Chapter Text
He’s thirty-one now, the age at which most people have silently decided that he’s moved on—or, if he hasn’t, that he should—and as such, people start expecting him to settle down.
The pressure never comes from Mori. Never from his family.
But it’s never the prying questions or the judgmental looks that bother him.
It’s the pity.
It’s the way that Odasaku almost seemed sorry instead of excited when he told Dazai that his wife was pregnant.
Or the fact that his friends avoid telling him when they get engaged.
No one ever says it. They never need to.
They all know that Dazai isn’t married, isn’t having kids, isn’t settled—because the person he wanted to do those things with isn’t there.
Dazai doesn’t mind living alone. Well, not exactly alone—he took Mii-chan in once he started med school, and while she passed two years before, he still has one of her kittens that lives with him now.
Chibi always wanted a cat, anyway.
But he has other things in his life. Atsushi is in college now—the visual arts program at Todai. He has his nephews. He still talks to Rory at least once a week—and he comes to New York once or twice a year.
Riley is four, now—and she calls him Uncle ‘Samu.
Put all of those things together, and it’s a life. Maybe not the life Dazai wanted, but...
Still a life worth living.
The quiet does bother him sometimes.
Not all the time, just...
Just on weekend afternoons when he can’t pick up an extra shift, and his apartment feels so quiet.
His solution ends up being a quiet cafe at the end of Motomachi street—the kind with outdoor seating, where he can stretch out under an umbrella with a book, listening to the laughter from a nearby playground, the wind playing through a set of chimes by the door.
He’s there almost every Friday and Saturday afternoon, to the point where he becomes somewhat of a fixture.
And eventually...
“Excuse me?”
He glances up, only to find a young woman standing in front of him.
Pretty, in a simple sort of way—with long, dark hair, and deep blue eyes.
“I’m sorry to bother you, or if this is a prying question, but—” she points to the book in his hand, “—what makes that book so special?”
Dazai glances down, raising an eyebrow, then back up at her. “Why do you ask?”
“I—well—” she reaches up, tucking her hair behind her ears self-consciously, “I’m here almost every day, and I couldn’t help but notice you always have the same one.”
“...” Dazai considers that. “A good book is always good,” he shrugs, “no matter how many times you’ve already read it.”
“I—” she pauses, thinking about that, and then she smiles. “...I guess you’re right. I never really thought about it that way.” She holds out a hand, “I’m Mizutani, by the way.”
After a brief pause, he takes it. “Dazai.”
They end up sitting around and talking for the rest of the afternoon—and Dazai doesn’t know if he was just bored, or lonely—
But he genuinely enjoys himself.
She’s a graduate student—astrophysics, to be more specific—working on her thesis, which is why she’s been there every day, catching sight of him.
She doesn’t approach him every time she sees him—but more often than not she’ll come over, sitting down beside him and making idle conversation.
Eventually, Dazai gets her first name—Shizuko—and the blank spaces of her personality start to fill in.
The youngest of four children, and an avid ghibli fan. She’s baffled by how Dazai knows so much about the movies, despite claiming to not be much of an anime fan—but he never explains.
And, once they discover a mutual love for baseball, she invites him to a Tokyo Giants game.
He puzzles at first, about whether or not he should actually go—because he can see that she has a romantic interest in him—
One that isn’t entirely unreciprocated, But it almost feels dishonest, going along with it.
He ends up going.
And it is fun. Sitting in the high up seats, sharing popcorn, screaming encouragement as the players run the bases.
She shouts aggressively when the refs make a bad call, and Dazai actually finds it somewhat endearing.
One baseball game turns into a trip to the movies, then, they aren’t going on ‘dates’ exactly, but Dazai makes it a matter of routine to take her out to dinner on Saturday’s—nice ones, since she’s in grad school, and she doesn’t get a nice meal often.
She always laughs when he shows up to a fancy restaurant in something casual or ridiculous, but he always points out—
It’s the easiest way to annoy rich people, and he’s never quite grown out of it.
He meets her roommates inadvertently, bumping into them in the kitchen when he comes over to help with a rat that got in during the night.
Shizuko has a phobia, as it turns out—but she pleads with him not to kill it, so he does, carefully trapping it in a shoe box before releasing it outside, and—
And he can see the way her roommates are watching him, the things they whisper when his back is turned—
Oh, he’s great.
He’s so nice.
And that only ever makes him feel worse.
She kisses him first, when they’re leaving a play one night, just before Christmas—leaning up on her toes, grabbing the lapels of his suit—
And Dazai has been with plenty of people in the last twelve years. But they were all faceless strangers. People he brought home from bars, then went off to work before they even woke up in the morning.
With one exception, none of them ever meant anything.
But this—this is someone that he knows.
Someone that he likes.
And kissing her back, it feels bittersweet.
Because her lips are warm, her hair is soft under his hands, and she smells so good—
And she isn’t him.
She never will be.
But that doesn’t mean that Dazai doesn’t like kissing her, that he doesn’t want to.
And when he takes her up to his apartment that night, he does feel guilty about it.
Not in the same way that he did so many years ago, when he would wake up next to a sleeping blonde and not want to sneak away.
He doesn’t view the fact that he actually has a girlfriend now as invalidating the way he feels about Chuuya.
His affections are thirteen years old now, they’ve survived long enough to reach puberty, and they aren’t ever going away.
He still visits him once a week. Sundays, specifically. He brings lunch, stays for a couple of hours, and tells him about his entire week.
Sure, some people might find it a little grim that he calls them ‘dates,’ but—
Dazai doesn’t care.
He sends back a postcard and a photo from every single vacation.
He’s helped Kouyou make sure that Rimbaud never spends a Christmas, birthday, or Father’s Day alone.
It was hard at first, getting back in touch with them, because he didn’t want to face it, but—
Kouyou’s wife, Yosano, has become one of his closest friends—so close, in fact, that he was their best man when they finally did get married—and between their daughter, Odasaku’s boys, and Riley—
Dazai is a proud uncle of four.
It’s only ever hard for him when Kyouka offhandedly asks him, or her mothers about Uncle Chuuya.
Because he knows how much his boyfriend would have adored her.
Chuuya’s place in his life is fixed. There’s a space for him, no matter where Dazai goes, not matter what he does, no matter what he’s doing.
