Chapter Text
When he remembers, the body is fourteen and there's no attachments to anything that could resemble a family or someplace it could've belonged to nearby.
Upon remembering… he felt what little control he had over himself and his emotions snap. He tries to kill himself, but fails. He fails to get back to them. Against all odds, he survived and it's while receiving medical aid that he meets the doctor in charge of his care, Dr. Mori. For some reason, even though he doesn't remember the past of this body, he's not surprised to know that the doctor can't get his hands on any medical files of his. It's like he doesn't actually exist. They give him a physical, but keep him strapped down to the bed in any given free time, there is constantly someone coming in to check on him. He hates it. The head nurse constantly asks him questions that he shouldn't know the answer to but somehow does.
Name? Dazai Osamu.
Age? fourteen years old.
Are you an Ability User? Yes.
Ability name? No Longer Human.
When they ask how his ability works, he hesitates without truly understanding why. He fumbles through telling them that his ability allows him to completely nullify anyone else's ability through touch. It figures that his… ability in this world would be so similar to Eraserheads' quirk. The nurse starts to act odd after that, avoiding touching him and often sending others to do his check up. As more people seem to learn about his ability, more try to avoid having to interact with him whatsoever. The only one who seems to be constantly by his side is Dr. Mori… but he doesn't want him near him. Something about the doctor bothers him, maybe it's the obviously fake smiles or the obnoxious hovering. Whatever it is, the unease he feels only grows during his stay at the hospital. It doesn't help that Dr. Mori is insistent on asking why he tried to kill himself.
He doubts he'd believe him if he started talking about being in the wrong body, the wrong universe, and was simply trying to get back home. Because the League is home, he didn't realize it at the time, but they became his home. Saying any of that would be asking for a permanent stay at a mental hospital, which is why he stays quiet, simply staring at a expectant Dr. Mori.
Not giving an answer was what finally caused the fake smile to slip, just for a second, but long enough for him to confirm that it was indeed fake.
He doesn't speak for the rest of his stay in the hospital. There's no point.
Dr. Mori keeps trying, and even asks if he has any guardians or someplace to go back too. That's when he realized he was homeless once again, only this time it's in a world he has no knowledge of and doesn't know where exactly he is.
It's not until the moment he's discharged that Dr. Mori offers him a place to stay.
With no other choice offered at the time, he agreed.
He had done three attempts within the first week yet somehow, without fail, Mori would show up in the nick of time to 'save him' from himself.
It was yet another thing that was becoming too much for him. Mori resembled both Sensei and the doctor, not regarding his appearance but his behavior perhaps with a more subtle approach to getting what he wants, no matter what he has to do to get it… he hates it, and he hates how much it made him realize he misses Sensei. After Sensei's arrest things became odd between him and the rest of the League. He didn't know what to do without Sensei there and the others quickly began to realize that. It was hard to figure out how to keep everyone safe and relatively happy without Sensei to tell him what he needs to do next. It was both Mr. Compress and Dabi who kept trying to get him to talk about what it was like being brought up by Sensei, and for some reason the others started asking as well. It was weird, and more often than not left him fighting the urge to dust them all just to get them to shut up already.
Sure he may have slipped up a few times, said a few things that he had promised Sensei not to talk about with anyone… but it’s not like he went into detail about it, and he did cover his slip up by giving the League enough excuses for it all that they had to ask him to stop talking about it! So it worked!
They started growing closer now that they were all essentially homeless and on the run. He found himself growing fond of them all without realizing it. Even when the stupid bird joined them, he knew he was a spy for the heroes, but he saw how the others were growing close to Hawks. At some point he started thinking of Hawks as one of his, just like how the League is his. He can’t remember what happened before waking up in this body and in this world… He knows that it was after the doctor started preparing his body to take on Sensei’s quirk, he can vaguely remember a few of the surgeries and modifications he had to have done for it. That medical fascination that the doctor had with everything, whether it was the experiments for the Nomu or fixing up any of the League’s injuries, was nearly identical to the same fascination that Mori had toward him.
