It is about 10 pm when his phone rings, a loud screeching that contrasts heavily with the calm atmosphere of his apartment. He picks it up when he sees the contact name, hoping that Dazai is alright, preparing to convince him to turn himself in, but the person on the line isn't Dazai.
No, it isn't. The boy - he can't be anything other than a teenager - bombards his ears with rushed questions.
"Who is this?" Shouta questions, standing up rapidly. He's already gathering his capture weapon, bundling it into his hands.
"It doesn't matter," the mysterious caller says, quick and harsh. "You know Dazai, right?"
"Yes."
The voice hitches minutely. Shouta almost begins to talk again, but frantic sentences descend upon him.
"He's about to die. You need to help him, I - I don't know anyone that can help and he can't go to a hospital. Please. I'm going to watch that idiot die."
He stills. His capture weapon almost falls out of his hands.
Shouta knows he shouldn't be doing this.
"Send me your location. I'm bringing a doctor who is affiliated with UA."
He does it anyway, because he's a Hero.
"I'll kill you if you take him back," the boy whispers.
Shouta wonders why the Port Mafia isn't stepping up to help one of their best members, but that ominous phrase leaves a swirling feeling in his gut. Taking him back to the heroes?
"Stay with him. I need to know how he's injured."
"Two lacerations on each arm on the radial artery, wrist to elbow. Other small lacerations in the same area but not life-threatening. Heavy alcohol consumption, possible alcohol poisoning," he lists Dazai's injuries like he's reporting to someone. It switches back fast when he says aggressively, "Can't you hurry the fuck up?"
Shouta's eye twitches. "I'm leaving now. Try to stem the bleeding."
"You don't need to tell me that," he scoffs.
The caller hangs up straight after.
Fireworks boom distantly, lighting up his dark apartment with bursts of colour. The caller also had fireworks in the background of his call, judging by the sound levels, the address was correct and not just some trap. Shouta doesn't waste another second before dialling a familiar number.
Shuzenji picks up the phone immediately.
"You better have a good reason to call me, Aizawa. Don't tell me one of your students did something - "
"Dazai is severely injured, Shuzenji," he breathes, quiet like it's a forbidden secret.
"You found him?" she asks. Her voice is grave and hardened in a way that he recognises as a Hero's experience. He tugs on his shoes.
"Someone called me from his phone. I'll pick you up from your apartment, it's on the way to his location."
He turns on the engine of his car and throws a bag into the back, not even waiting for it to land before slamming a foot on the pedal. His phone lies on the dashboard on speaker. It's really just got a change of clothes just in case Dazai needs it and the keys to his house.
"Send me the details of his condition right now. I'm going to prepare what I can," she says, then sighs. "It's always your class that gets into trouble."
He doesn't want to remind her that Dazai's not in his class anymore. He doesn't want to be reminded himself, but he knows he'll see it when his students look back at the empty seat.
Shouta is hung up on for the second time that day.
The last of the fireworks dissolve in the distance, silence settling over Musutafu. Shouta thinks it's unsettling, disturbing even, when he compares that silence to his former student. His hand tightens on the steering wheel.
Shuzenji is outside her apartment with a large medical bag when he pulls up in his bright red car. It's stupidly bright for an underground Hero, but Hizashi had insisted. They must make for an unconventional duo. She opens the passenger door with a woeful expression. He wants to tell her to stop it; he's not dead yet. He's not dead. Dazai can't be dead.
They don't speak. Shouta doesn't know if he can, knowing that he wasn't able to protect a student of his.
They don't speak, except Shuzenji says in an almost whisper, "Why do you think he did it to himself?"
"Guilt from murdering All for One is the most logical answer," he replies stiffly.
The older woman frowns at him. "I don't know if I believe that."
He pauses. "Yeah. Me neither."
Shouta steps on the gas.
The two Heroes arrive at a building that looks like it desperately needs a repair. A few smashed windows litter the bottom floor, contrasting the worn-out grey of the building. Unlike the still car ride, Shouta rushes through the door. He barely bothers to flash his Hero license to the landlord and takes the stairs two steps at a time to get to the fourth floor. His clambering disturbs the area.
Shouta stops before the door. It's slightly ajar, doorknob bent at an odd angle, dust clouding the area. He hears Shuzenji making her way up urgently.
It smells like blood. It smells like Dazai's blood.
Shouta pushes the door open carefully and takes in the room. A broken television lies in one corner, while many empty bottles surround it and a space on the wall. A trail of bandages leads to a teenager sticking out of a doorway.
