00.
It is mid-June and mid-night and you come into the world screaming, as most babies do. Your delicate skin exposed to the elements for the first time, unblemished and pure like a blank canvas. Like an empty page.
A story yet to be told.
You cry and cry and cry—a sign of strong lungs, the midwife says as she places you in your mother’s arms. Swaddled tightly in a blanket. She holds you against her chest, pressing your cheek to her bare skin, and the tears begin to recede. Perhaps you have tired yourself out, or perhaps the warmth of human contact with no layers in-between has lulled you into a sense of security.
Your mother gifts you a healing name:
修 to repair, mend, or fix
治 to govern, manage, or cure
Your mother has high hopes for you. She loves you dearly—has loved you since long before you took your first breath. You will not remember this in the years to come, of course. Memory is a fickle thing and yours will slip through the cracks in your fingers like sand falling through an hourglass. Memory is a fickle thing, and you will rewrite yours because it is easier. Because you can.
It is mid-June and mid-night and you are a beautiful blessing.
You are human.
01.
One week before your first birthday, your mother fastens a cloth bag around you and places something heavy inside. It weighs down against your back, tugs painfully on your shoulders, and you grab onto her as she adjusts it. It is only a moment before she pries your fingers from the fabric of her shirt and leaves you on your own.
She points to your father, who stands a great distance away, and tells you to go to him. He is crouching near the ground. Waiting for you.
The weight on your back hurts, but you know your father will not save you if you fall and your mother has revoked her support. You are on your own with what feels like the entire world pressing down against your shoulder blades.
Walking is a relatively new phenomenon, but you have been practicing. You have been running around the house and through the garden. You have been playing chase with your aunt. You have been trained for this moment.
You take one step, and then another.
You make it all the way to your father without toppling over, and you throw your hands up in a ta-da! motion, expecting applause for passing their test.
Instead, your father looks straight past you with a frown etched deep into his face.
—
Several days later, on the first anniversary of your entrance into this world, you are set on the floor of the family room and a collection of objects is placed in front of you. You don’t understand what most of them are, or why they are important. You are told to pick one.
None of them interest you, so you make your own option and choose that instead.
You crawl to your mother, shakily push yourself to your feet, and wrap your arms tightly around her leg, burying your face into her yukata. She laughs, and bends down to run her fingers through your hair.
Behind her, your father is frowning again.
But oh, is choosing someone you love not the most human thing you could have done?
02.
Your aunt bakes a cake and she lets you lick frosting from the spatula. You’ve been seeing her more than your mother recently and you don’t know why. Your mother spends a lot of time in bed. So your aunt feeds you and takes you outside to the garden and lets you help her pull weeds. Then she scrubs the dirt from your hands and sings silly songs so you won’t cry as she strips your clothes from you and sets you in the bathtub.
It’s always so cold.
Once all the frosting is gone from the spatula, your aunt takes it back and then uses a wet cloth to clean your hands and face. You wince away from the touch even though it’s warm and your aunt apologizes like maybe she hurt you.
It didn’t hurt. But you don’t like it either. You’re not sure why.
There are so many different sensations in this world and you are still trying to figure out how to coexist with all of them. You wish there were some way to limit physical contact with the world around you—some barrier between your skin and everything that wants to touch it.
If there is, you are certain you won’t be allowed it.
(How can you be expected to learn humanity if you refuse to fully submerge yourself in it?)
03.
You sit in bed with your mother. You don’t remember the last time you saw her walking around, or if she ever did. There is something wrong with her but no one will tell you what it is; they only say she is sick.
Sick is also what happens when you stay out in the cold for too long and get a sniffly nose. Sick is also what happened when your aunt started coughing and you were left in the care of the maid for a week. Sick can mean a lot of different things—so many, that it loses meaning altogether.
Sick. “Sick”. Sick. Sick?
You reach for your mother’s hand, where it holds the book she is reading aloud to you. It is much bigger than yours, with long pale fingers and cracked nails. It is almost grey compared to the vibrant illustrations on the page. Grey, you think, is a sick color.
But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad color.
You wonder if one day, you will be sick like your mother too—unable to stand, unable to leave your bed. Unable to run and play. It sounds like a terrible fate, but maybe it happens to everyone eventually. Maybe you can’t make it through life without succumbing to a sickness that tethers you.
Your mother’s hand is cold when you touch it.
