Their friendship was long and incompressible, spanning over years -decades even.

Dazai and Chuuya, admittedly, were drawn to each other, at the young age of four, out of curiosity.

Chuuya was the loud, bossy kid who usually ended up the leader in games with the other children, he partook in all the activities the teachers presented; he was the brightest in the room. He was comfortable in the environment as soon he'd started Kindergarten at the very beginning of the year, in April, just like the majority of the other children.

Dazai, on the other hand, had joined later, either in late May or early June. Chuuya had watched curiously, with bright blue intrigued eyes, while the brunet was being introduced to the rest of the class, he was pale and wore a cute little yellow bucket hat, which Chuuya had thought was amazing, he'd never had a hat before, other than a little woolly hat for winter, he wanted a hat too, maybe just not a yellow one.

The little brunet was an intriguing boy, he wore a blue jumper and black shorts, his right eye was bandaged as was his left cheek paired with the entirety of his legs, his bandages even peeked from underneath his jumper sleeve, he was a cute kid, but even so Chuuya could recognize that he always remained in a permanent state of sadness.

The boy didn't draw any attention to himself, he sat quietly in the the book corner and picked out all the books Chuuya struggled to read and sat there the rest of the day. Chuuya couldn't blame him, the book corner was filled with fairy lights and blankets as if it was a little pocket of fantasy in the corner of a loud classroom. Chuuya would have sat there too, if he wasn't so full of energy all the time and could actually read.

The teacher had attempted to get the boy to socialize, to not sit there and simply observe the others, it certainly looked like he wanted to be a part of all the fun, but he never made a move to attempt to join in. Even with the teacher's soft encouragement, he refused. Clearly, he knew he had options, but chose to be alone, she would offer sweetly and he would shake his quietly while murmuring a small and bashful, no thank you'. The teacher, understanding that he wanted to be alone, would nod her head and give him a gentle smile then leave him be. He seemed to like her.

As the days went by, Chuuya spent more and more time, observing this boy from a distance, he found himself growing more and more curious, usually, he liked the rowdy and loud kids, much like himself, but there was something about the young boy with that majestic yellow hat that intrigued him.

So, after much pondering and consideration, Chuuya finally worked up the courage to go and sit next to him, he didn't say anything, just watched him with expectant eyes. The boy just turned with a somewhat unamused expression and looked at him, he didn't say anything either, but by the looks of it, he didn't mind Chuuya's presence because he looked back towards his book and let him sit there.

That's how it was for the next two weeks, Chuuya would waddle over to the boy an hour or so before the end of the day, -once he was tired of playing and of everyone there- and would sit next to him until it was time to go home. They never greeted each other with a hello and never parted with a goodbye.

It wasn't until the middle of the third week that a friendship began to bloom.

Chuuya, being the rowdy kid he was, had spent most of the day splashing in the water with the other children outside. But, as usual, when he got tired of the cold water and his friends, and was beginning to feel the energy seep out of him, he trudged back inside, drenched in water. With tired eyes, he glanced towards the book corner and, as usual, saw the boy sitting in his spot with a book in his tiny bandaged hands. The corner looked very appealing and warm to Chuuya right now, so he rushed to the bathrooms after taking his backpack from his peg and ran into the bathroom to change from his cold wet clothes to some dry and warm ones.

Once he was done, he placed his wet clothes on the radiator in a messy bunch, like four-year-olds do, and then proceeded to shuffle next to the boy, leaning his head back and snuggling into the boy's side.

"You're gonna get sick," The boy finally spoke, which immediately shot Chuuya out of his half-asleep stupor, his voice was soft and quiet, it reminded Chuuya a lot of his sister.

But more importantly than that, this was the second time he had made eye contact with him, the first being when they met. And -even more shocking- it was the first time either of them had spoken and Chuuya, despite being the social one, hadn't been the one to initiate it.

However, just because he felt a little happy that he and the boy had finally spoken, it didn't stop Chuuya from being stubborn "No, I won't," he knew it was a lie as he snorted the snot back up his nose.

The little brunet boy sighed with a shake of his head and shut his book before getting up and pointing towards where he'd previously been sitting. "Move there," He commanded which made Chuuya shake his head stubbornly, the boy rolled his eyes, moving to Chuuya's right, he crouched down and began shoving Chuuya towards where he'd pointed.

The two pushed and shoved each other until finally Chuuya begrudgingly gave in and did as he was told.

Even then the boy didn't seem very pleased and ordered him to move even more into that corner, until he was neatly tucked away into the shadows, maybe Chuuya shouldn't have been so stubborn because he'd come to the conclusion that it was warm and pleasant and really the boy was only looking out for him. With the boy in question pleased, Chuuya watched as he plopped himself next to him, shielding him from any more of the cold air, it felt like those mornings when he was in bed knowing he didn't have to get up.