And every now and then, when a t-shirt goes missing, or he has a hard time getting out of bed in the morning—
He smiles, his eyes slipping shut as he mutters—
“Alright baby, I’ll sleep a little longer.”
And Dazai remembers—ghosts are very real.
What he does feel guilty about; what he always feels guilty about—is the fact that he can never love her quite that much.
And he does love her.
It happens slowly, not the rushing free fall that hit him all at once, the way it did with Chuuya.
With Shizuko, it’s more of a choice.
To fall for the little dimple in her chin when she smiles; or the way she actually snorts when she laughs too hard.
then, making her laugh that hard becomes a goal, and he doesn’t even play fair, pinning her against the mattress and tickling her until she screams with laughter, punching his back in protest.
Or the way that she’s there when it’s hard. On the days when Dazai loses a patient, when he wants a drink.
She spends an entire weekend with him after a six year old girl goes in for surgery and doesn’t wake up. She puts up with the tears, the frustration, hell; he’s fucking mean when she stops him from going to a bar—
And Shizuko is there through that, never holding it against him afterwards.
Weeks turn into months, the compromise of ‘just one’ baseball game turns into two years of dating.
He meets her parents when she graduates, and they like him—her older brothers try being intimidating, and he goes so far as to play along.
But eventually, expectations start to form—ones that Dazai knows he’ll fail to meet.
She doesn’t say that she wants to get married, not explicitly.
But she hints.
Mentions how a friend got engaged, or that if she ever gets married, she doesn’t want a destination wedding, she thinks those are weird.
Dazai never takes the bait. Never engages in the conversation until she asks him directly, if he’s serious about her or not.
“I am,” he admits, however hesitant—and it’s silly. He’s almost thirty-three, and he’s still not that different from the boy in that bar fifteen years ago.
“Do you not believe in marriage or something?” Shizuko frowns, scratching Baki behind the ears as he curls up in her lap, purring.
“...It’s not like that,” Dazai shakes his head.
“Is it me?”
“No, it’s—"
There was a time in Dazai’s life when he would have run away from this conversation.
But not now.
Now, he does what is maybe the hardest thing he’s ever had to do, and...
He tells her about Chuuya.
Not in short form, no—his boyfriend was never something that could be contained to a few short chapters with an open ended conclusion.
No, he tells her everything.
“...And you’re still in love with him?” She finally asks, staring at the tabletop, trying to brace herself for his answer. “That’s why?”
Dazai is silent for a moment—and then he reaches over to take her hand, squeezing it gently, waiting for her to look up at him.
“You deserve to be the love of someone’s life,” he explains quietly—his smile is a picture of softness, even as his words ache,
“And I already had mine.”
She takes some time after that. Takes some space.
And he understands that. He never blames her.
But, two months later, on a Sunday, Dazai doesn’t come alone.
She’s nervous, a bouquet of tulips in her hands, asking if that’s okay—
And Dazai smiles encouraging, because Chuuya would have loved them.
Finally, standing under a willow tree, Dazai kneels down, pressing his palm against slightly worn marble, stroking his thumb over familiar kanji characters.
“Hey, sweetheart—there’s someone I want you to meet.”
Shizuko doesn’t come with him every week, she understands he needs that time—but it’s at least once every couple of months.
His family is shocked when he starts bringing her to events, but—
But the pity starts to go away, and it’s replaced by relief.
She doesn’t get a big, romantic proposal—it’s quiet, practical, and he warns her, the way he has every step along the way.
That he probably won’t be a perfect husband. That his problems aren’t ever going to go away—
And that part of him is always going to belong to someone else. That she deserves more than that, and he won’t be angry if she ever decides to walk away.
But, in spite of all of that, Shizuko says yes.
It’s not a long engagement—after three years of dating, it doesn’t really need to be.
The ceremony is small, family and close friends only.
Dazai finally reads that letter, an hour before he’s supposed to meet her at the end of the aisle, and he barely manages to compose himself before he’s supposed to make it out there; because—
𝘐'𝘮 𝘴𝘰 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶, 𝘖𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘶.
God, it’s still so fucking hard.
Every damn day, it’s hard.
And he isn’t exactly proud of himself, not when every milestone is still tinged with a hint of regret.
He spends their honeymoon wondering where Chuuya would have wanted to go.
Moving into a house of their own doesn’t feel like he’s starting his actual life, more like...
More like he’s trying to live someone else’s.
But there are still good moments.
Like finding out that Shizuko was pregnant, or seeing the sonogram for the first time.
He’s nervous of course, god, he’s so nervous, but—
Chuuya wrote letters for that, too.
Telling him what a good dad he would be, how lucky his kids would be to have him.
It’s bittersweet, but it helps.
Dazai Yuko is born that spring. She has her mother’s eyes, deep blue, almost black—and her father’s wild tangle of brown curls.
And for a time, everything just works.
Dazai and his wife are better friends than anything else, but it’s parenting where their partnership really shines.
She’s the disciplinarian, he’s the one who can deal with just about any sort of tantrum.
He never minds getting up in the night to rock her back to sleep—and she’s always the first up in the morning, getting her ready, putting together breakfast.
Dazai never was a morning person, but most days—especially weekends, he tends to linger a little longer, pressing his face into his pillow, mumbling words that Shizuko never tries to decipher.
They aren’t meant for her.
They form a tight knit little family unit—with the house in the suburbs, the white picket fence, going to parks and aquariums on the weekends.
Always Saturdays, never Sundays.
Yuko is two years old when things start to turn, and tension starts to grow.
It’s slow, subtle. Dazai doesn’t notice the building frustration in his wife’s eyes until it’s already poignant, and by then, he doesn’t know what to do about it other than pretend he doesn’t notice.
It never gets in the way of their parenting—honestly, they’re so careful about it, their daughter never notices—but the tension is ever mounting.
And it stems from the one source that Dazai knew it always would.
Does it have to be every Sunday?
Why doesn’t he ever call her baby, or sweetheart?
He even mentions it in therapy, picking at the hem of his sleeve while Fukuzawa watches him, sipping a cup of tea.
He retired three years ago, but he’s kept his longest standing patient on the roster.
“I keep saying his name,” Dazai mutters, hunched over, his hands clasped tightly together.