It made his skin itch.
Scratching at his neck and his hips didn’t do anything to relieve the urge, the stupid bandages were in the way, he couldn’t feel his nails against his skin at all. He can’t take them off. Not fully. He tried, when he was finally left alone after Mori brought him to that fucking container and called it his new home. He tried taking the stupid bandages off but then they moved like they had a mind of their own. Glowing and lifting away from his body as though there was nothing holding them in place in the first place. His head felt heavier, eyes stinging, and the itch spread throughout his entire body… He felt different without the bandages, it terrified him. After a few seconds the bandages wound themselves around him just as tightly as before. No amount of picking at them could get them to loosen.
A year after officially joining the Port Mafia, something Mori had deliberately not mentioned until after he agreed to go with him, he was assigned a partner. A partner who is a chibikko that has both anger issues and a habit of resorting to violence when annoyed. Fantastic.
He knows that one of the reasons why Chuuya gets so irritated with him is because he keeps accidentally treating them as though they are younger, which technically they are mentally just not physically. Chuuya’s a few months older than him and he’s going to throw something at the idiots’ head if he calls him “Kiddo” one more time. He keeps forgetting that he's… fourteen years old now, and others are starting to notice how odd he acts. Too mature for his age and he keeps moving around as though he is not used to his body. It led to a few of the Port Mafia grunts spreading rumors about how he's some sort of demon pretending to be human, or how he’s possessed by the ghost of the Mafia head he watched Mori kill, not that anyone knows about that little tidbit. His ability, No Longer Human, became more of a characteristic of his while all those NPC's grew scared of him.
To outsiders and to Mori, he was the demon prodigy but to the members he couldn't help but grow close to, they knew him simply as the slightly childish, suicidal Dazai. How could he keep his distance when so many of them remind him of the League?
Everywhere he went there were reminders of his… his what? His acquaintances? Friends? His family? It was all too much for him. Mori tried to keep him isolated by having him live in that damn shipping container in that dumping area, but all that led to was him being left alone with his thoughts. In his mind, he couldn't help but keep making comparisons of everyone he's meeting to everyone he once knew. It was counter productive of Mori to ask the Mafia members he interacts with most to keep an eye on him. Apparently saying something to them about making sure he doesn’t kill himself, like hell they’ll be able to stop him.
He wants to get back to the others as soon as he can, and… his attempts help keep the itch away.
Okay, so trying to kill himself in the building or nearby won’t be possible. It’s like Mori has eyes and ears everywhere, it’s fucking annoying.
Trying to drown himself in a nearby river? He gets fished out before any water can even make it to his lungs. Cutting? There’s a medic capable grunt around every corner. Trying to jump from the roof? Fucking Chuuya comes out of nowhere and tackles him before he can make it halfway across the rooftop to the edge. Most of the time when he leaves headquarters he has quite a few people following him around. They are nuts if they think they're being subtle about it. Hirotsu at least doesn't try to keep it a secret, he just walks right up to him and asks him where he's planning on going before accompanying him. Annoying, but oddly tolerable once the geezer starts up a conversation.
It was while wandering around at night, finally on his own and trying to figure out how far he has to get, that he walks past Lupin. Some nondescript bar that he can’t help but feel drawn too.
It’s there that he meets both Oda and Ango. A little while after that, Oda and him are assigned to work together with taking care of the organization members bodies after the fallout with that Ryuzu dispute, Ango took it upon himself to write an obituary for those killed… He's going to ignore the fact that he kept pointing out how Odasaku and him reeked. He's pretty sure the reason why they were all suddenly able to start seeing each other as often as they do while working was because Mori was still keeping a close eye on him and was pulling some strings. The fucker probably talked to Ango and Oda when he wasn't around and ordered them to keep an eye on him as well.
…It's fine. They're not too irritating to be around at times.
He looked up as Ango and Oda walked in, Oda smiled at him in greeting as he set his coat down on his chair.
"Did something happen?" Ango frowned, "You seem… different."
"Oh? Different how?"