She stumbles over the words as they fall from her mouth, but she doesn’t stop reading. You wish she would. You wish she would explain the different types of sick to you and answer whether or not you are doomed to be like her. So you know if you need to prepare yourself. So you can spend all your time running and playing while you are still able.
You wonder if your aunt will get sick like this too. Would the maid take care of you, then? You doubt your father would. You hardly ever see him. But his ailment is not sick; it is work. You don’t like that word.
Sick, at least, means your mother can still read to you.
Sick means she’s still here, still human.
04.
You are sitting in the bathtub, clothed, with toilet paper wrapped around your legs and feet, while you read a book to yourself silently in your head. You learned quickly that your father doesn’t like it when you read out loud and your aunt explained you should only read out loud if you’re reading to someone.
Apparently your father and aunt don’t want to be read to.
The new maid lets you read to her, sometimes, when she isn’t busy with other things.
There’s a loud knocking on the door, which you ignore. You debate turning the faucet on to drown out the sound, but you don’t want to get your book wet. You like this one. The cover is dark red with a golden flower and it tells the story of a girl who drowns herself in a river. You’ve read it five times already.
The knocking intensifies. You drop the book and slam your hands over your ears. Your aunt is calling your name but you don’t want to talk to her or anyone else. You want to read alone in the bathtub where nothing and no one can touch you. Where it’s safe. Where your exposed skin is wrapped up in toilet paper and the bathtub is clean smooth wood and nothing unexpected will jump out at you.
You don’t want your aunt. You don’t want your father. You don’t even think you want your mother, which is fine, because she’s gone now.
You eye the faucet, thinking. How long would it take to fill the tub enough so you could drown?
(You wonder if dying is the only way to truly prove someone is human.)
05.
A firefly lands on your open palm, and you hate it.
Its legs tickle your skin and you curl your hand into a fist on instinct, squeezing all life out of the insect, squeezing until it is nothing but a smear of bug guts staining your hand, and you hate that even more because when you try to wipe it off it just spreads onto your other hand too.
You want to cry.
Last time you cried, your father yelled at you.
You don’t cry. Instead, you wipe your hands in the grass which makes them even dirtier and then you scream at the sky because it’s not fair. You scream, as loud as you can, until your lungs and throat ache, until the maid comes running out to check on you and asks what’s wrong and are you hurt and did something happen and that’s too many words, so you just shove your messy hands in her face.
“Oh!” she exclaims. She holds your wrists gently, frowning. “Let’s go back inside and clean you up, okay?”
You nod and let her lead you to the bathroom. While she scrubs your hands at the sink, your gaze wanders over to the toilet paper. You think, if you’d wrapped some around your hands, the bug wouldn’t have bothered you so much. You like fireflies but only if they’re not touching you.
If you couldn’t feel it, you wouldn’t have killed it.
You wonder if the firefly was in pain when you crushed it, or if it died so quickly that it didn’t feel anything at all. Can a bug hurt like humans do?
You are still trying to figure out what makes someone human. Maybe it is the ability to feel pain.
Maybe it is the readiness to inflict pain on other beings even when you know how much something hurts.
06.
One of your classmates pushes you down on the playground. You shove him back because it’s only fair, and you get in trouble when he starts crying. Big, fat, tears roll down his cheeks and you just stare at him because you don’t understand. Your teacher scolds you, and you don’t hear a single word she says.
Your knees are skinned. A single droplet of blood runs down your leg until it touches your sock, staining the white cotton red. You watch in awe as the fabric soaks up the liquid, as the color spreads through it. It’s mesmerizing. You want to rip your skin apart further just so the same phenomenon will happen again. You want all of your clothes to be painted with that bold, bright, red.
Your teacher makes you sit in time-out while the boy who pushed you first is taken to the nurse’s office. You scratch your injuries open, staining your fingers with blood. You hate the way it hurts but you love the way it looks. You smear blood onto the pavement. Onto your socks. Onto your sleeve.
You lick it from your index finger and it tastes metallic, but not exactly bad, so you lick your middle finger too. You’re about to put your thumb in your mouth when your teacher finds you and starts yelling again.
She doesn’t understand you, she says.
It’s like you aren’t even human, she says.
07.