“When you’re intimate?”
“No, no—in my sleep,” he mutters, biting his lip. “It’s driving her crazy, but I don’t know how to make it stop.”
“...I don’t think there’s a way to do that,” Fukuzawa admits. “Are you having trouble sleeping? You could get a prescription for—”
“No,” Dazai shakes his head. “I sleep fine, I just...dream a lot.”
“Are they disruptive?”
Not exactly, but he wants his marriage to work, so when the sleeping pills are prescribed, he takes them.
And he sleeps dreamlessly.
It removes one final layer of comfort that Dazai didn’t even realize he was holding onto, and he finds himself growing to resent it.
One argument starts to boil over, and finally, he snaps back, slamming his fist down on the table in the middle of a passive aggressive spat after dinner—
“I told you it was always going to be like this,” He points out, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “I never tried to make you think this was something that I was going to be able to get over, so why are you mad at me?“
“I don’t know, Osamu, I guess,” She presses her hands over her temples, struggling between guilt and infuriation, “I guess I just—I didn’t believe it, okay? I thought—I thought you just needed more time.”
“I had eleven years before I even met you!”
“And you didn’t have a family then!” Shizuko shakes her head. “I’m not asking you to forget about him, okay? I’m just asking you to try to be a little more present with us—why is that too much?!”
“I am trying!”
It culminates to the point where he’s in their bedroom, angrily shoving his clothes into a suitcase, planning on checking into a hotel for a few days to cool off, when—
“Daddy?”
He freezes when he sees Yuko, standing in the doorway, her blanket dangling from her hand.
“Where you goin’?”
She’s only three, now, she doesn't really know, but—
But Dazai can't help but remember.
"Mom? Where are you—?"
"Oh, Osamu, thank god, you can help me pack."
"..." His clothes slip through his fingers as he turns away from the suitcase, reaching down to snatch her up into his arms, hugging her close. "I'm not going anywhere." He mutters, kissing the side of her head, the muscles in his jaw working as he fights to keep his cool.
"Daddy isn't going anywhere."
It's a strained marriage, and neither of them have fair expectations of one another, but Dazai stays. He tries to make it work, and—
And he knows she's trying too. Even if he gets frustrated, even when it seems unfair, he never hates her—
If anything, he resents himself, because he knew, going into this, that he could never be what she needed.
And what happens next—it isn't their fault, it isn't anyone's fault.
But sometimes, the hardest things in life just happen, and you don't have anyone to blame.
He's coming off of a forty eight hour rotation, fresh out of the shower, ready to go home.
The longer shifts are always harder. He's had three surgeries in two days—and the last one was eight hours and complex.
He pulled through, he's the toughest little nine year old Dazai has ever worked with—and the way his father hugged him so tightly after he walked out, it made him want his own daughter in his arms, as soon as possible.
She's the one thing about life after Chuuya that hasn't been paired with some form of disappointment, or hurt. And seeing her—there are some days when that's the only thing that drags him out of bed.
He's just about to get into the elevator when his phone buzzes in his jacket pocket--and normally, he'd just call them back after the end of the ride, but when he sees the contact name—
Isn't it the middle of the night over there?
He lifts the phone to his ear, "Rory?"
The voice on the other end of the line is familiar, but what's even more recognizable is the tone, the rawness when he speaks, wobbling with tears, "D-Dazai, I'm—I'm sorry for calling so late, but—"
"No, no, it's—" he checks his watch (a my neighbor Totoro one—the kids love it, and Dazai can think of someone else who would have loved it too.) "—four p.m. here. What's wrong?"
"I—it's Mark," the other man chokes, and Dazai's stomach drops.
"What happened?"
"I—I don't know, the police aren't—they aren't explaining anything to me, t-they said something happened at his office, a-and he's in surgery now, but t-the doctors said there's—something w-wrong with his heart, and they're trying to fix it, but I don't—" he sobs, trying to catch his breath, "I don't understand—"
"Hey, hey," he takes on a firmer tone, = waiting until the crying quiets down enough for his friend to actually hear him, "Did you get to see him before he went in?"
"N-no, he w-was working late, and—and I had to wait for my sister to come g-get Riley, I c-couldn't bring her with me—"
"Is there a nurse with you?"
He passes the phone off to someone else, and after a broken, chaotic conversation, with Rory making it clear he's giving consent for her to share details, Dazai manages to get a grasp of what happened.
And it isn't...
Dazai knows, when she starts describing the nature of the injury, that it probably can't be fixed.
When the phone is passed back, there's some level of desperate hope in Rory's voice, "D-do you know what's wrong?"
"..." He leans against the wall, wiping a hand down his face. "Are you sitting down?"
"...Dazai—"
"I need you to sit down."
"I-I am, but I don't understand—"
"What they're doing right now," Dazai takes a deep breath, "is trying to repair a large tear in his aorta, which is causing a significant amount of blood to fill his abdominal cavity, along with several metal fragments in his spine."
"His—his spine?" Rory repeats breathlessly, and Dazai never realized how hard it was to hear someone else going through it. How agonized he must have sounded that day. "I don't u-understand, w-why would he have metal in his—"
"The police are going to explain it to you," Dazai reassures him quietly. "Is there anyone there with you?"
"N-no, I just—got down here as fast as I could—"
"You should call your mom," Dazai mutters, swallowing the lump in his throat. "And if there's anyone in Mark's family who can make it down, I would call them too."
"...Is he not gonna make it?" It's that broken, horrified whisper that feels like a knife in the gut, ripping him open all over again.
"What do you mean, he didn't wake up?!"
"...I'm sorry," Dazai clears his throat, fighting down his own emotions. "But I don't think so."
The weeping is almost unbearable to listen to, but Dazai does. He sits there, leaning against the wall, muffling his own tears with a hand over his mouth, bearing witness to utter heartbreak—something he's done many times before—
But he never wanted someone like Rory to know what it felt like.
"...They're going to give you a chance to go in and see him, later." Dazai explains quietly. "You should go."
"I--Osamu, I don't think I can—"
"I know," he mutters, gritting his teeth, "I know it's hard, but you'll regret it if you don't."
