the floors with a hummed tune. Atsushi and Dazai fold up the futons and wash the blankets and sheets, pinning them to the clothesline strung up on the balcony under an overcast sky.

Dazai distracts him with kisses to his cheek and jaw, and Atsushi kisses him back, shyly at first, then more firmly. He's hanging up the last pillowcase and ticking off herbs needed to summon a blast of hot air when Dazai lifts him by the waist to the tea table, yelping at his ticklish spot being squeezed, Dazai laughs muffled in his shoulder. A searing kiss, then Dazai rests their foreheads together.

"Do you think your roommates will let you go, one day?" Dazai asks.

A pause, then a rush of delight as Atsushi grasps what Dazai is asking him, proposing for the future. "I think they can find another roommate, if I give them enough warning."

"Good, because I want to steal more of your time," Dazai says. "I'm greedy."

Atsushi huffs out a laugh. "I think honesty is becoming of you, Dazai-san."

"I'm flattered, but that's too bad. I prefer to be the mysteriously handsome deuteragonist that draws in eighty-percent of the fans." Dazai steps back, eyes crinkling. "For you, though, I'll reconsider."

They head inside, packing their last items into their bags. Atsushi had already given the peaches and herbs to Yosano, not wanting them to spoil, and inspects the briefcase for any blood or grime..

"Did you have somewhere in mind?"

"The hunters are eyeing an office place in Naka-ku," Dazai answers. He wraps the dagger scabbard in wax paper before nestling it in with his clothes. "And I have a couple landlords who owe me favors in that area."

"...Of course you do."

The smile Dazai gives him is beatific. "The university is in walking distance, too. The mirror didn't touch much in people's workplaces, from what the scouts are saying. If you want to go back, I mean."

"I...do," Atsushi says, considering. The library is a job that gives him permission to study while on the clock; he did not have to go far to find resources, either. "Whether the cactus is still alive, though, I'm not sure I want to know."

"Hey, it is what brought us together, wasn't it? The Sleeping Beauty spindle, the cosmic slumber, the prince charming, the magic—"

"I'm leaving," Atsushi announces, and Kunikida yells at Dazai for causing a ruckus, thundering down the stairs after him.

*

The chrysanthemum swallows the key dropped in its pot, the car doors and trunk are slammed shut, and they begin the slow drive back to Yokohama. For good, this time, for a hopefully long while.

They know the hills ahead: the new coven leadership. The turned vampires, ripped from their lives. How well the mirror worked in filling Yokohama's memories. Whether it would take days or years to test and brew Oda's concoction.  The alliances and the Silver Roads. The deaths during all these months. The question of the truth to those who lost someone in the siege.

Atsushi would carry the pieces with him, the chips of broken glass, the shallow pond, the forest, the train, the car, the city they fought to free.

June would arrive again.