Memories | Dazai X Reader

Six • Harder To Breathe

"He'll do his best to try."

• • •

It's been a week ever since the incident. To say that things got much better would be a lie—as always, Dazai's progression has its ups and downs. And, well, no one can blame Dazai for it either. It's not his fault that he can't remember, and there's several other people that have experienced the same thing—

Or, are still experiencing it after years and years.

He's gone out with Chuuya and Oda a couple times throughout the last seven days, and he's enjoying himself. Or so he believes, he talked to you about how whenever he gets excited he immediately shuts down. He didn't understand why it happened all the time, and he could only assume it had something to do with how he used to act before.

It did.

You explained everything to him, he deserved to know, to understand. The habit of immediately shutting down when feeling anything good outside of his home was a way to almost protect himself.

It took him a while to even get out of it around you, but he had gotten through it.

Like he always—

No, he didn't always. That yet again is just another lie. He doesn't get through everything, almost no human can get through everything in their life.

You told him about his habits, how he wasn't in the greatest place before you met him, and even the first time the three of you had ran into him. You, Chuuya, and Oda had been friends for a while before meeting Dazai, and it was a little strange adding another person into this little group that you once had.

Dazai would often be seen as a walking corpse on the streets, he often went out to avoid interactions with people when he simply wasn't ready for it. The three of you noticed Dazai quite a lot, he went to familiar places that the three of you had already known of.

That walking corpse around the street stood out even if he didn't exactly have any features that stood out—other than the bandages. The title of walking corpse never felt fitting enough, and it was easy to tell that Dazai was a person that was often detached from reality.

The first time you saw him talk with someone else, he seemed completely different—energetic, full of life, nothing close to the walking corpse that the three of you had often passed by in the streets.

Then, outside of a coffee shop, the three of you quite literally bumped into him. It was first filled with some "I'm sorry's" that Dazai would sputter out, not seeming sorry at all. For some reason, Oda decided to ask him if wanted to get coffee with the three of you. Seeing that he was going to reach for the handle to the shop anyway, it didn't seem like an awful idea.

He said yes, much more enthusiastically than any of you were expecting.

It was nice, it was easy to see why he might be likeable—

Then after sharing your names, talking a little bit about yourselves and realizing that Dazai was the same age as you and Chuuya, the questions about Dazai seemed more like facts.

He wasn't holding his cup, he was actually the first one to finish his drink. It definitely wasn't the most ideal first conversation that one could have, but when Dazai heard that the three of you noticed his behaviour?

All he could do was let raw shock fill him, and before he even registers anything, that raw shock becomes evident on his face.

And all that he could think was—

How? Why? What am I not covering? What if they start to get close—?

That was the first time he had shown himself in front of others in years. And for the last one, he's now gotten his answer, and it was not the worst decision he's made in his life.

• • •

You and Dazai haven't spoken about the incident itself, but after you told him all of that? He doesn't feel the need to talk much about it either. It's weird to feel scared of yourself, especially if you only now know how you once used to act.

At first, when Dazai started getting close to the three of you, he was so scared that he might burst, so scared that he might ruin it all—

Except now, Dazai feels like he did ruin it all. And as much as knows that losing his memories wasn't his fault, he still feels like it is.

"I like your necklaces," he says, running his fingers across the many chains that are in your room, placed in an organizer on top of the dresser. You get up to move closer to him. He turns his head to look over at you, and his eyes lower, "I like the one you're wearing, too."

He gave you most of the ones that you have, even the one you're wearing right now—

"Can I...?" he asks, pulling on a few of the necklaces in the organizer. "Of course," you reply, walking with him to sit on the bed. He picks each one up by turn, looking at all of them in awe because they are really pretty.

Then he picks up another and—

"Oh," he half-whispers, half-mumbles, like he wasn't supposed to see that one. Like he wasn't supposed to touch it. "Do you like this one?" he asks, and now that he's said it out loud it doesn't feel like he should've said anything at all.

"It's my favourite, actually," you breathe out, not wanting to lie to him. He runs his fingers on his own initials that are on the necklace, before asking, "why don't you wear it then?"

He stops you from responding, because he immediately wishes to go back. "Never mind, I shouldn't have asked." Dazai gets up from the bed, exhaling sharply as he looks around the room. "I'm going to go for a walk, I'll be back soon."

Then everyday feels like it goes back to step one.

A/N: how does a person write fluff.