"I—” Grief like that, it can seem like this vast, bottomless chasm when you first tumble over the edge. It terrifies you, swallows you whole, chews you up, and spits you back out, only to leave you on the verge of tumbling over the edge again. "Dazai, I can't do
this—"
"You can," Dazai reassures him gently. "I know it feels like you can't right now, but you can."
Mark Twain's time of death is called at 4:30 a.m., May 17th, 2037.
There's a brownstone in East Brooklyn, sitting at the end of a quiet street. Kids play in the park down the block. Expensive town cars sit in overpriced parking spots next to beat up bicycles.
It's halfway between families that have lived on that block forever, and young professionals who gobbled up the real estate as soon as it was available.
On the stoop, there's a girl with blonde hair, pulled into low braids on either side of her head. She's still wearing a black dress that her aunt forced her into, but she snuck out of the ballet flats, pulling on an old, beat up pair of tennis shoes, doodling on the sides in black sharpie.
"Interesting fashion choice," a deep voice rumbles from behind her, polished black shoes clacking down the steps before he drops down onto the stoop beside her. "I like it, really pulls the entire outfit together."
"..." Riley's lips press together, because she doesn't want to smile. Not anymore.
You're not supposed to smile when someone with a gun walks into your Dad's office, and then he never comes home.
"Did Daddy send you down to get me?"
"...Yeah," Dazai sighs, leaning back on his hands. "He's pretty tied up with your grandparents right now."
She scribbles out whatever clumsy doodle she was making—something close to a daisy, but not quite—with an unnecessary amount of aggression. "I don't wanna go."
"To the funeral?" Riley nods, and Dazai lets out a slow breath. "Why not?"
"...I don't wanna see him like that." She explains. She's seven, old enough to sort of understand what happened, and definitely old enough to know that she doesn't want to see her Dad that way.
When he went to work that day, he was smiling. He was wearing the tie she got him for his birthday.
She wants to remember that. She wants to push that day down, somewhere deep beneath the sadness, and just forget.
Just pretend it was a mistake. It was someone else's Dad, not hers.
And if she doesn't have to see him like that, in a casket—
She can keep pretending as long as she doesn't have to see that.
"...I know you don't want to," Dazai sighs, "but you have to."
Riley bites her lip, gripping the marker tightly. "Why?"
"Because you'll feel worse later, if you don't."
"...Did you go to Uncle Chuuya's funeral?"
It's funny, they were never married, but people always talk about them like they were, with the natural presumption that Chuuya was on the same level as a spouse.
"I did," Dazai agrees. "He would have been sad if I hadn't gone."
"...You think Dad would be sad if I don't go?"
"I think he would."
"..." She leans against Dazai's side heavily, and the older man opens his arm, reaching out to wrap it around her shoulders, squeezing her close. "Was it scary?"
Dazai thinks back on that day, the way they wanted him to sing, but he couldn't. Trying to look at the casket, but flinching away every time he saw that red hair.
"...Yeah," he admits. "It was really scary."
She swallows hard, shrinking even more against him. "My Dad was the one who always got me through things when I was scared."
The one who would let her cry, let her take a moment, then pull her back up to her feet, and say—
"I know it's scary, kiddo—but I'm right here, okay?"
"...I be with you the whole time, okay?" Dazai murmurs, rubbing the back of her head. "And if you don't want to look, you don't have to."
"..." Her eyes well up with tears all over again, but she nods, turning her face into the side of his jacket.
And he does stay with her—even when her father is busy accepting condolences, or comforting her grandmother. He holds her hand the entire time, and even though it is terrifying, she does end up walking down to see the casket, trembling like a leaf while Dazai holds her shoulders, but—
But her Dad doesn't look wrong.
He's still, unnaturally so, but he isn't pale or waxen, he just...
He just looks like he's sleeping.
"Uncle Osamu?"
"Yeah?"
"Why couldn't they fix him?"
She's holding onto his leg, watching as they lower the casket into the earth, her fingers trembling—and Dazai wishes he had a good answer, but he doesn't.
"...There are some things that you just can't fix," Dazai mutters, stroking her hair.
"...You probably could've fixed it," she mutters, her lower lip wobbling, and—
And Dazai laughs weakly, but there's no joy in it. "Trust me, kid..."
If there's one thing he's learned in the last sixteen years, it's—
"There are so many things that I can't fix."
They're the last ones to leave—and she's disbelieving at first, when he tells her that talking helps, but she—
She tries, standing awkwardly in front of the headstone, fiddling with her hands in front of her.
"...I check under the bed by myself now," she mumbles, rocking back on her heels. "I don't wake Daddy up, he doesn't sleep that much anymore. I just get down there and look." Riley swallows hard, "I thought it was gonna be too scary at first, but—then I kinda realize the scariest thing has already happened." She wipes at her nose, struggling to find what she wants to say, but Dazai never prompts her, he just stands there with her, waiting.
"...I'm sorry I didn't kiss you goodbye before you went to work that morning," she swallows hard, tears welling up. "I-I didn't know it was gonna be the..."
She didn't know it was going to be the last time.
"I love you," she mumbles thickly, wiping at her eyes as the tears start to slip down, "I love you forever, and—and I'm never g-gonna love anyone's meatloaf more, and n-no one is ever gonna make the s-same stupid puns like you."
By the time they leave, she's just about cried out, exhausted, hitched up on Dazai's hip, her head resting on his shoulder as he carries her away from the cemetery.
"Uncle 'Samu?"
"Hmm?"
"What was the last thing you ever said to Uncle Chuuya?"
For the first time that day, he actually smiles.
"I love you." He murmurs, holding the girl a little tighter as they leave the graveyard behind.
"I said I love you."
Later that night, he's back on the stoop—this time, with Riley's father, instead.
"Thanks, for being with her today," Rory mutters, holding a wine glass tightly between his hands. He looks like hell, but Dazai wouldn't have expected anything less.
"It wasn't a big deal," Dazai mutters, taking a swig from a bottle of water. "You had a lot to deal with today."
"It was a big deal for her," Rory sighs. "And for me."
Dazai hums in acknowledgement, but doesn't say much else. They don't have to say anything more.
They're both ready to just...sit in it.
"...Has it gotten any easier for you?" He asks softly, eyes swollen and hollow as he stares out at the empty street—and Dazai wishes that he could lie to him.