When your aunt tries to dress you in the morning, you throw a tantrum until she lets you wear pants and long sleeves. You tuck the bottom of your pant legs into your socks, and you would do the same with your sleeves if you had gloves but the gloves have been packed away with the winter coats and hats and boots. So instead, you pull out two rubber bands you stole from your father’s office and you wrap them around your wrists, securing your sleeves in place.
Your aunt says you do not look presentable. You don’t know what that means, but based on her expression, it isn’t good. You don’t care, though.
You’re not comfortable unless your legs and arms are entirely covered. Even with your makeshift solutions, your skin still itches like a thousand fireflies are crawling over it. You tried to explain that, once, but your aunt just frowned and said there’s nothing on you and your skin looks fine.
You’ve stopped trying to explain yourself. Your aunt doesn’t understand and the maids don’t understand and your father hardly ever speaks to you. He doesn’t like you, probably. No one really does. Not your aunt or the maids or your classmates or your teachers. They all look at you in the same way your aunt is looking at you now.
Like there’s something wrong with you.
Like you aren’t quite human.
08.
This year for your birthday, you are bedbound. Sick. Your aunt says it must have been food poisoning but you don’t know who would have poisoned your food. That’s a lie; anyone and everyone you know could have poisoned your food. Is this how you end up like your mother?
Would it be so bad?
You have thrown up nothing but stomach bile three times today. Your throat is raw and your stomach rings with a hollow ache and you imagine it would be much more comfortable to lie six feet underground. You’ve started wrapping yourself in bandages because it’s easier than toilet paper and your aunt lets you because when she hid all of the bandages you found a knife in the kitchen and started cutting up your arms so she would have no choice but to get them back out.
So if you were buried, you wouldn’t feel the dirt. It would stain the bandages but not your skin.
You don’t visit your mother often. Your father won’t take you and your aunt doesn’t like going to the cemetery. You could get there on your own, though—you’ve memorized the route. If it didn’t hurt to stand, maybe you would go right now and start digging.
But you’re sick and cursed and you can’t do anything except lie in bed with a bucket beside you. Everything hurts and you’ve been wearing the same bandages for so long they’re sticking to your sweaty skin. The fever is making you hot right now, but you were cold earlier and even hotter before that. You don’t know how long it’s been since your aunt last checked in on you or since she last trickled water down your throat only for it to come right back up.
Everything hurts.
Beneath the bandages, the healing cuts on your arms itch.
You wish the process of dying didn’t have to be so painful. If you survive this, you want your death to be simple. Easy. Painless. It will hurt no one, least of all yourself.
You want to simply slip away from humanity, as if you never existed at all.
09.
You’re at the library instead of school, because school is useless and all of your classmates are stupid. You can teach yourself better than your teachers can, and you’re going to prove it. You picked a history book off the shelf at random and you’ve been reading it all morning, hidden away in a secluded corner where no one will find you and ask why you aren’t at school or where your parents are or if they know you’re here.
The book you’re reading is about the first world war, many years ago. There are some similarities, you think, between the war in your book and the war that’s happening right now, somewhere far away. You aren’t supposed to know much about it but you’ve swiped newspapers and listened to the radio when no one else is around, and you hear your aunt talking about it with her friends sometimes.
So many people think so many different things.
You lick your finger and then turn to the next page, just like your mother used to do. You never understood how that was supposed to help make the pages easier to turn but it feels like a grown-up thing to do, and you’re reading a grown-up book. About war and death and bombs and the development of new technology that could kill people faster than ever before.
You know the spoilers—it happened again in the second world war on the other side of the country. Millions of people vaporized in seconds.
It sounds painless, at least. You’ve heard they were dead before the bomb hit the ground. But maybe that’s only the ones who were lucky enough to be near the point of impact.
There are rumors of new weapons in this war, too. But instead of bombs, they’re using people. Ability users. They’re harnessing abilities to save soldiers or to strengthen them or they’re experimenting on bodies of criminals to create something akin to a superhero. You don’t know how much of this is true.
No one does.
You wonder, how many experiments can be conducted on a person before they stop being a person and start being a weapon. Is it just the first one? Or does it happen slowly, over time?
You wonder, for how long can an ability user be used themself until they lose all claim to humanity?
10.
For your entrance into double digits, nothing happens.
You stare at a blossoming flower in the garden and wonder if you would be happier had you been born something other than human.
11.