A teenager who Shouta is sure was a member of the League of Villains. A teenager who killed every single one of them, eluded the Heroes, and none of them knew his name. Shouta's hands are on his scarf in an instant as he wraps it around the orange-haired boy, quirk turned on as he evaluates him with narrowed eyes.
"Are you the one who called?" Shouta questions the boy, who scoffs.
"You see anybody else in this damn room?" he snaps. "Just - just get to Dazai. Tie me up if you fucking need to."
He holds his free hands out with his wrists up, a frustrated expression painting his face, so childish in comparison to the adult scars melded into his bare arms. They litter in jagged shapes that Shouta knows are from pure violence.
The boy's eyes are red, just slightly puffy, yet he bares his teeth.
Shouta levels him with a suspicious expression and pushes past him after wrapping his wrists up. He's never been one to take risks. He's never been one to save known murderers either, but there's a first for everything. The stench of blood grows stronger.
Dazai lays on the floor on his side. It's to stop him from choking on his vomit, he supposes, but he's more worried about the blood loss than the alcohol. Shouta's eyes are drawn to the sheer amount of blood everywhere. The bathtub has trails of it into the drain, specks littering the white porcelain. A few bloody handprints linger on Dazai's clothes, desperate clawing masses, and one dried on his cheek.
It's something caring, something tired and desperate.
Shouta avoids Dazai's eyes until he knows he can't anymore. They're gently hanging open, a pleasant expression if not for the horrific scene in front of him. When he looks into them, a black hole stares back, burning out every other emotion until the faint joy and sadness wash away. It is as if he was never living in the first place.
Shuzenji approaches behind him. He pays no mind, stepping back as she assesses his injuries. Two makeshift bandages are wrapped tightly around each arm, made out of cloth that Shouta can only assume belongs to the boy in the other room. They're tied up hastily but with obvious skill.
"We need to move him to the main room, I'll have more room to stitch him up," Shuzenji announces after a quick evaluation.
Shouta nods, focused on his former student. He slowly peels him off the floor bridal style and watches his soaked back drip blood onto the tiles. Shuzenji sighs, a long drawn-out sound.
She lays out a tarp near the door and gestures for Shouta to lay Dazai there. He settles him down carefully with one eye on the boy in the room. The villain sits cross-legged and stares intently at Dazai, who finally closes his eyes.
Shuzenji begins to unpack her medical equipment with acute precision. Shouta watches helplessly.
"Should we move the villain to the bathroom?" he suggests, a rough voice breaking the silence. Dazai's squirms slightly in his sleep.
"My name is Chuuya," the boy in question declares, loud and stormy.
"It's too messy in there," she replies. Shouta thinks back to the blood-covered room and nods in agreement.
"Hey!" he yells, louder. "Stop talking about me like I'm not here. I'm not leaving the same room as Dazai, alright?"
Shuzenji's eyes dart to the villain, now named 'Chuuya'. She resigns herself with a sigh, turning back to Dazai.
"Let the boy stay. He obviously cares about him, Eraserhead, he isn't going to attack us while we help him."
"Thanks old lady," Chuuya says. Despite the casual tone, it doesn't feel disrespectful.
Shouta moves toward him. Chuuya tenses, standing his ground.
"I can take those restraints off now, but I'm warning you; don't try anything." Shouta eyes the tangled capture weapon.
"Thank fuck, I really needed to scratch my ear," Chuuya exclaims, and his body and Shouta's capture weapon begin to glow a dark, destructive red.
Shouta readies to activate his quirk - but he doesn't need to. The capture weapon flies off easily and straight into his arms. He stares at the heap while Chuuya brings a hand up to his right ear. It's a strange motion that lacks hostility for someone who murdered many villains in cold blood.
So did Dazai though, maybe Shouta's just playing favourites. He looks over and the makeshift bandages are completely gone. The wound is a bloody mess, but what Shouta focuses on is the myriad of scars on his arms - new and old.
"No anesthesia," Chuuya says with his arms crossed over his chest. "He doesn't like it."
"It'll hurt him," Shuzenji warns. She pauses though, waiting for Chuuya's opinion.
"Like that idiot will care. He'd rather go through the pain; trust me." He stares at the grotesque lines on Dazai's arms, then quickly looks away, settling for his bloody fingers instead.
"Are you two friends?" Shouta inquires, almost taking pity on him.
Chuuya laughs. "Maybe. I don't really know, but we've been work partners for a year now."
"The Port Mafia," Shouta guesses.
"Yeah. I joined a year ago."
Chuuya fidgets with his hair - it's in a very small ponytail - and Shouta takes a minute to look at what he's wearing. It's some three-piece black and white suit, though his jacket lies abandoned on the floor and obviously coated in Dazai's blood. His shirt has a few splatters straining the pure white.