"No," he admits. "It hasn't."
Rory nods, like that makes sense. "...He wasn't even supposed to have a gun, you know. He drove down to Virginia to get one." He takes another long, slow swig from his drink. "And he didn't even know Mark."
Dazai pauses, honestly surprised by that. "Then why did he...?"
"One of the models he was working with that day," Rory explains tiredly. "Apparently he'd been stalking her for months—and when he showed up on set, Mark let her hide in his office." He swallows hard. "I know I'm a shitty person for wishing that he hadn't, because she would be dead otherwise, but..."
"No," Dazai shakes his head, "you're not a shitty person."
"I'm just mad at him, you know?" Rory whispers. "And I feel awful about it."
"That's normal."
"Is it?"
"Yeah—honestly, I'm glad you got to the angry phase so fast," Dazai smiles lopsidedly. "It's the best one—and it took me forever to get there."
"There's a better phase?"
"Yeah." Dazai nods. "And it's definitely the anger. You should go to one of those bars where you can pay to break plates by the hour. You'd like that."
"Is that what you did?"
"Oh, no—" Dazai snorts, shaking his head. "I threw snowballs."
"At who?"
"I dunno," the brunette sighs, leaning back on his elbows. "God, I guess."
In spite of it all, that actually manages to make Rory laugh.
Dazai flies back to Tokyo at the end of the week—he didn't have that much time to take off out of nowhere.
Back to his wife, back to his daughter—and he holds them both just a little tighter than he did before.
And if that was the end of it, Dazai probably could have lived with it.
He probably could have lived with himself.
But talking to Shizuko doesn't get easier. She's turned Sundays into this strange ultimatum, and Dazai is holding onto them as that one, final thing that he refuses to give up.
Anything but that.
Her irritation only grows when Dazai is willing to skip the occasional Sunday—but only if he's going to be out of town.
And all of his vacation days seem to be geared towards flying out to New York. She doesn't complain, doesn't tell him he can't go, because she understands why he wants to be there. That there's a little girl who doesn't have her Dad to go to special events anymore. That her husband likes feeling like he can fix things.
But he can't fix everything, and there's a little girl in Tokyo who needs her actual father just as much.
"You didn't have to come, you know."
Dazai pauses in the middle of picking up paper plates—clearing up after a birthday party.
Riley's eighth birthday party, to be specific.
"Yeah," Dazai nods, continuing with his work, "I know."
"...But she was really happy that you did," Rory sighs, rubbing his arm, leaning back against the back railing of their porch.
"I know," Dazai smiles, tying off the bag. "That's why I wanted to come."
Summer is starting to settle in—it's been an entire year, now, since it happened. Rory handled it better than he did—and honestly, Dazai thinks the blonde could handle anything better than him—
But he also had Riley to look after, and that makes a difference.
Not to mention the fact that they're both so different from the people they were when Dazai met him 14 years ago.
They aren't young anymore, both in their mid-thirties. Dazai isn't gangly, strung out, and angry all the time.
He kept the long hair, and he always seems to be halfway between stubble and a beard these days, but it suits him.
Rory's eyes have lines at the corners, and his hair is cropped shorter than it used to be—but Dazai doesn't actually miss the longer cut.
This way, you can see his eyes more.
And after Chuuya and Yuko, the only thing that Dazai has loved enough to miss has been those eyes.
"I'm really glad today was good for her." Rory sighs, pressing his hands against his cheeks. "It's probably gonna be the last birthday she has in this place."
Dazai pauses, raising an eyebrow. "You're moving?"
"...We don't exactly bring in enough for this place on my salary," Rory snorts, shaking his head. "We've been getting by on Mark's life insurance settlement, and he did leave some money behind for Riley, but..." he sighs. "I want to save that for her college. I'm not going to have enough time to save it back up if I burn through it now—"
"I could get it." Dazai blurts out, and Rory pauses, staring at him.
"...What?"
"This place," Dazai nods towards the building behind them, "I could buy it for you."
"..." The blonde's jaw goes slack. "I can't."
"It's literally a drop in the bucket for me," Dazai shakes his head. "I want to."
"This is Brooklyn, Osamu, it's probably millions of dollars—"
"I've got millions to spare." Dazai shrugs, looking him in the eye. "I don't mind."
Rory is sputtering, because it's a lot, it's way too much, but it's not easy to say no, either. "I didn't bring it up because I wanted you to fix it—"
"I know," Dazai reaches over, taking his wrist, squeezing it gently, and Rory—
Rory swallows hard.
"I know you didn't," the brunette's voice is gentle, so understanding, it almost hurts. "And I get that it's a lot, but you should let me do it."
"Osamu, I—"
"For Riley," he murmurs, and—
Rory can't argue with that.
"It's not like I could ever pay you back," he mutters, looking away--but Dazai's other hand catches his chin, tilting it up carefully—and when he smiles, there's so much warmth in it.
"I don't care about that."
The fact that the kiss happened—it was kind of Dazai’s fault. He didn’t initiate it, but what the hell was Rory supposed to do when he was looking at him like that?
But kissing Rory back?
That was definitely Dazai’s fault.
Not with any hesitance, but enthusiastically, because god, it isn’t the best kiss Dazai has ever had—
That honor is reserved for a rainy day in the park behind a hospital, after screaming ‘I love you’ at the top of his lungs.
Second, third, fourth—hell, maybe the first dozen—they’re all Chuuya.
But it’s the closest he’s gotten si unce.
It’s the closest he’s been to breathless in so damn long, the closest he’s been to loving someone without feeling guilty—
But it stops.
He stops it, before it gets any further than that, leaning back sharply, breathing hard.
“I can’t.”
Shame is immediate, sour on his tongue, burning in his gut.
Rory swallows hard, pressing a hand over his mouth, looking just as guilty— “I’m sorry—"
“I’m married.”
Nausea is twisting inside of him, the old, never quite kicked habit of self-loathing making a roaring comeback.
Every ugly memory. His mother crying, throwing things at the wall. His father in his office, breaking down every facet of their family, just because he didn’t want to face that it wasn’t working.
What did he do?
What the fuck did he do?
And maybe it was only a kiss, but—
But the kiss itself was proof that he had been doing so much more, betraying his marriage emotionally, and maybe Shizuko could accept that from a ghost, but—
But Rory is very alive.
