Melancholy.
The feeling of pensive sadness, typically with no obvious cause.
Most people feel it here and there. Maybe when they fail a test, or get broken up with.
Not Osamu.
Dazai feels so much, that it almost seems to be absolutely nothing at the same time. Like his body has become numb to all his emotions to protect his own wellbeing.
He’s tried seeing a psychiatrist, his father even went as far to send him to the ward when he found out he had been cutting again.
Empty promises of stopping and going to rehab go hand in hand with extreme mental illnesses; something Dazai knows all too well.
Walking into school, Dazai pulled his headphones over his ears, the sound of his upbeat, punk-rock music drowning out the early morning chatter that filled the hallways.
Seriously, how did people have so much to say? It was barely 8 A.M.
When Dazai entered his classroom, he took his usual seat at the back of the room, where he usually just sat and doodled the entire period. He didn’t have to try for academics, thank God. He’d get everything right on the tests anyways.
Twenty minutes after the bell rang, a familiar redhead walked in late, getting a brief scolding from the teacher, which he ignored and beelined to his seat.
Chuuya Nakahara.
Next to Dazai.
Imagine that?
Dazai glanced over, offering Chuuya a small grin.
That only served him to get a glare in reply.
“Lemme guess,” Dazai chirped, pulling his headphones to hang around his neck, “your sister wouldn’t get out of bed?”
“Tell me about it.” Chuuya grumbled, looking up at the board, his gaze relatively distant, as if he had a lot on his mind.
Dazai fell quiet and put his headphones back on, humming softly along to the lyrics as he sketched on the paper he was assigned.
School was tolerable, thanks to Chuuya’s annoyingly constant presence distracting him from his thoughts.
Going home was what Dazai dreaded.