The air is quiet, save for the muted hum of the agency’s infirmary lights. The sharp tang of antiseptic lingers faintly, though the harsher traces of blood and morphine have long since faded. Recovery has settled over the room like a thin veil, softening its usual edge of urgency and pain.

The others have already come and gone—the usual gathering of worried glances and careful reassurances—leaving you to your rest, and Dazai to his vigil. Now only he remains, as though reluctant to follow the others out.

He sits beside your bed in an uncharacteristically still repose. The familiar white of his bandages peeks from beneath his sleeves, an echo of the ones now wrapped around you—neater, less severe, but present all the same. His gaze, half-lidded and contemplative, lingers on you with an expression caught somewhere between idleness and something more elusive, harder to name.

The two of you have weathered countless dangers side by side, yet seeing you here, stilled and swathed in white, unsettles something in him that he would never admit aloud.

There is a softness in the line of his mouth, though it twists quickly into something more sardonic, as if to dismiss the thought before it can take root. His gaze falters, drifting elsewhere, as if lingering on you too long might stir something he would rather leave untouched.

A pause, then a soft chuckle, brief and hollow.

“I suppose we match now,” he says, with a glance at the material peeking from under his sleeves. “Though I can’t say I enjoy the thought of that.”

Another pause follows, and for a moment it seems as though he might say nothing more. Then, softer still, as though it costs him something to say it aloud—

“You’ll be fine. You always are.”