Oda twisted in his chair to face him, lips pulled down at the corners as he gave him a once over.
"...You look like you haven't been sleeping."
He can't help but scoff, "I haven't had a proper sleep since I was five. Of course I haven't been sleeping."
Although he was referring to his five-year old self as Tenko, he still hasn't remembered Dazais' past.
They were on their way back from a mission. He was taking his time walking despite Chuuya hissing at him to hurry up so they could give their report and go home. Jokes on him, he couldn’t care less about getting Mori his report.
It was while absentmindedly looking into stores and shops that he saw someone he never thought he’d see again. Not here at least. He stops in the middle of the sidewalk, watching as she turns to a lower shelf and grabs what looks like a package of noodles.
It was– it was Magne. Magne. She was here, she was here, alive and she looked… content, in a way. She looked calm, and despite the fact that she was only grocery shopping- why the hell was she grabbing so many noodles -he couldn't help but feel like this was everything to her. He can't remember ever seeing her look like this before, not around them, not when the society they lived in was one that refused to accept her wholly and without exceptions. He wants to go to her.
Christ. He wants to hug her.
“Oi! Mackerel, the hell are you doing?”
"What?"
Chuuya narrowed his eyes, glancing past him, "What were you looking at?"
"... Nothing. Nothing at all."
He must've been imagining her, she couldn't possibly be here.
He wasn't imagining her.
He went back to that street, specifically stood outside that grocery store and waited. He made sure to stay blended in with the crowd, but he essentially did a stake out, waiting to see if she'd show up again. By the end of the week she was back, and this time she was buying a few pastries from the baked goods section of the store. Blueberry lemon pound cake, that was one of her favorites. She told them all how as a kid her older brother used to buy her it every year on her birthday. Up until he had become caught up in the collateral damage of a hero fight, something the hero refused to acknowledge and the HPSC swept it all under the rug. He stood there watching her, soaking in everything about her. He stayed out for far later than he had planned, not moving even after she got in her car and left. Although, he did make sure to memorize her license plate. His phone had been going off for quite a while now but he didn't feel up to taking it out and seeing who was messaging and calling him so much.
Feeling oddly numb, he had turned around and stumbled his way back toward 'home' toward his lovely little shipping container.
By the time he got there, there was an oddly agitated Mori waiting just outside. He wouldn't take no for an answer and demanded he let him give him a check-up to see whether or not he was injured anywhere. If he could bring himself to talk, he probably would have made some sort of smart comment and tried annoying the older man into leaving. As it was, he just let it happen.
The next morning he had to deal with an angry Chuuya demanding to know where he was last night and why he hadn't answered any of his calls or messages.
This world was unlike his own, different yet the same in many ways. Quirks were nonexistent here, instead a lesser percentage of the population had powers that they called abilities. He's had years to grow used to that, what he couldn't grow used to is one of this world's rare illnesses, something called Hanahaki disease. There was no known first case, only one that was labeled as the first case since no one truly knew when it began or how. It took decades of research and experimenting for the people infected in this world to realize what type of disease they had developed.
According to the medical articles he's found on it, the disease is terminal and has three stages. It starts off with a one-sided love, a plant growing someplace within your lungs and spreading over the passage of time. From what he's read about it, the disease can only disappear if the love is returned or if the one with the disease has surgery to remove the flower's roots. With the surgery's removal of the roots comes with the removal of the person's love toward that specific someone… something he couldn't help but think of as cruel, although the reasoning was lost to him. The only other option left would be to allow the disease to kill them, something that he's noticed barely anyone has ever considered letting happen. It seems most people go through with the surgery, very few consider confessing to their loved one and even fewer allow it to kill them.
That's where he's different. Upon realizing that he had the disease, and spending quite a few weeks doing nothing but research, he concluded that he was perfectly fine with letting it kill him. It's not like he had any reason to live anyway. That's not entirely true anymore, now is it? Magne is here, she's here and she's alive, but she's happy. He can't barge into the life she's made for herself. He'd never forgive himself. Either the disease kills him or maybe one of his attempts will finally be a success.