It’s a moment that he dissects in his mind, over and over on the plane ride back.
He tells himself that he didn’t start the kiss. That he stopped it before it became something more.
But he did kiss him back.
Not the same level as anything that his father did, no—but that doesn’t make it excusable, does it?
And maybe, if life was simple, if it took predictable little paths, he would be able to go home to her, to tell her that he was sorry, that it was a mistake, one that he regrets.
But life isn’t simple.
He makes it back in the middle of the day—when Yuko is still in school, and Shizuko is still at work—
Or, well, that’s where she was supposed to be.
But when Dazai gets to the front door, he’s surprised to notice her car in the driveway—and that the door is unlocked.
For one, hilarious moment, he starts to wonder if she somehow knows, and she’s waiting behind the door to jump out, point, and tell him how awful he is—
But she isn’t.
No, when Dazai opens the door, he finds himself faced with quite possibly the last person that he ever expected to see.
Standing there, in the middle of Dazai’s house—his living room, to be more exact—wearing nothing more than a low riding pair of sweatpants—
Is Dazai’s coworker, Shibusawa Tatsuhiko.
The anesthesiologist he’s most typically paired with, actually. They’ve worked together for years.
Their families have gone on trips to the lake together, recently.
Their daughters are friends.
And he’s standing in Dazai’s living room, drinking coffee from one of Dazai’s mugs—
Presumably, after fucking Dazai’s wife.
They both just stand there, frozen, eyes wide, and the other doctor’s mouth is comically agape, coffee halfway to his lips.
Honestly, Dazai knows that the past seventeen years have left him a little emotionally warped, but he’s silently shocked that he’s the most offended about Shibusawa using his mug.
The audacity.
“You should get going,” there’s faint thuds as she makes her way down the stairs, putting on her earrings as she adjusts her blouse, “His flight gets back in an—”
She freezes at the bottom of the steps, her eyes fixing on Dazai’s face, and he’s still staring at the mug.
Honestly, if you’re already going to fuck someone’s wife in their bed, you must feel bad about it, right? You’ve already done enough, couldn’t you just leave the goddamn mug out of it? Or bring a travel cup at that point? Or just use any other mug? They have so many, and that one has the hospital logo on it, it’s obviously his—
“I—Your flight was early?”
Right. Back to the situation at hand.
“...” Dazai nods, arching an eyebrow silently at the other doctor, who is slowly growing pale under his gaze, shrinking with shame.
“I...I should go,” Shibusawa mutters, grabbing his jacket, wallet, and keys from the couch, and when he starts to rush past Dazai, making his way towards the door, he’s stopped with one hand on his shoulder, a grip like iron, and he freezes—
Expecting to get punched in the face, or worse, but—
Dazai just plucks the mug out of his hand before letting go.
“I can see that touching other people’s things is a bad habit of yours,” Dazai muses, “but this is mine.”
“...” Shibisawa just ducks his head in response, stepping out the door, and slamming it shut behind him.
Silence is heavy in the air as she stares at him, nervous and ashamed—
While Dazai is just lifting up the mug, staring at it. God, did the man have any coffee with his creamer?
It smells like pure hazelnut half and half.
“Osamu, I—"
“Did you pick the mug out for him, or did he just grab this one?”
“I—what?”
“Seriously, out of all of the cups in this house, he used that one? It's obviously mine—"
"What the fuck are you worried about that for? How are you even here this early?”
"The time difference is shorter right now," Dazai reminds her flatly, his eyes closed off. "Daylight savings time."
Oh.
She pauses, processing that information, fiddling with the hems of her shirt sleeves.
His shirt, actually, one of his old ones, from med school.
"...How long has this been going on?"
She's pale, drawn, clearly horrified, but she answers. "I—around ten months."
Dazai lets out a low whistle, drumming his fingers against the mug. "...Wow."
"I—"
"I work with him, Shizuko."
"I know, I—"
"Of all people—"
"What do you want me to say?!" She whispers, wrapping her arms around herself. "That I'm pathetic? I already know that.”
"...You don't have to do that," Dazai doesn't know what he's feeling. He knows anger is there, but it's torn between confusion, guilt, and sadness.
"Do what?"
"Try and make me feel bad for you."
Her eyes narrow with anger, and she shakes her head. "No."
"What?"
"I know I fucked up," She mutters, "but you don't get to act like this was all me."
"I just walked into my house to find my friend for the past five years walking around shirtless after fucking my wife." Dazai glares. "I think I get a few minutes before I start dividing up blame."
"He paid attention to me, Osamu," She throws her hands up, "you were literally flying halfway around the world to get away from me, and he paid attention to me!"
"And I don't pay attention?!" Dazai stares at her like she's lost it, and she looks like she's ready to scream.
"You paid attention to someone else's family—"
"I don't get why you were so upset about me taking Sundays for myself," Dazai muses, "you clearly had someone to keep you busy."
"And you expect me to believe that nothing has happened between you and Rory?" She hisses, trembling with anxiety, guilt, and anger.
"...No." Dazai tilts his head. "Something did happen." There's vindication in her eyes, like after so many months of paranoia, she finally knows she wasn't crazy— "We kissed. And then I immediately flew back home, ready to tell you the truth, and to apologize." He glances her over, "But I didn't do any of that to hurt you." He points to the door, where Shibusawa just walked out. "I don't understand how this could have been about anything but hurting me."
Her eyes are flooded with tears, and that's the moment when he realizes—
She genuinely had believed that he was having an affair.
"...I'm sorry," she mutters, hanging her head, wiping her nose with her hand. "I'm sorry, I—"
"You what?"
"I didn't know what else to do." She mutters, and Dazai doesn't...
He doesn't even know what he thinks anymore, what he feels. He's caught in between different planes of fault, like he's spinning out on a bout of emotional motion sickness.
"You didn't talk to me."
"I tried, Osamu, I tried, but you always—"
"I always what?"
"Pushed me away," She shakes her head, "I'm—I can't make an excuse for this, but—I—I don't love Tatsuhiko." She shakes her head. "Can you look me in the eye and say you don't love him?"