At school, your classmates play make-believe. They recreate fairytales or make up their own stories about monsters and princesses and ghosts. You mostly just watch. It’s fascinating, to see humanity play out from afar. The girls twirl in their school uniform skirts and weave flowers together on the playground, forming makeshift tiaras. The boys find sticks and hold them up like swords, fighting off invisible demons.
You sit in the grass and pick at your bandages, listening to their screams of glee.
Your classmates used to ask you why you always wore them, but they didn’t care about the truth. They ate up your elaborate lies about magical powers until one of the older boys said you were obviously lying because if you did have an ability, you would have been taken away by the government.
Of course, the government can only take you away if they know about your ability. But your bandages don’t hide anything apart from scarred skin. They protect you from the world.
They protect the world from you.
Your touch feels like poison sometimes. You worry everything you ever touch will wither away or leave you behind. Your mother is dead, your father is never home, your aunt no longer treats you kindly, your classmates don’t talk to you, your teachers say you’re always too much or not enough. There must be something wrong with you.
If you have any sort of magical power, it must be something that repels those around you.
And sometimes you wonder—
Are you even human?
12.
How were you supposed to know the brush of your bare knuckle against that man’s exposed wrist would be enough to kill him? How were you supposed to know an ability was keeping him alive? How were you supposed to know you had the capability to render all that power completely useless?
You wrap bandages around your fingers.
You wait for the government to take you away, to tell you:
You are no longer human.
13.
When no one is looking, you slip into the bathroom and fill the tub with warm water. You strip your clothes from your body and fold them neatly, leaving them in a pile by the door. There’s a note in the pocket of your pants for when they find you.
You have your book, too—the one that is red like blood and engraved with a flower and tells the story of a girl who is a little bit like you. Drowning is not painless, exactly, but it is one of the simpler ways to go. It is one you can do at home. It is one you can do.
You leave the book open to the page where the girl dies, facedown on the floor, and then climb into the tub. Your limbs are too long and too skinny and you wish you could die gracefully like the girl in the book but this is not a river and you are not beautiful. You are wrapped in bandages, already half-mummified, and you will not be missed.
You shut the faucet off. Stare into the water.
Was there anything else you wanted to do?
You cleaned your room. You said goodbye to the flowers in the garden. Everything else important is in the letter, penned in blood-like ink.
You suppose, if you had more time, you might have liked to know what it’s like to have a real friend. You’d like to know what it’s like to fall in love. You’d like to touch someone without it burning, you’d like to visit your mother’s grave, you’d like one more bite of the sweet mochi your aunt makes.
You’d like to visit Europe, maybe. France. See the Eiffel tower, see the stars twinkling over a different country an ocean away.
There are a lot of things you wanted to do, but none of them are possible, so you throw yourself face first into the water.
You brace your hands against the edges of the tub to hold yourself down. Eyes squeezed shut, lips clamped together. You’ll hold your breath until you pass out and then the water will fill your lungs and you won’t feel a thing. A pleasant passing.
That’s what you’ve always wanted.
It’s not beautiful, but you can pretend it is so long as you can’t see yourself. So long as your body remains hidden beneath the white strips of cloth, so long as your eyes remain shut, so long as you’re half-floating and you can’t feel your legs. The lack of oxygen burns and the world is going fuzzy around the edges.
You count the seconds in your mind.
It shouldn’t take much longer than two minutes.
Around the minute-and-a-half mark, you wish you had someone to hold you down.
When the ticking numbers in your head reach one hundred twenty-three, the door slams open. The explosion is followed by muffled shouting, and you do the only thing you can think of: open your mouth and force yourself to breathe in the water.
You don’t remember what happens between the first breath in and when you find yourself lying on your back on the bathroom floor with your aunt looming over you, horrified. You splutter and cough and curl in on yourself as water forces its way back up your throat. Your throat stings and your chest aches and you cough so hard and so much that you think you might still have a shot at dying today.
But you don’t.
Your aunt takes you into her arms and rubs your back in steady, soothing, motions. You realize you’re shaking. You don’t want her to touch you, but you can’t imagine ripping yourself away from her.
At least the bandages provide some protection.
Once the coughing has subsided, she orders one of the maids to take you to the hospital because she cannot deal with this right now; I don’t understand what his problem is. Why can’t he just be normal?
You stand there in the hallway, hair still dripping, breathing still labored, listening to her berate you as if you aren’t even there, and you know:
You are no longer human.
14.
