#nyoops

Akutagawa’s eyes widened. Not a split second passed before he started running, running towards the body on the ground, breath ragged until it came out in coughs.

“DAZAI-SAN!”

Atsushi ran after him, barely able to control his own legs. Kneeling down next to the body on the floor so quickly that his knees scraped against the rough floor, Akutagawa immediately started applying pressure to every wound he could find. There were too many.

“Akutagawa-” Atsushi started to speak, finally catching up to him, flinching back and away from the pool of blood on the ground. He could see that Dazai still breathed, but barely, and his eyes flickered behind closing eyelids. Despite his furrowing brows, he still wore that smile. It was almost peaceful.

Akutagawa would have none of it.

“Dazai-san, stay awake!” Akutagawa cried, frantically trying to raise Dazai’s broken torso off the floor. “W-we can get you help-!”

“Akutagawa-” Atsushi started again, but Akutagawa began to scream.

“DON’T JUST STAND THERE, JINKO! HELP ME-!”

“RYUU!”

Silence. The only sound was their breathing; Atsushi’s shaky but slow, Akutagawa’s rapid and ragged, and Dazai’s, growing slower with every exhale.

Atsushi wrapped his arms around himself, not wanting to look at them anymore. He especially didn’t want to look at Akutagawa, who had turned to face him, his eyes more broken than Atsushi had ever seen before.

When Atsushi forced his words to rise to his mouth, it felt like spitting up bile.

“We’re too late,” he whispered.

Akutagawa’s shoulders rose and fell with every breath. He sat there, frozen for a minute, the silence sinking into their skin and down to their bones. Then, his eyes squeezed shut. He grimaced, the kind of face Atsushi makes when he’s about to cry. But Atsushi has never seen Akutagawa cry before.

Akutagawa’s entire body shook as he wrapped his arms around Dazai, holding him close, wrapping him in an embrace so tender that Atsushi had to remind himself who he was looking at.

He stepped forward, tiptoeing around the blood until he could no longer avoid it, coming to a stop at Akutagawa’s side.

“I… I’ll go on ahead,” he whispered, his eyes darting between Dazai and the blood. He couldn’t bear to look at either, so he fixed his sight on the wall, but he still found his quivering gaze being drawn back to his former teacher. “I’ll find whoever did this.” Already he could feel rage boiling in his stomach, mixing with his grief until it threatened to spill over.

Suddenly, Akutagawa grabbed his arm. Atsushi looked down, his heart pounding almost too loudly, nearly drowning out Akutagawa’s soft words.

“Stay with me.”

It was neither a command nor a plea. It was something different, something only Akutagawa could say. The quiet following his words seemed louder than before, and with what felt like a knife to his chest, Atsushi already knew why: only the sound of two people breathing echoed through the tunnel now.