They both know that he can't, and her lips tremble with sadness. "I didn't sleep with anyone else—"
"And I've never loved anyone else," She mutters, the tears finally slipping down her face, "I knew I was never going to win against Chuuya, but Rory? How is that fair?"
"I love you," he shakes his head, "you know I do—"
"No, I don't!" She shakes her head. "You've been pushing me away for so long, and then you try to act like it's not even happening—"
"Because I wouldn't stop visiting him?"
"Because you drop everything for someone halfway around the world, but you can barely even look at me!" She chokes, and the tears just pour down faster. "Because you work yourself to death, and our daughter and I get one day a week with you, because you spend your other day off in a cemetery! Because, when you found out I was sleeping with another man, the first thing you asked about was a FUCKING MUG!"
"I don't give a SHIT about the GODDAMN MUG!" Dazai finally snaps, hurling it aside until it smacks against the wall and shatters, coffee sliding down the wall sluggishly.
"YOU COULD HAVE FOOLED ME!" She sobs, "And you're not even angry that I was with someone else, you're just—" she shakes her head, "I don't know what this is, but--"
"You don't think I'm angry? You're my wife!" Dazai shakes his head.
"I am! I am your wife," she presses her hands against her chest, "and I'm the same person I was when you married me, but you've been pushing me away ever since—and I never knew what I did wrong—"
"You didn't do anything wrong”
"And you know what?" She shakes her head, "I figured it out. I know exactly what happened, and it wasn't me." She points to the door. "You know why it's so easy for you to want him? Because he was married to someone else. He was unavailable. You couldn't have him."
Dazai's jaw goes slack.
"And when our relationship was temporary, before you decided to commit, you loved me like that." She shakes her head.
"I still do.”
"But you stopped talking to me." She whispers. "You stopped trying, Osamu. I never did. I never did."
"You cheated—"
"And if you don't forgive me for that, I understand." She mutters, her eyes burning with shame. "If you—if you ask me for a divorce, I'll understand."
"This doesn't sound like that," Dazai shakes his head. "This sounds like you only did this to punish me.”
"I did it because I was a coward. I did it because I was angry, and—" she presses her face into her hands. "Yes, I wanted to hurt you." She looks up at him. "I am a living, breathing person, and I fucked up. And—and I guess I did want to punish you." She admits, exhaling shakily, her hands trembling at her sides.
Dazai is silent, trying to put that together, because—
Jesus, it's complicated.
But she isn't completely wrong.
It's not one conversation. It isn't one fight.
Yuko is like an oblivious little referee, and her coming home from school, her bedtimes—they mark off the distance between rounds, and they each win some, and lose some.
She apologizes, more times than Dazai can count.
And he doesn't know if he forgives her. He doesn't even know if he's angry, or just hurt, or—
"I don't know why you're acting like I have something to apologize for!" He snaps one night over the kitchen table, exasperated, but not nearly as much as she is.
"Because the fact that I fucked up doesn't change what you did!"
"And what did I do?"
"Oh, I don't know, had an emotional affair with your friend for almost the entirety of our marriage?"
"It wasn't like that until the end—"
"Was it longer than ten months?"
And she has him there.
But he has her on other points.
"You kept trying to change me."
"No, I never—"
"I told you from the very beginning that Chuuya was always going to be a part of my life.”
"I never said that he couldn't be! I just wanted you to make us a bigger part of your life!”
"You get me every day!" Dazai shakes his head, "You get wake up to me every single morning, you fall asleep next to me at night, you get a future with me. Why isn't that enough?"
"Because I didn't have you, you were running away, and—" she shakes her head, "you don't want a future with me, you want a future with someone that is never coming back—"
"I warned you."
"Just because you warned me, that doesn't make it fair—"
"But I never tried to say it was."
And it's true.
He didn't.
But there's one thing she says to him, three weeks later, tears pouring down her cheeks, hunched over a chair on their patio—
"You never warned me that you would start treating me like a ghost too."
--and it sticks with him.
"I'm here, Osamu. I'm not gone. And I would understand it if you just didn't want to be with me anymore, but I'm tired of feeling like you're running away from me because you're scared of losing me."
It doesn't justify what she did, but after a while—and it does take time, it takes months—
Dazai starts to realize that she was never trying to justify what she did.
She just wanted him to understand it.
And...He does.
Because, when he forces himself to take stock of the last six years—
He did start pulling away from her.
Maybe not as early as she thinks, but after the wedding, definitely.
The moment he acknowledged that his feelings for her ran that deep, he tried to distance himself from them. Because he didn't—
He barely survived it, with Chuuya. He's been at the bottom of that staircase, and he doesn't want to fall back down again.
He did start working more.
And yes, he did start putting less effort into his marriage.
That doesn't excuse what she did, but—
But her mistakes don't erase his behavior either.
Choosing to stay wasn't easy. In a way, it felt like a gift wrapped out was being dangled in front of his face. A way to do what he's been doing for so long—
Running away from the fear of loss, because experiencing it again would hurt too much.
Things aren't automatically better. They still don't trust one another. He still finds himself staring at Rory's contact a little too longingly on his phone screen, and she still has to fight back a comment when he gets up on Sunday mornings, but...
But they start going to baseball games together again.
He surprises her with flowers sometimes after work. She goes through the truly excruciating task of actually pulling off a surprise party for a genius when his birthday rolls around—but the gaping look of surprise on his face when everyone jumps out with confetti is worth it.
He allows himself to remember just how much he loves her laugh—
And he starts trying to make her laugh again.
They weren't trying for another baby, so their son came as a surprie—but a welcome one.
He's born right around the holidays, and he looks just like Dazai, right down to his eyes, his hair, the shape of his chin.
They name him Sousuke—close to Souseki, but not quite naming him after Dazai's grandfather.
And when Dazai sees her like that, cradling their son in her arms, stroking Yuko's hair as she leans in to look at her little brother—
Dazai—and he knows how ridiculous it is, that it took him this long, but—
He finally accepts it.
That this is the person he's spending his future with. This is his partner. The mother of his children. Maybe not the love of his life, but she'll love him for the rest of it.
And he isn't going to lose her.
But the moment he accepts that is exactly when he does.
She doesn't bounce back as fast as she did after having Yuko. She pushed herself to go back to work as soon as she could, but her energy didn't come back.
And she lost so much weight so fast.