You are supposed to be packing your things, but instead, you are lying in a graveyard under the blinding summer sun. It is mid-June and mid-day and your mother has been dead for years and your father is sick now, too. Not that you care. You lost your heart somewhere and didn’t realize until it was too late to get it back.
You didn’t bring a gift or an offering or anything for your mother; just your bruised body. You threw yourself down the stairs yesterday just to see if you could kill yourself like that. But you were still alive once you reached the bottom and no one else was home so you picked yourself back up and ate cold leftovers for dinner.
You’re going to be moving soon. You and your aunt will live with her family in the Kagoshima Prefecture while your father’s brother and his wife take care of him through his sickness. You doubt you’ll ever see your father again after you move.
You don’t really care.
You doubt you’ll still be alive by the time your aunt moves. You’ve been spending a lot of time at the library reading books you shouldn’t and coming up with better methods to kill yourself. You think a bomb would be fun, and much more difficult to stop than a drowning.
You lay in the sun and fantasize about blowing yourself up until your aunt tracks you down and drags you back home. She shoves you into your bedroom and tells you to get to work. You haven’t packed a single thing.
You look around your room.
None of this stuff seems important enough to take with you.
15.
You didn’t tell Mori-san when your birthday was. You didn’t even tell him your real name. So you don’t understand how or why he gives you a sealed envelope and a sinister smile and a honey-sweet Happy birthday, Dazai-kun.
You stare at him. This feels like a trap. You are waiting for the day he finally kills you. He’s a doctor; surely he can make it painless. Especially when he knows you will simply let it happen. You wouldn’t fight him—there’s no point. You’ve wanted to die for as long as you can remember.
You would happily let him drip medicine down your throat until it guides you gently into an eternal slumber.
He pushes the envelope into your hands, and you have no choice but to take it. You do not, however, have to open it in front of him. So you don’t.
You open it hours later, alone, and find a death certificate in your hands. Fragile, thin, paper. Too bright, too white, so easy to rip or burn. At first, you think it is your father’s, but—
No.
The name on it used to be yours.
16.
You don’t tell Chuuya it’s your birthday beforehand; you simply show up in their apartment with store-bought cupcakes and insist on celebrating. It’s 7 AM and you only got three hours of sleep and Chuuya looks like he wants to kill you. There are dark circles under his eyes as well.
But before he can lunge at you and wrap his hands around your throat as recompense for waking him up, he hesitates. His eyes dart towards the ceiling, and a smirk crosses his face.
“Alright,” he agrees. “Let’s have a party.”
He turns on the radio, cranking the volume up as loud as it will go, and then shouts at you to set up a video game while he grabs snacks. Giddily, you do as you’re told. You turn on the TV and pull out two controllers. Chuuya wants noise and chaos, probably because Albatross kept him up late last night and since he’s awake again now he’s going to get revenge, so you select Mario Kart as your party game.
You play round after round after round, steadily increasing in volume as you scream at each other over the music. You poke and prod and jab and hit, valiantly battling for first place. You accuse Chuuya of using his ability to cheat, and he insists he wasn’t (he’s totally lying) so then you throw your legs over his lap and play again.
Once you’ve had your fill of Mario Kart, you eat the cupcakes, which turns into smearing frosting across each other’s faces and laughing until you can’t breathe and you’ve forgotten that your birthday isn’t supposed to be anything special. You’ve forgotten you came here with the intention of making Chuuya mad at you, expecting him to kick you out.
You’ve forgotten it’s your birthday at all.
17.
You wake up in Chuuya’s bed. It’s becoming an uncomfortable tradition these days.
They’re still sound asleep next to you, fingertips brushing against the palm of your hand. You wiggle away from the touch. Anything feather-light is too gentle for someone like you.
You slip away to the bathroom to re-bandage your legs and fix the ones around your torso. On your way out, you accidentally catch sight of your reflection. Two dark eyes staring back at you; you didn’t bother re-covering your face. You’re wearing a collared button-up with sweatpants that are stained and torn and should have been replaced a year ago because you don’t really own any pajamas. You don’t really own much of anything.
You don’t like looking at your reflection. It never quite seems to fit you.
Before leaving Chuuya’s apartment, you stop in the bedroom doorway. Hesitating. Chuuya looks beautiful in the early morning light, but they look beautiful always. You want to climb back beneath the blankets and curl up beside them, running your fingers through their silky soft hair, pressing your lips to every inch of their skin. The scars they don’t bother covering. The freckle constellations on their shoulders and cheeks.