Dazai, similar to Chuuya, dons a formal outfit. Though it's obviously been battered to hell and back, a beige coat sits neatly folded at the entrance alongside Dazai's shoes. It's almost clean, if not for the brown blood stain that coats the backside of it. His eyes trail back to Chuuya, and the formal outfits that are almost like uniform.
"Not with the League, then," Shouta surmises.
Chuuya wrinkles his nose. "They were all psychos with half-baked goals. I get social reform, society is kind of going downhill with Hero worship, but it isn't my problem."
"Why did you join the Port Mafia instead?" he asks. Shouta really just wants to know why Dazai joined.
Chuuya glares at him, then sighs. "I'm not going to air out my dirty laundry just cause you're a Hero. I know the Mafia ain't a good place to be but I've made a place for myself there. Dazai, though, he's defected. I won't tell you the details. He can dig himself out of his own hole."
Shouta shuts his mouth, preferring to look out the window. Silence settles over them, but he can hear the quiet chatter of people down below. It must be early morning by now, maybe 1 or 2.
Shuzenji breaks the tentative stillness. "He's stable, for now, but he should really be at a hospital. We need to transfer him somewhere that will allow for a blood fusion."
"I have a spare apartment," Shouta offers. "Nobody lives there at the moment, so we can set it up. Chuuya," he turns the boy. "I can give you a key. I trust the Port Mafia is after him right now, and you're the only one who knows where he is, which means you can't tell anyone."
"I wasn't going to," he snaps. "What? You think I was going to drag him back to the Boss so I can get some reward like a loyal dog?" The silence speaks volumes. Chuuya grimaces. "His blood type is AB. I'm B, I think; the Boss told me last time I was injured."
"I can work with that," she says, nodding decisively. "Aizawa," she addresses, foregoing his Hero name. "You and Chuuya will both donate, considering you're B as well. UA has more supplies like an IV, so I'll need to stop in. You two get him set up in the room. Be careful! Don't jostle him too much."
"Sure," Chuuya shrugs at the same time Shouta hums in agreement.
The Hero and Mafioso make an unlikely team; Shouta holds Dazai while Chuuya carries everything else (including the coat, which he didn't let anyone else touch) with his quirk. Looking at the power for too long makes Shouta's eyes burn. He wonders why.
They all pile into Shouta's car. Chuuya sits in the back with Dazai's head on his lap, who is lying across the middle seats. Shuzenji sits beside him in the passenger seat tapping away at her phone.
The road is almost empty by the time they arrive at UA. Chuuya doesn't spare a glance at the famous school, too focused on Dazai's injuries. Shouta scratches at the scar over his eye absentmindedly as the doctor leaves for the school. She had already told them to not wait up for her; apparently, UA has spare cars for emergencies.
They keep driving in silence until Shouta pulls up at a non-discreet apartment. He used to live there before he moved in with Hizashi but kept it anyway as a safe house. As an underground Hero, secondary homes are encouraged, especially when the hero specialises in long-term missions and infiltration. Since he's listed it as a work expense, the Commission for Underground and Undercover Heroes pays rent for it. They're almost independent of the Hero Commision yet completely legal.
They set Dazai up in the bedroom. It only has one, which used to be his, but it's cleared out completely. Now it's just another impersonal room. Shouta heads to the kitchen to get a bowl in case Dazai vomits and a glass of water. Chuuya stays, bringing a chair up to Dazai's side. He buries his head into his hands - his hair spills over them. The coat sits folded neatly alongside a hat.
"I'm cursed," Shouta hears Chuuya mutter to himself. "And I hate you so, so much, Dazai." He pauses, a deep breath. "Please don't leave me."
Shouta watches from the doorway as Chuuya gazes at Dazai, and his heart breaks just a bit. At that moment, the grandiose figures that Dazai and Chuuya appeared to be diminished behind his very eyes. The two of them were, in their hearts, children who had been broken again and again and had to glue themselves back up. Children who had taken the bad hand they were given and fought back full of fury and determination.
Yet Shouta could see that they had done insurmountable things to claw their way out of their lives. They had bore ugly scars, cruel actions and unkind words. They were not the same victims that they first were. At some point, responsibility should be taken.
That's something for another time, though.
A person's first instinct is to harden when something bad happens. To stay soft is the painful, miserable option. It seemed that not one person in the little apartment was strong enough to bear that burden.
The first summer night during Dazai's recovery was hot and sticky, the air buzzed from the festival only a few hours before, and two hardened friends of his sat waiting.
