A Melody We Were Never Supposed To Hear

My Alcoholic Friends

The Dresden Dolls

One or two words changed to fit the situation 

—-

Dazai POV

I let my body move on autopilot, waking up, getting ready, walking to the office and sitting down  at my desk. If anyone tried to speak with me I couldn't hear them, I didn't know a thing that I was doing all morning. Somewhere in the back of my mind it registered that today was only Wensday.

The memories were becoming too much.

Each night different nightmares haunted my dreams, different memories mutilated in some way if they weren't hard enough to begin with. Faces that I could barely remember would flit violently across my vision. A clanging of glasses that sounded more like gun shots than glass, bodies crumpled on the ground, and years spent a lone, every word spoken only more and more a lie.

Sometimes it's easier to drown in memories than it is in the sea.

—-

3rd person switching POV

Fukuzawa wasn't one to poke into the personal lives of his employees, or anyone for that matter. He knew that Atsushi had secrets about himself that he would rather not share with anyone and that Kyoka would rather do anything but talk about the specifics of her time in the mafia. And he knew that out of everyone in his Agency, Dazai is the one with the most secrets and the one that it would be easier to win the lottery than hear even one of them most days. Fukuzawa knew all of this and chose not to pry because he had his own history that he would rather not speak of, but when the past comes rearing it's ugly head in the present, he can't help but want to do something.

Fukuzawa walked into the main office once he was sure that everyone would be there, using the illusion of stopping at Ranpo's desk to make sure that he wasn't just eating chips for breakfast, again, to check on the state of the twenty-two year old detective. The president had half way expected to find the man bouncing around the room from small little group to small group, talking with each of the other detectives before work started as he normally would, or lazing about at his desk or at the couch as he tended to do some days when the president assumed that the detective hadn't gotten enough sleep. When the President walked into the office space he found none of that. 

Dazai was sitting at his desk, steadily typing away at the computer and writing down the information that he got from it. Fukuzawa could easily guess what the younger man was doing even without seeing the computer screen. He had given Kunikida and Dazai a case for them to complete next week it was one that was time sensitive and could not be completed a head of the set date, but the pair of detectives could do all of the research that they needed before then. Dazai never did research, he never needed to between his partner and his own intelligence it was just another way for him to waste time. 

Watching the man for a moment, Fukuzawa could recognize the symptoms of withdraw in the detective. How he isolated himself from the others and barley even noticed as others tried to speak with him, only giving a nod or a grunt in response. It didn't sit right in the President's stomach. 

Everyone slowly left the office for lunch, the sibilants hounding out together to the cafe downstairs as Atsushi, Kyoka, and Kenji huddled together brainstorming ideas as they left. The clerks and other part timers left together, talking about a small place that they had found two streets over. It was a sweet sight that the President loved to see, but it was tainted by the man that stayed behind even as the final three left.

Ranpo, Yosano, and Fukuzawa reached the second floor landing once more, but this time Ranpo just continued going down as he already knew what the older man was planning to do.