Dazai worried, only for her to insist that it was the breastfeeding—and sure, that can happen, but—
But not like this.
At first, he tried to tell himself that it might be post-partum, and he tried to get her to talk to someone—only for psychiatrists to tell him that she was just tired, even when he knew in his gut, that wasn't the case.
It's six months later, when she couldn't get out of bed one morning, tears in her eyes as she tried to sit up, clutching at her back, when Dazai knew.
They would spend the rest of the day in waiting rooms, with their son bouncing against his leg, going through scan after scan, waiting for answers.
And at first, the answer wasn't that terrifying.
A mass on the right ovary, one they should have screened for after she gave birth to Sousuke, but they caught it.
They schedule a procedure to have it removed three weeks later, and it's successful.
And for the next six months, it feels like things go back to normal.
Her energy is back, she's out in the yard, playing soccer with Yuko while Dazai fusses over building a movie projector set up on the patio.
The first time it comes back, they catch it so early—and the next step is a full hysterectomy. They weren't looking to have any more children, but recovery was hard, leaving her bedridden for weeks at time—
And with one seven year old and a toddler, that was a nightmare.
But they get through it. She's strong, and Dazai is right there—a little too used to holding someone's hair back while they vomit into the toilet, or brushing their hair when they're too exhausted to lift their arms over their head—
But he's there, he's always there.
And the next two years pass without a fight.
But the second time it comes back—it's different.
Because it's moved into the breasts and lungs. Because the next step is radiation—
And because Yuko is old enough to understand that her mother is sick.
Dazai never realized how fast it went with Chuuya. That three months wasn't a long decline—
Because this goes so slow.
Three years of treatment. Three years of watching her slowly shrink, hollowed out from the inside. Piece after piece cut away, until finally, one doctor admits that they've 'run out of surgical options.'
And at forty years old, Dazai is back in the same place he was in when he was nineteen.
Holding someone he loves in his arms, stroking her back as she cries into his shoulder.
Not because she's scared, but because she's angry.
Because she wanted so much more. Because their children are so young, and there is so much of their lives that she's going to miss.
"W-what if they forget what I look like?"
"They'll remember." Dazai murmurs, holding her closer as she trembles in his arms.
"But Sousuke is so little—"
"I won't let him forget." He shakes his head. "I promise."
"..." She buries her face tighter into his neck. "I'm...Osamu, I—"
"What?"
"I'm scared."
"...Yeah," Dazai swallows hard, resting his chin on top of her head, fighting not to break down.
"So am I."
The last weeks are the hardest, because there's so much pain, and there's nothing he can do.
It's hard to find a good hour, much less a good day to have the kids around her—because neither of them want Sousuke and Yuko to see her like that.
And on the last day, after Yuko spends a few hours sleeping next to her, still wearing her school uniform as she curls up against her side, and Sousuke give her his favorite bear—
(Because he's always scared of going to sleep in his room by himself, and he doesn't want Mommy to be scared too.)
When they're alone, and she's struggling to take breaths, in and out, strung out on painkillers, she squeezes his hand, her thumb rubbing over his wedding ring.
"'Samu?"
"..." He lifts her hand up, careful not to disturb her I.V. as he presses her palm against his cheek, leaning into it. "Yeah?"
"Thank you," she mumbles, eyes moving restlessly under their lids.
"...For what?"
"I know...I wasn't the love of your life," every word is a fight, but they're important, so she gets them out.
"But you were the love of mine."
Her fingers tighten weakly against his cheek, and his eyes sting with tears that he's afraid to shed, because—
God, she deserved so much better.
Even if she wasn't perfect. Even if she made mistakes.
They both did—but she gave him so much, more than he deserved.
"I love you, Shizuko."
He holds her, in those last few hours, climbing into bed with her, letting her rest against his chest as her breathing slows—
And for the first time in seventeen years, Dazai sings.
Softly, next to her ear, and she smiles weakly, the oxygen tube around her nose crinkling slightly. "You...you actually wrote a song for me?"
His lips press against her temple, "Just for my best girl."
It's the only nickname he ever gave her—and hearing it now, actually makes her smile.
"Look at the stars, look how they shine for you..."
Her eyes slip shut.
"And everything you do..."
"And they were all yellow."
A lifetime can feel so long, when you spend every single day of it waiting on someone that isn't there.
And before you know it, you can look up, and realize how much time went by.
"Your skin, oh yeah, your skin and bones...."
The memories that you didn't realize that you were making.
"Turn into something beautiful..."
The people you didn't realize that you were losing.
And Dazai spent so much time comparing his attachments, setting every single person
to fail next to Chuuya, because how couldn't they?
But that didn't mean that his time with Shizuko wasn't meaningful.
It didn't mean that he didn't love her. That she didn't love him.
That what they had didn't matter.
"Do you know I love you so..."
And he wasted so much time, trying to pretend that he didn't care as much, that he couldn't, because he was afraid of feeling this again.
"You know I love you so..."
He's humming, crooning in her ears until the pain doesn't feel quite so present, and her breathing starts to slow, she murmurs, "'Samu?"
"Mmm?"
"I'll..." her head slumps against his chest, she doesn't have the strength to hold it up anymore.
"I'll tell...Chuuya," she swallows thickly, offering him the only thing she can, "...h-how much you...you still..."
"..." His arms tighten around her, his face pressing against her scarf, his breaths trembling.
Because she was way, way too good for him.
"It's okay," he croaks, fighting with every ounce he has left, not to break down. "You don't have to—"
"W-want to..."
His eyes squeeze shut, and he doesn't have anything left in him, doesn't have any words that could make this better, so he just keeps repeating the only words he has.
I love you.
I love you.
I'm sorry.
I love you.
He feels it, when her lungs stop moving. Feels the stillness before the heart monitor gives one long, final beep.
And for the first time in far, far too long—Shizuko doesn't feel any pain.
The next breath she takes is long and full, and her limbs feel so light.
When her eyes open, she isn't alone, there's a hand in hers—strong, warm.
She's seen the face in photographs, heard his voice in recordings, but—
Osamu wasn't exaggerating.
That smile really is special.
"Thank you, Shizuko-san."
"I—" She blinks against the light, squeezing his hand in return, baffled. "For what?"
"For staying with him."