But you are not the sort of person who can hold onto precious things, so you slip out of the apartment in the same manner you do every morning. When you see Chuuya at the mafia headquarters later, neither of you mention it.
18.
As evening covers Yokohama, you meet Odasaku and Ango at Bar Lupin. You were insistent about gathering tonight, though you neglected to explain why. Even as you’re sitting at the bar, tracing your finger around the rim of a glass of whiskey, you don’t tell them what today is. It’s not important.
It’s better if they don’t know, because then they won’t try to make this day special. You don’t want it to be special; you want it to be normal. You’ll tell them in a few months when Odasaku mentions you being seventeen and you have to correct him and they’ll both roll their eyes at you but laugh because you’ll make the revelation land like a joke.
And by then, it will be too late for a celebration.
Today, you talk about work and about Chuuya and about how Ango should get more sleep just like always you do when you meet here. It remains your safe haven, your Garden of Eden, your escape. The one place where reality cannot touch you.
Hours later, when you step out into the warm night, Chuuya is waiting for you. Arms crossed, back against the wall, cigarette between their lips. They know better than to encroach on the one space you do not want them in.
They lower the cigarette and exhale slowly. “You’ve been avoiding me today.”
You feel Odasaku and Ango eyeing you curiously.
Chuuya drops their cigarette, crushing it beneath their boot. Ignoring the others, they look into your eye and say, “It’s business. Best not to keep the Boss waiting.”
You know they’re lying. But you pretend to take their words seriously, bidding Odasaku and Ango farewell before following Chuuya off into the night. You’ve been avoiding them because they know what today is, and you didn’t want anyone to acknowledge it.
But when their gloved hand finds yours, you realize you don’t really mind the interruption of your best laid plans.
19.
Nothing.
20.
You play Russian roulette with a demon. Stick the barrel of the gun in your mouth, cold metal against your tongue, finger on the trigger. You smile around it.
Your two years in hiding are almost up, but you’ve grown terribly bored. You could end it all here, now, with a bullet ripping through your skull. You consider taking turn after turn after turn until you find which chamber houses the bullet, but—
The demon sitting opposite you tilts his head. In a voice sticky and soft as a spider’s web, he murmurs, “You fascinate in me in a way no one else has managed for…a very long time.”
You remove the gun from your mouth. Point it at him instead. One of you has to die, you think. This knowledge might as well be engraved upon your bones, marking you from the very moment of your conception. You hate this magnetic malicious miserable infatuation, hate that you cannot escape its pull.
Hate that you feel as if his life is a reflection of yours, or yours a reflection of his.
Looking at him occasionally feels like looking in a mirror
You pull the trigger, and nothing happens. The demon does not so much as flinch. You hate him. You need to cut open his head and pick through his brain.
You wind up in his bed, or he winds up in yours, and as you hold the gun to his temple, balancing yourself with one palm splayed across his bare chest, he tells you,
Happy birthday.
You didn’t tell him.
It doesn’t surprise you that he knows.
Even underneath you, even at your mercy, even gasping in the throes of pleasure, even on the wrong end of a gun, he maintains the smug air of someone who knows they are winning. You hate him, you hate him, you hate him.
You hate him in the same way you hate yourself.
You finish first, hips stuttering clumsily, and he laughs at you even as he cups your cheek and kisses you softly and coaxes you onwards, bringing him over the edge as well.
The gun falls to the floor with a thump just as you collapse on top of him. Your bandages are coming loose. He runs his fingers through your hair, whispering things you cannot translate in a voice sweeter than honey until you drift off to sleep.
In the morning, he is gone, and you are twenty years old.
21.
You arrive at work three hours late, but for once, Kunikida doesn’t scold you. Your gaze sweeps the office, wary. You’re expecting an attack. But Kunikida is working silently and Ranpo is playing a video game and Yosano is in her office and the new kid is off today because he’s only working part-time until he graduates.
You creep across the office, over to your desk. You’re trying to figure out the best way to make Kunikida snap at you so things go back to normal, but before you can open your mouth, you notice—
On your desk sits an envelope. Plain, baby blue, with your name scrawled across it in fancy penmanship that can only be courtesy of Kunikida. It must be yours. All logic points to such a conclusion.