He's seventeen the first time he coughs up petals. Thankfully it happens in the solitude of the shipping container that's been his home for the past three years.
He's had persistent cough for quite a few months, no amount of tea and honey, cough drops or syrup could help it go away. It was persistent but not constant enough to draw the attention of others. He only realized the cough wasn't natural because of just how irritating it was, both to his throat and to his patience. He didn't want to try asking anyone about it, especially since he knew that word would somehow get back to Mori. He didn't want that asshole knowing about anything that could somehow be used against him. He'd stifle the coughs around the others, playing any slips off as having a dry throat or the alcohol going down the wrong pipe when he meets up with Ango and Oda.
It sort of felt like when one has to throw up and they can feel it in their throat but their body simply isn't letting it out.
His chest felt heavy, a squeezing in his throat that made it nearly impossible to breathe. He kept coughing and sniffling as he tried to clear his airways. When he finally managed to cough it up, he couldn't tell what it was, as it was coated in blood and he was far too concerned with focusing on the fact that he had just coughed up blood to notice anything in the blood. Which is why it took three repeats of this exact performance for him to realize that it was petals. Tiny little things that were so delicate to the touch.
He couldn't understand it. Hanahaki disease is due to once romantic love being one-sided. Love isn't something he's ever considered, both because he knew it wasn't something he deserved and because he could never see himself falling in love. The idea of being in some sort of romantic relationship made something within him twist in discomfort. It's not what he wants for himself.
He didn't love anyone. He knows that he doesn't love Magne, he could never look at her that way, she was more like a— a big sister.
… Perhaps he did love her, just not in the way the disease seemed to suggest.
He wasn't sure why he did it, but he had started collecting the bloody petals, using his free time to try and clean them. They would break or become crushed beneath his fingertips no matter how gentle he was.
Sometimes he'll have to leave whatever room he's in at the time if there's others nearby. His throat would start closing in on itself and he'd have to rush away before he could start coughing.
It doesn't happen nearly as often as he thought it would, it changes all the time. Sometimes it would happen maybe once or twice a day and all the times it would happen once a month. The intensity is never the same and he's noticed how sometimes the petals are different. It's hard to keep hidden when it happens near Chuuya or Akutagawa. Those two are quite observate when they want to be and he does not need their focus on him. At least with Chuuya he knows that his partner wouldn't overreact, he'd probably laugh at him for having an one-sided love. However, Akutagawa… is, for some unfathomable reason, fond of him and tries following him around. He's not an idiot, he knows that the disease was triggered by him seeing Magne.
It takes a little while to figure out what type of flower petals he has been coughing up.
It's the petals of yellow roses, occasionally there would be petals from yellow, violet, and white chrysanthemums as well. The purple hyacinth petals end up being the type of flower that makes an appearance the most. Sometimes he'll wake up with the petals sitting on his tongue, at least there isn't always blood involved.
He didn't know that the type of flower could change.
It took taking the petals to a specific place to have them tested just to see what type of flower they came from. He didn't think something like that was possible but it's what this company specializes in, having been created by an ancestor who had Hanahaki disease.
It becomes bad enough that he can barely stomach regular food anymore. It's a shame that he can no longer enjoy eating Tsugaru noodles, cooked in dried fish stock and soy sauce with local baby bamboo shoots… He may want to die but starvation is not how he wants to go out. In his opinion it's too prolonged, not only uncomfortable and painful, but it brings back bad memories of his actual childhood before Sensei found him. It's why he has to switch to a mostly liquid diet, occasionally he can eat regular food but it usually ends up making a reappearance later that night. His grocery list consists of alcohol, imitation crab, and rather bland tasting meal replacement shakes.
The rather shitty diet has led to him losing weight, something that he couldn't hide despite his best efforts.
