Worried Goats

(Sometimes in french)

After the morning after, 1

They don’t see each otehr again after that. Dazai leaves, and ango lets him. He doesnt follow him, and doaza doesnt come back to explain or apoligize.

THose moents of connexiont feel like a dream now. Did they really look in each other eyes tha night ? Did ango really look at dazai and see the man he is now, not the disaser he was ? Did dazai really let his anger fall away and his love get out ? Did tahyt really happen or was it just a dream they had? They don’t see each otehr again.

And yet - and yet - Ango wants to. Whetehre Dazai-kun is a member of the detective agency of an ex-ùafia mement, a demon or a man, an adult or a teen, a disatser or better - eh’s still his friend. His dear friend. He always was. Nothing can change that, and ango cares, and ango loves him, and ango wants him in his life, and if the onyl way he can have him si through dazi’-kun hating him then so be it. That”s the way it’ll be.

He goes to the grave. He doesn’t think doasaku would have forgiven him. The wound was too deep. He felt it that night, the deep wound he left in his two dearest friends. That the thing about love; your heart break with theirs. That night all trhee of their hearts broke. They all felt it, their own heartbreak and each other, feeding each otehr in a neverending ccyle of pain. Dazai-kun’s pain, who couldn’t even tell hits name through dazai’s constant despair, ango’s own desperate attempt to keep anypart of their friendship intact, and odasaku quiet but unyielding resignation, the hurt, the pain, the heartbreak, each of them hurt through the others pain.

Odasaku would not have forgiven him. They were too close; all of them kept their distance, tried not to commit, kept their secrets. Dazai with his inner despair he couldn’t show, ango with his undercover work he couldn’t reveal, odasaku, and his natural respect for otehr people’s boundaries and his own quiet reserve. They kept their distance, didn’t step close, as if it would make the end less painful. But the wound was too deep; the distance didn’t protect them at all.

For a wound that deep, a car accident was nothing compared to it. But still, but still - dazi-kun deserves to be treated like evryone else, and that includes being told when what he’s done is inacceptable. Limts. Boundaries. Reigning him in when he goes off the rails.

He wishes ODasaku san was still there, to see the man dazai-kun has become, to help him in a way no one can, to be there, hurt and never fogiving ango, but alive, alive, alive.

Odasaku-san should be alive to hold this grudge dazai-kun is holding on his behalf, he should be there. He should be there.

Ah, thinks ango. There’s always work, when you don’t want to think about what you’ve lost, abotu what the world lost, about this life, this man, this mind and heart soul taken too soon; there’s always work to distract from grief, and guilt, and heartbreak.

Oh, how he misses them.