Dazai texted Kunikida after dinner. He was curled up on his bed, the window open just enough to let in the sounds of people and traffic. The noise helped his thoughts from spiraling too deeply.

Hello~! It's Dazai! ^-^ Did you have a good day, Kunikida-san?

The familiar spark of amusement returned, despite the fact that Kunikida wasn't present physically. Dazai could imagine how he was reacting, and that was satisfaction in itself. His phone pinged with a single-word response.

Yes.

Grinning a little to himself, Dazai messaged back.

That's good!

He wanted to say more, but suddenly he was too tired to be obnoxious. He turned his phone off completely and tossed it across the room, jumping slightly when it thumped against the floor.

His bed hadn't been made in weeks, since he'd woken up early on his day off and somehow decided he wanted to clean up. It hadn't been a very successful venture, but he'd at least made his bed. The rough blue comforter was starting to smell, though, and he knew he'd have to do laundry again soon.

Dazai sighed.

He could feel the tension in his shoulders keeping his arms pinned close to his sides. His hands were shaking like they always did at home. With a deep breath, he retrieved his phone.

Was this loneliness making him turn his phone back on? He'd always thought he was lonely. He always had been. But the lost, aching feeling he'd drowned in when Chuuya was still alive was a completely different experience to this. 

It was softer now, but more insistent. He'd promised the grave of his first love that he would stay alive, and that promise had made him do things he never would have been able to.

Because of that promise, he clicked back into his messages with Kunikida.

Thank you. Kunikida was as brief and serious over text as he had expected.

Dazai took a cute selfie and sent it. What are you doing? he captioned the image.

He'd sworn to stay alive, and perhaps that meant talking to people sometimes. That promise had dragged him out of bed on his worst days. That promise had pushed him to get a job, to try and find patches of his day that didn't make his heart weep.

The pure stubborn hope that he could do what he'd screamed at Chuuya for not being able to manage...

Dazai closed his eyes as Kunikida responded, not even bothering to read the message.

He let his fingers guess at where the call button was. Somehow he'd hit it, and he heard the soft hum of his phone ringing.

Kunikida answered.

"What?" he said, sounding unimpressed.

"How do you do it?" Dazai asked, his voice soft, his eyes still closed.

"Do what?"

"Your job. You... you're responsible for so many lives. Things have to go wrong sometimes. How do you handle failing? What do you do when someone dies on your watch?"

There was a long moment of silence. Dazai had heard of the ADA while still in the Port Mafia. He knew that Kunikida had regrets. Surely he had a way to move forward, or at least survive.

"Well," Kunikida said slowly, "I promise myself to do whatever I can to keep it from happening again. I keep trying, because that's the only way I know to make up for the unredeemable mistakes in my past."

Keep trying. That was what Dazai was doing. Tears trickled down his face. Still, he was calm.

"Okay," he said.

"Dazai?"

At Kunikida's voice he opened his eyes and looked down at his phone, at the contact name sitting on his screen. "Yeah?"

"Why... why did you call me? What are you running from?"

"Oh, nothing in particular," Dazai said. He had a slight note of hope in his voice. Hopefully it didn't sound too forced. "I'll see you on Monday, Kunikida-san."

He hung up before the man could respond, before the thoughts overwhelmed him too much.

He'd made another promise, too. He'd said he wasn't allowed to look at the letter for six months after the last time had left him broken. If it hadn't been for the lonely new grave he would have ended it then.

He still had four months left, but he couldn't help himself. He wanted to feel something, even if it was heartache.

Dazai-

I'd say I'm sorry, but I don't know if I am. I'm not doing anything you haven't threatened to do to me a thousand times before. I know you don't expect this, but I'm too tired to care.

That's not true. I don't want to hurt you. I do care.

But I can't do this. I can't keep living like this. There's poison in the water here, and you just want to stay and keep drinking it. We can't get out. I know that. We're both too broken to try. I'm sorry about Odasaku. I'm sorry you're so hurt. But I'm hurt, too.

Hurting you is the worst thing I could do, but if I stay in the mafia I'll hurt so many more people.

This way you're the only one who has to suffer.

I'm sorry.

I love you.

- Nakahara Chuuya

He'd found the note four minutes after he'd found Chuuya dead on the couch in their apartment.

Throughout all his painful years, it had been the one nightmare he'd never considered. His boyfriend, the love of his life, had killed himself, and Dazai hadn't been there to stop him.

He was a hypocrite. He knew that as he stood in the rain and watched the fresh dirt on Chuuya's grave grow dark and heavy with water. He was a liar. He was false.

The words he'd said that day, the promise he'd made by accident, clung to him just as tightly as his soaked white shirt and the bandages that wrapped around him.

"Chuuya, you idiot. Why did you think it would only affect me? The world itself is crying, Chuuya. There's so much that you brightened just by existing. Killing yourself was the cruelest choice possible. I know you were hurting, Chibi, but can't you see how awful it was? Nothing you could do would be worse. Why couldn't you have just lived? Even if you were miserable, why didn't you stay with me? To live is joy, Hatrack."

He'd cried until it made the rain look like clear skies.

That was when he realized.

No matter the pain, he had to stay alive. For Chuuya. No matter what. He had to prove himself right that being alive was always better.

He reread the letter again and again in the night, and he cried for the blindness he'd always had.