—---------------
Dazai wakes up to the sound of a bustling street. He doesn't even entertain the idea that he's dead; his heart beats slowly. He opens his eyes to see a room. For a second he wonders if he's at the hospital, with the IV sticking out of his left hand, but the room is clean in a way that doesn't remind him of Mori and his operating table.
His eyes trail around the room and they land on a coat.
Odasaku's dead. Dazai looks down quickly, scrambling out of bed as he sees the red covering his hands. There's blood on them. There's blood on his hands and it's Oda's blood. His vision swirls, dizzy and confused as he leans on the open window. His other hand finds itself buried in the coat. The note - he needs the letter. Hot air blows through the window, lifting his hair out of his face and his two eyes. He should have one covered - no, that's right, it had - it... it got caught on Oda's jacket and undid itself.
Dazai buries his hands in his hair, tugging at the messy strands. He wants to die. He climbs up onto the window sill, looking down the 5, 6 stories below him. All those tiny people below him. He looks at his bandages. The blood is gone, except for a small trail from where the IV was which forms beads near his wrist. One drops to the floor with a quiet plop. He stares at it with a bored fascination, something so small couldn't possibly entertain him when his friend is gone.
He stares at the blood until he finds something else to stare at. Aizawa stands in the doorway, a frightened expression clouding his mind. The bandaged boy leans back.
"Dazai!" Aizawa exclaims, reaching out, but he's too far away.
Dazai tugs himself back and smiles, a terribly sad thing.
"Did I scare you, Sensei?" he teases, swinging his legs back and forth, but the tone never reaches his eyes.
Aizawa crosses the distance in an instant, hand curled around Dazai's upper arm. The other hand holds his shoulder firmly.
"Yes," he says, full of honesty. "Yes, Dazai, you scared me."
Dazai tries to tug away, but the grip is strong. He deflates. Aizawa forces him to sit back down on the bed and takes up residence in the chair beside it. Someone must have found him. It was Chuuya, wasn't it? He knows it even before he knows anything else, because it couldn't be anyone other than Chuuya. He wouldn't let Dazai be happy, even though Chuuya knows he's only ever wanted one thing in life.
Aizawa opens his mouth to talk, but Dazai shuts it just as fast.
"You don't need to explain anything. I already have a guess," he interrupts almost boredly, staring out the window.
He wants to scratch at his arms. Aizawa already knows about the scarring, but he can't be weak in front of the man. He's been weak his whole life, but he thinks that he can at least do this.
"It's been three days," is what Aizawa says instead. A folded-up letter lies in Dazai's hands. It's free of blood, and almost in perfect condition. Dazai looks down to the letter and Aizawa follows his gaze. "Why did you do it?" he asks.
Dazai looks up at him in some attempt at despair - a puppet doesn't feel emotion, neither does a monster.
"He told me I'd never find a reason to live. He told me that my heart was too gaping wide full of nothingness, that I'd never find anything to fill it." Dazai pauses. "Aizawa. What's your reason to live? To save the weak? I couldn't imagine myself living such a noble lifestyle, because all it would be in the end is fake."
Aizawa doesn't speak for a while, but when he does, it's soft. He brings a hand up to the goggles around his neck.
"We humans don't need one single reason to live. It's the small things in life that motivate us. Good food, friends, a comfortable house. Money, for some."
"There's nothing - "
"Dazai," he says, sternly. "Even if nobody else did, I saw some light in you. You saved me at the USJ from that Nomu."
"You couldn't understand," he says. "If you really knew me, you'd agree with Odasaku. Everyone else knows me as a monster."
Aizawa shrugs. "Maybe I would. Maybe it's all an act that you've put on. But I know that once you weren't the Demon Prodigy, but a small hurting child. And I'm sorry that nobody protected you when you were younger. You can be good, Dazai, even if you have to pretend you are for the rest of your life."
Dazai avoids the gaze of his former teacher. He doesn't understand - he's this awful monster. He doesn't feel guilty, he doesn't care about things.
Aizawa stands up. His eyes trail the small body of Dazai, his messy hair, his bloodstained fingernails, his glazed-over eyes. He looks around the room, at the forgotten furniture and memories the room used to hold,
He hovers in the doorway, sparing another glance at the boy, and gently places a house key on the desk by the door.
"A monster wouldn't try to kill themself."
Aizawa leaves quietly with no more words to say and a heavier heart than he arrived with.
A few birds chirp outside the room. The breeze is no longer nice, it's something warm and uncomfortable. It's too hot.
A single tear slips down Dazai's pale face, wetting the letter it falls onto. He pretends not to notice it, and instead, grips the letter like it's his lifeline.