Mori tries to force him to get a physical done, but now that he's focusing more on staying aware around the man, he flat out refuses to let that man perform any sort of medical test on him. He ends up having to lie and say that he simply couldn't be bothered with eating when there is so much to be done. He's surprised that later that day he's told to leave early and that his paperwork would be split between himself and Chuuya. The amount of missions he's sent on decreases and the ones he does go to or no longer solo missions but ones where he's partnered up with Chuuya. Mori isn't subtle about any of this, others are starting to notice that something is up.
He has a floral scent, something he hadn't noticed until Akutagawa's sister, Gin, mentioned it in an offhand comment.
Trying to mask it just leads to various scents building up on each other. It makes him nauseous, and vomiting only results in making it more difficult in breathing, so he stops trying to cover the smell. Although it's annoying how more and more people have started commenting on it.
Chuuya's teasing comments are one throw away line from leading him to snap.
It's a couple months after he first saw her that he does a bit of digging around to find out where Magne lives.
He's not sure why, but he finally finds a use for his money. He has flowers anonymously delivered to her apartment once a week, on Monday mornings. The flowers in the bouquet are always the same as the ones he coughs up the petals of. He can understand that having a bouquet randomly delivered is more than likely to unsettle her, probably frighten her, but he can't just pretend she's not here. Now that he knows she exists here he can't stop thinking about her, wondering how she's doing and if she's safe, if she's happy, if this world offers her everything she deserves. It's highly unlikely she'll remember their world, and he doesn't want to risk bringing up unwanted memories if she does remember. Besides, he doesn't look like himself anymore, he's… he's Dazai now, physically at least.
He can't bring himself to leave her alone but she's better off without him. It's why he settles for just sending her flowers once a week.
"Nothing in this world can fill that lonely hole you have. You will wander in darkness for eternity."
Leaving the Port Mafia wasn't something he had truly considered, despite having the stray thought every now and then, until after Oda's death. Joining the agency was an accident, but not entirely unwelcome. He got in thanks to the oh so generous recommendation of Chief Taneda.
Everyone there is new and unfamiliar, he has to actively walk to find any similarities to his League, and even then there isn't a lot. It's… relieving. He never realized just how much reminders of his past had been bothering him until now.
He made sure to tell the Aktugawa siblings how to contact him if they need him, and he left a letter for Chuuya… who knows if the hatrack will actually read it or not. He— he really didn't want to give Ango a way of getting in touch, it's partially that fucking traitors' fault that Odasaku is dead, yet he still left a slip with the number to his burner phone in it. Within those two years of hiding while waiting for Ango to complete wiping his record, not once had Chuuya reached out. The siblings each did, multiple times in fact, but Chuuya didn't message or call and the siblings never mentioned the chibi.
It bothers him more than he thought it would.
He feels like there may be some sort of dramatic irony in seeing Twice during hanami.
He's twenty and for some reason, the agency decided that they should all go out to dinner together. He can't remember why they wanted to do so but had agreed nonetheless.
It was while waiting to be seated that he happened to glance outside of the large windows showing the view of a very busy street. He saw him walking down the sidewalk, shoulders hunched and head tilted down. He recognized him, even without that large scar down the middle of his forehead, and immediately was struck by the seizing in his chest. The coughing fit took him unaware, he had no time to flee to the nearest bathroom or try to stifle the urge to cough. Instead, he's pressing his sleeve to his mouth and trying to muffle the sounds of his coughing before anyone could notice.
It's only a handful of seconds before he has someone standing by his side and trying to get him to explain what's wrong.
He wouldn't explain it even if he could catch his breath long enough to talk. By the time he's finished coughing, Ranpo and Boss were hovering by his side, each of them filled with obvious uncertainty. It didn't help that there was a wad of crumbled petals sticking to his lips, and the sleeve of his coat. Thank God there wasn't any blood this time. Ranpo's eyes opened in shock before he went off on some type of info dump on everything he knew about Hanahaki disease.
He wasn't able to keep this the secret for nearly as long as he was hoping to.
Once a week on every Tuesday morning, he anonymously has a bouquet of flowers sent to Twices' apartment. It's the same arrangement he has done for Magne.
