Now I'm changed {soukoku}

✧ Chapter One ✧

For once in his life, the infamous suicidal maniac sat at his desk, concentrating intently on his work, typing aggressively at his keyboard, not uttering a word to his co-workers and friends.

This was unusual for Dazai, he was the type of person who wouldn't touch his work until he was being physically abused by Kunikida, even with his slight personality change. However today was not the case, the usually rowdy office was dead quiet.

Dazai finally finished, closing his laptop with a sigh, laying his head directly on the desk, closing his eyes in defeat.
"Dazai-San are you okay?"Atsushi asked lowering his head as well, so his dual coloured eyes met Dazai's brown ones
"I finished all the paperwork that I have for the next few weeks and now I want to die."
"As always... how come? You never do your work," Kunikida asked, eyeing him suspiciously as he lifted his head so he was making direct eye contact with Dazai as if his rectangular glasses made his vision worse rather than better, or maybe he just didn't want to see Dazai's face clearly, understandably.

"I have a mission, I'll be gone for a while," Dazai mumbled his face now squished onto the table.
"Why the glum face then?" Atsushi asked leaning onto his elbow, he expected Dazai to be thrilled with getting a mission, it meant action -which was never boring- and of course little to no paperwork.

"His mission's with fancy hat" Ranpo interrupted from the desk near the window where he was sitting cross-legged, awkwardly trying to bite a lollipop.

Atsushi seemed to perk up at the mention of someone from the Mafia, something that didn't go unnoticed by both Kunikida and Ranpo, but neither chose to say or comment on it.
"Ahh, right you! And Chuuya-San don't get along. And you haven't seen each other in almost a year," Atsushi spoke tapping the side of his cheek as if he was trying to recite Dazai and Chuuya's whole relationship in his head
"Well I don't think it will be that bad," Tanizaki spoke, poking his head from behind the door, Dazai lifted his head rubbing his eyes tiredly.

"What makes you say that?" he questioned tilting his head to the left curiously, Tanizaki smiled plopping onto a nearby chair.
"well, we all went through a lot last year, haven't we? And we've all changed considerably but you've changed the most," No Dazai raised an eyebrow but said nothing letting the younger continue.
"You're a lot nicer, you seem to care about others a lot more than you used to, more down to earth and concerned about us too, not to mention the suicide jokes have decreased ever so slightly." Though it felt a bit uncanny to admit that, no one was able to deny it, it was clear that the possibility of losing everyone that Dazai harboured a strong love for had inadvertently caused some type of -much welcomed- revelation within him.

Everyone present in the room was definitely expecting the tall brunet man to make some snarky stuck-up remark but instead, he smiled, a genuine closed eye happy smile. He said nothing other than a soft -maybe vulnerable- 'thank you' as he got up to go to the door, finally allowing himself to leave, saying he'd come back to grab his laptop and bid his final goodbye tomorrow, to say that everyone was surprised seemed like a very big understatement, they were completely starstruck.

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Dazai walked into his apartment, he took off his shoes whilst chucking his black bag on the floor near his shoe wrack, trudging tiredly towards his bedroom. He stared at his bed for a second before throwing himself face-first into his pillow. He sat like that for a good few minutes, until he couldn't breathe anymore so he turned his torso upwards to allow life to seep into his lungs, he lay there like a vegetable -facing the ceiling- for a long time, a faint smile present on his lips as he thought back to what Tanizaki had said, truthfully he felt quite proud of himself, he was sure Odasaku would be proud of him too, maybe.