The rain has long since stopped, but its remnants linger in the scent of damp pavement and the rivulets tracing lazy paths down the windowpane. Inside the Armed Detective Agency, the world is quiet save for the rustle of paper and the occasional creak of a chair. The evening air is thick with the weight of exhaustion, though Dazai, slouched across the infirmary cot, looks entirely at ease with it.

His bandaged arm hangs off the side, fingers curled loosely as though reaching for something just beyond his grasp. There is a gash along his ribs, hastily wrapped, the blood having seeped through the linen in dark, fractal blooms. The wound itself is nothing dire—he has suffered far worse—but it is the exhaustion in his limbs, the feverish warmth against his skin, that tells you this is not merely an injury; it is a culmination of everything. Recklessness layered upon recklessness. A body that keeps tally when its owner refuses to.

Dazai watches you with that half-lidded amusement, eyes dark and unreadable beneath the fringe of his unkempt hair. He knows why you are here. You always are, when it comes to him. Yosano may be the agency’s renowned doctor, but her ability is useless on him. That leaves you.

You press the back of your fingers against his forehead—too warm. The touch is fleeting, but he hums as though you’ve done something far more intimate. Your ability is not gentle. It was never meant to be. It was made for him—for the man who renders every other power useless. Where Yosano’s fails, yours cuts straight through the layers of decay he wears like armor. An inviolable power—impervious even to Dazai.

“You’re so diligent,” he murmurs, voice languid, as if he isn’t the one sprawled across the cot, barely holding himself together. “You’ll wear yourself out at this rate,” he says at last, voice soft, almost careless—except you both know better.