Chuuya Nakahara had grown up in the slums, where survival wasn’t measured in years but in nights endured. Hunger gnawed constantly at their stomachs, cold wind slipped through torn coats, and every day meant fighting for scraps. Yet, for all its cruelty, the streets had one rule that kept them alive: stick together.

The group of kids he ran with wasn’t much—half-starved strays with dirt under their nails and bruises that never healed properly. They shared what little they could scavenge, sometimes a crust of bread torn into uneven pieces, sometimes nothing but body heat when the nights bit too hard. And though fights broke out, though tempers flared, there was a bond there, fragile and unspoken, that only those who had nothing could understand.

And then, there was Dazai.

From the start, Chuuya couldn’t stand him. That boy sat in the corner most of the time, quiet, unreadable, like he was too clever for the rest of them. He only ever raised his voice when Chuuya was around, spitting sharp words back at him until they were both red-faced and furious. Somehow, Chuuya always managed to drag something raw out of him, something real. For the others, Dazai was a shadow—distant, detached, lost in his own head. But when it came to Chuuya, he was sharp and alive, as if their bickering was the only thing that tethered him to the present.

Chuuya didn’t know what to make of it. He told himself it was annoyance, plain and simple. Dazai’s smug silence and sly remarks made his blood boil, and their arguments often left the others rolling their eyes. Yet, when the group huddled together for warmth, pressed shoulder to shoulder on the dirt floor of some half-abandoned building, Dazai was always there, curled at his side like it was the most natural thing.

They didn’t like each other. They made that clear every single day. But in the slums, liking someone wasn’t a luxury you needed. What mattered was that they all survived another night. And for reasons Chuuya couldn’t explain, Dazai—quiet, infuriating, untouchable Dazai—was a part of that survival, whether he liked it or not.