But the question still crawls up your throat. If you ask, Ranpo will laugh at you and Kunikida will roll his eyes. You know this. You could ask just to be annoying, but it wouldn’t be just for that, because you’re confused for real. Is this a gift? A curse?
Are those two things any different?
“Open it!” Ranpo shouts at you, breaking you from your stupor.
You do as they instructed, if only because you’re not sure what else to do. Something strange has settled in the air today, and you’re not sure you like it. It’s sticking in your throat like a pill that won’t go down. Your fingers itch for a cold glass of water, or maybe a rope.
Inside the envelope is a birthday card. It’s simple, with a generic well-wish on the front, but when you open it up you find a collection of short handwritten notes. Each one is signed by a member of the Agency: Ranpo, Yosano, Kunikida, f*ckuzawa, Haruno, Jun’ichirou and Naomi.
You snap the card shut before you can read more than just the names.
This is the worst thing anyone has ever done to you.
When you lift your gaze towards Kunikida, you find he’s already looking at you. Smiling. You wish he would smile like that at you more often, and then you swallow that thought down into the pit of your stomach where it can die a painful death.
“Ranpo-san told us,” he explains. Of course. You don’t know why you didn’t expect this. Maybe you thought Ranpo would keep this secret of yours to themself, like they have the others. But the others are dangerous and this is…
Your throat aches.
“It wasn’t hard,” Ranpo says. “I mean, you’re clearly a June Gemini, right on the cusp of being a Cancer.”
You stare at them blankly.
Until Kunikida slams his hands on his desk and starts going on about how astrology isn’t a real science and it shouldn’t be treated as such. He marches over to Ranpo, pointing an accusing finger at him as he rants. Ranpo’s smile never so much as falters.
You hear someone laugh.
It isn’t until both Kunikida and Ranpo turn their gazes to you that you realize—
the laughter is yours.
The card is still in your hands, clutched against your chest as you giggle because of course Kunikida hates astrology and Ranpo doesn’t even believe in it either; they’re just trying to wind him up. And because you read part of Kunikida’s note before you closed the card and he said you’re obnoxious but he’s grateful you’re his partner and he expects you to still be here next year.
You wonder if he knows you never planned to make it to twenty, or eighteen, or fifteen.
Yet here you are, twenty-one and sunbathing in light you do not deserve. Basking in the beauty of humanity.
22.
This morning, you decided today would be the day you finally kill yourself.
But then Kunikida sent you a happy birthday text, so you figured you could at least show up to work for an hour or two. Once you were there, you realized you couldn’t slip away halfway through the day because that would worry everyone else, so you did crossword puzzles with Ranpo and Naomi. After lunch, Yosano painted Kenji’s nails and then you let her talk you into getting yours painted as well. Shortly before the end of the work day, Ranpo suggests going out for drinks because it’s been so long since you’ve done that and you can’t very well decline the invitation.
You suppose you could always kill yourself tomorrow.
The difference between twenty-two and twenty-two-plus-one-day isn’t all that large.
The younger Agency members can’t drink yet, so it’s just you, Kunikida, Ranpo, and Yosano. It feels a bit hypocritical to exclude someone based on age when you were a regular at Bar Lupin years before you could legally drink, but you’re on the side of the good guys now. You should follow some laws. Probably.
Halfway through your second glass of whiskey, Kunikida’s head drops against your shoulder.
You start, then turn, half-expecting to find him passed out. But his eyes are still open—albeit slightly glazed over—and you don’t know why he’s doing this. You don’t know why he’s touching you. Even through the layers of your vest and your shirt and your bandages, it seems to burn.
Yosano and Ranpo are locked in their own heated conversation on the other side of the booth, entirely unaware of your current conundrum.
“Kunikida-kun,” you whisper, “are you feeling alright?”
For a moment, he doesn’t answer. You reroute back to your earlier theory that he’s asleep, just with his eyes open. You’ve seen it happen before. Chuuya told you you’ve done it yourself.
But then he shifts slightly, and mumbles something nearly intelligible. You can decipher it, but the message doesn’t make sense.
Stick around a while longer, will you?
You frown. “At the bar, you mean? I figured I’d stay for as long as the rest of you.”
Kunikida shakes his head. “Not the bar. Just…here. Alive.”
You blink.
