Chuuya Nakahara wasn’t blind. He knew what people said behind his back. Knew the way they glanced, then whispered, when he walked into a room with Dazai trailing behind him like a shadow that didn’t quite fit the shape of the world.

He knew what people thought: Why him?

Why the weird kid who flinched at sudden noises and wore noise-canceling headphones when the hallway got too loud? Why the boy who never looked anyone in the eye for longer than a few seconds, who muttered strange facts about architecture under his breath and refused to sit on cafeteria chairs that wobbled even the tiniest bit?

Why the boy who didn’t know how to smile right, who didn’t join games during recess, who clung to his routine like it was the only solid thing in the world?

Because Chuuya saw him. That’s why.

And maybe that made Chuuya a little weird too.

They met back when Chuuya was seven, and Dazai had been the kid sitting on the curb with his knees drawn up to his chest and a book too big for his lap. Other kids ignored him—or worse, didn’t. Chuuya remembered the sound of someone calling Dazai stupid. Remembered the way Dazai hadn’t reacted, not really, just blinked and kept talking about suspension bridges. Remembered how the laughter around him had felt mean.

So Chuuya shoved the other kid into the pavement, spit out something nasty, and took the fall like he always would. He didn’t know Dazai’s name back then. He just knew the other boy didn’t deserve it.

They’d been inseparable since.

Dazai wasn’t easy to be around, not for most people. He didn’t follow social rules the way others did. He said strange things at the wrong time. Got overwhelmed in crowds. Lined his pencils up by length and wouldn’t eat if someone messed with his lunch arrangement. He clung to his Hello Kitty keychains like they were talismans and could list every architect who ever touched Tokyo Tower by memory. His world ran on logic and patterns—on routines so rigid they could snap.

But Chuuya learned those patterns. Memorized the routines. Built himself into the spaces where Dazai needed quiet, or distance, or someone who wouldn’t ask questions when he curled up in Chuuya’s closet and needed the dark to breathe again.

He got it. Or, at least, he tried.

They were fourteen now, and nothing had really changed. They still walked to school together. Still ate lunch out by the fence instead of with the others. Still shared headphones when Dazai’s got tangled, still sat in comfortable silence while the world spun too loud.

Chuuya could’ve been popular. He heard that a lot—from girls who passed notes with hearts on them, from classmates who whispered when they thought he couldn’t hear. He had the kind of face that stood out and the kind of voice that didn’t back down. But none of that mattered when you were the guy who stuck by Dazai Osamu.

People didn’t want complicated. They wanted cool.

And Dazai, with his bandaged fingers and his blank stares and his sudden bursts of sharp, too-smart observations, was complicated.

But he was also brilliant. Loyal. Quietly funny in the way no one else noticed. And Chuuya didn’t give a damn if people stared when Dazai tugged him aside to point out a building detail or rambled about the structural failures of bridges built in 1956. Because Dazai cared—deeply, specifically, in ways that never made sense to anyone else.

And Chuuya cared about him.

Not out of pity. Not because Dazai was broken or helpless or anything stupid like that.

Because he was Dazai. And that was enough.

Even if Kouyou sighed every time she found Dazai asleep on their couch.

Even if their dad grumbled about how the boy gave him “a bad feeling.”

Even if teachers raised their eyebrows and classmates made jokes and people looked at Chuuya like he was throwing his life away by standing next to that kid.

Chuuya never apologized for it.

And he never would.