He has more than enough in his savings to cover it.
It's harder to keep the fact that he has Hanahaki disease hidden, especially now that he knows Ranpo is specifically keeping an eye out for any symptoms making an appearance. He keeps getting called to the boss's office just to be asked how he's feeling and whether or not he knows who the flowers are for. Which he does, but he's not going to admit that to anyone. He knows it's only a matter of time before the others in the agency find out, whether because they are told by Ranpo or due to him slipping up. They'll probably demand to know how long he's had it, and if he knows who it's for so he can go confess or some shit.
He's not sure how to feel about his new coworkers, the agency is so different compared to the Port Mafia. He knows that his boss, Fukuzawa, knows about his past as an executive in the Port Mafia but he's the only one who knows, and even then he doesn't know the full extent of everything he's done or experienced. The other workers, even the clerks, don't know about his past. Everyone only knows what he wants them to know, and yet they all act like they've known him for years.
At first absolutely none of them reacted well too finding out he was actively suicidal, but with each failed attempt they seem to think he's not serious about killing himself.
As the disease grows he knows that he'll become weaker, that it will become harder to keep it hidden and he'll only burden those around him.
Kunikida already has had enough of his work ethnic, he can already picture how much lecturing will be in his future.
He's twenty-one when he sees Mr. Compress sitting on the opposite side of the cafe he's in. He ends up nearly giving some poor man a heart attack when he barges into the cafe's bathroom and immediately starts coughing up blood and flower buds. Yet another address to hunt down and an actual house to send an anonymous bouquet to, he'll have it set up to arrive on Wednesday mornings.
It's later that same year that he sees a young man with purple hair, wearing a green hoodie with a lizard across his shoulders. There's something painfully familiar about the man, although he doesn't recognize him. The moment he sees him he's bent over coughing up various buds and scaring those around him. He's lucky that no one from the agency is here with him.
It's white Gardenias. He's had years to memorize flowers, from their colors, the shape and sizes of their buds, to even the scent that follows a flare up of his disease. He's only ever had episodes like this upon seeing one of his party members here, but the only one he saw was that strange man…
That man that was carrying around a lizard. That man with the same shade of purple hair as— that can't be possible, can it? Could that man be Spinner? His head snaps up, searching through the crowd that gathered around him, but that man is nowhere to be seen. If that truly was him, then was it because there weren't people born with mutant abilities in this world that Spinner didn't have the same body? He barely manages to convince the people around him not to call for an ambulance. None of them seem to recognize that he has Hanahaki. He needs to hurry back to the agency before Kunikida realizes he's been gone for as long as he has, although with his current state of mind he doubts he'll be able to get any paperwork done.
It takes him a bit longer to find out where the potential Spinner lives. He ends up having to hack into the security cameras of a few of the establishments from that area and even has to ask for a small favor from Ango. The man was so surprised to hear from him after all that's happened, and to know that he was still alive that he didn't even try asking for an explanation. He makes sure to contact the florist and have all of the bouquets updated to include white gardenias, and he has the new bouquet anonymously delivered to Spinner on Thursday mornings.
The flower buds are a lot bigger than the petals, now it's not just coughing up blood with the buds, it's making him physically ill as well. He absolutely detests throwing up but it's unavoidable.
Sadly, one of his little flare ups happens while he's at the agency. It's only Ranpo, Kunikida and Yosano there at the time, the others are all out and about. Well he's grateful that it didn't involve throwing up, he's still annoyed that the one time he tried finishing paperwork early he ended up getting blood with a mix of buds and petals all over it. He doesn't even have time to reach for a tissue to try and wipe his mouth or clean his mess before they are all up, and standing around his desk. Kunikida all but shoves a handkerchief at him, while Yosano grabs him by the arm and attempts to try dragging him out of the office to the infirmary.
Trying to talk just set off another round of coughing.
This time, the blood and buds get all over the floor and down the front of his clothes. He's pretty sure this is the first time he's ever seen the three of them look so horrified over something so meaningless.
He should've known better than to expect them to let it go.