You consider: Are there things you haven’t done yet that you’d still like to do? You made a list once. Find a friend, fall in love, figure out if there’s meaning in this thing called living. Touch someone who doesn’t wilt beneath the toxins embedded in your skin.
You think: Of silky-soft red hair and freckles and lightning-shaped scars, of lowlight and clinking glasses and the crumpled photograph hidden in the back of your dresser, of guns and demons, of notebooks and glasses and butterflies and secrets and I couldn’t have asked for a better partner.
You say: “Oh, Kunikida-kun. You don’t have to worry about me.”
Kunikida snorts. He lifts his head and brings his glass to his lips, drinking slowly. You eye the way his throat bobs as he swallows. Maybe you should feel ashamed of your lingering gaze, but you don’t. Not anymore.
“Hey, hey, Dazai-kun!” Ranpo exclaims. They make grabby hands towards you. “Give me your hand. Akiko says I can’t read palms, but she’s just bitter ‘cause her palm says she’s not gonna find a steady girlfriend until she’s thirty-two.”
Kunikida frowns. “Since when do you believe in palm readings?”
“Yesterday. Dazai, gimme.”
You doubt Ranpo will tell you anything you don’t already know, so you place your hand in theirs. Their thumb smooths over the skin and you feel nothing die under the touch. You take nothing away from Ranpo when you touch them. This, for some reason, makes it as if they have power over you.
They yank your hand closer, then crack their eyes open. They nod slowly. “I see, I see. Well, I have bad news for you.”
You smile dryly. “Let me guess, I’m going to die tomorrow? Oh, Rano-san, at least tell me it’ll be quick and painless!”
“No, no, even worse!” Ranpo drops your hand, then throws themself back dramatically, covering their face with one arm. “Dazai-kun, you’re doomed!”
A beat of silence.
They lower their arm, grinning at you. “You’re going to live. Long enough to meet Akiko’s girlfriend, at least. Can you believe it?! Oh, this is terrible!” But they can’t even make it through the end of their last sentence without giggling.
You want to strangle them.
Akiko laughs too, covering her mouth with her hand as if that will hide her betrayal. She’s so graceful about it, and you feel something that is either hatred or jealousy burning hot in your veins.
Beside you, Kunikida sighs. He pats your shoulder reassuringly. “Palm readings aren’t real. I’m sure you’ll live much longer than thirty-two.”
His math is off. Yosano is three years older than you, so if you have to live until she’s thirty-two, you’ll only be twenty-nine. It’s still too long. It’s a curse. You don’t even want to see twenty-three. Why should you live longer than Odasaku did? Why should you get to grow in the sunlight while he perished in the dark?
“Oh, there’s something else,” Ranpo says, before you can spiral too far. “In your palm, I mean. Your love line indicates a happy relationship with multiple partners. I’d suggest sticking around long enough to see what that’s all about, at least.”
23.
It is mid-June and mid-night and you come into consciousness softly, coaxed by the dip of the mattress beside you. You reach out towards it on instinct, and a hand catches your bare wrist. A kiss is pressed to your palm.
“I apologize for waking you,” Kunikida whispers. “I’m only using the restroom. I promise.”
You hum in acknowledgement and he lets you go.
You turn onto your other side, blindly reaching around until you find Chuuya, and then you wrap yourself around them. Your ability quiets theirs at the moment of first contact. You forgot you let them take your bandages off. You forgot to put them back on.
You can do it in the morning.
Chuuya groans, weakly trying to push you off. But you hold tightly, burying your face in their shoulder. They give up easily and kiss your head.
“Spoiled princess,” they say fondly.
You smile against their warm skin.
When Kunikida returns, he presses himself against your back, arms wrapped around your torso. He kisses the space between your shoulder blades and then leans over to kiss Chuuya too.
You’ve checked off all the important things on your bucket list. You could kill yourself tomorrow. Odasaku was nearly twenty-four when he died, so if you do that, you still won’t live longer than he did. You could jump into the river and let it carry you away. You could finally be at peace.
But…
This is peaceful, too.
Chuuya’s sheets are soft against your exposed body, and you are wrapped up in them and Kunikida and it’s almost as good as the bandages. You can feel their abilities suppressed beneath yours, but there is no fight. There is trust, and there is recovery, and there is healing.
It is mid-June and mid-night and this is a beautiful blessing.
Deep within your chest, sprouting up from the ashes, is a newborn sense of humanity.