Despite the boy's great and noble efforts, Chuuya still felt the tiniest bit cold, his hair was still slightly damp and it made his head was cold. Until the little boy placed his yellow hat on Chuuya's head. "Here, it's warm," he spoke, his pale face suddenly flushing with colour.

Chuuya watched carefully, easily concluding that he liked it better when the boy didn't look so pale. "Thank you," Chuuya replied with a bright smile, a feeling of gratefulness overcoming him, his tiny hands trailing the rim of the hat in affection.

The boy's eyes flooded with emotion and then he looked away from Chuuya, later Chuuya would find out that it was because he couldn't handle the fondness on the other's face. But even so, the boy whispered "It's okay," quite softly.

They sat in content silence for a bit, but it was only so much Chuuya could handle being the loudmouth he usually was, "What's your name?" Chuuya carefully asked, leaning his head back to look at the boy, the younger looked back towards Chuuya, who was looking at him with such care.

Chuuya didn't mean to be rude, the teacher had said his name when she introduced him to the class, but in Chuuya's defence, he'd only been on this earth for four years.

The boy seemed to ponder over his question for a bit but finally, he answered "Osamu Dazai."

Chuuya smiled tiredly, rubbing his eyes. "I'm Chuuya."

That was the first time Chuuya saw Dazai smile "I know, Chuuya."

The two children sat side by side, until Chuuya fell asleep, only to wake back home, his older sister humming as she cooked in the kitchen, Chuuya had found out when he was older than Dazai had gotten up and shyly and tugged the teacher's dress to tell her that Chuuya had fallen asleep on him and had asked her politely to call his parents and take him home.

From then on whenever Chuuya went to sit next to him, a small conversation would spark up, they bickered a lot more than you'd expect two four year old's to, but they never moved an inch away from each other, even when they did something to annoy each other. It was a very heartwarming sight to see.

It was only two weeks later that Chuuya finally met Dazai's guardian.

Oda Sakunosuke.

"Chuuya? Dazai? It's time to go home," The teacher spoke a small smile gracing her lips, the two children got up, Dazai taking the book and holding out for the teacher to get. "You want me to keep it safe?" Dazai nodded, she smiled again and cooed at Dazai's shyness, "You're such a cutie! Of course, I will."

That was when Chuuya was startled by Dazai for the first time, the brunet held out his little hand for Chuuya to take, starstruck Chuuya stared for a moment, then smiled, taking his hand happily, slotting them carefully with each other's, he wasn't bothered by the bandages itching his skin, even as they walked out the door.

Chuuya didn't see his sister yet so he followed Dazai to his guardian. The man gave a small smile seeing Dazai walk out with a friend. "So you've made some friends then Dazai?" Dazai nodded shyly, bringing Chuuya in front of Oda as if he needed to be approved of, Oda crouched down to make eye contact with Chuuya "You're Chuuya right?" the little blue-eyed boy nodded eagerly, already taking a liking to the man. "I'm Oda, thanks for taking care of Dazai, " Oda spoke, giving Chuuya an affectionate pat on the head causing the the little redhead to blush and shuffle his feet with happiness. Little did he know Oda's head pats would end up being an important part of his life even when he was a grown adult.

"Oh my, is that Dazai I see?" Chuuya's eyes widened and the sound of the girls' voice, Dazai on the other hand went to hide behind Oda's legs.

Chuuya grinned as she saw his sister. Even all those years ago she looked like a spitting image of him, long ginger hair, trailing down her back, bright blue eyes and a beautiful smile. "Is this Dazai, my little one?"

Chuuya smiled brightly at her, giving her side a little hug. "Yeah!" The teen also lowered herself, hugging her brother gently, she then looked at Dazai who was now peeking out from behind Oda, feeling both intimidated and amazed.

She smiled sweetly at Dazai, cocking her head to the side as she did so. "Hello Dazai, I'm Kyoyo, Chuuya's sister," Dazai peeked out even further

"Sorry, he's a little shy, he's been through a lot," Odasaku spoke, giving Dazai an encouraging pat on the back.

"Oh no, no, don't worry about it, Chuuya's told me he's not much of a talker."

"Not with me, he's never quiet with me. All he's talked about is Chuuya, it's nice to see him after so many conversations about him."

"Aww, how sweet! Chuuya's done much the same, Dazai sounds like such a sweet boy," Kyoyo smiled gently at Dazai, causing the small boy to flush, he came out from behind Oda and stood in front of the gorgeous teen with wide yet still shy eyes, she grinned and held his tiny hand in her own "Make sure Chuuya's happy for me okay?" She leaned in to whisper in his ear
"And try giving him more attention, I think he's getting jealous of your books," she giggled.

Dazai blushed aggressively and then nodded so fast his head looked like it was going to shoot off, "Okay."

"Well that's a first, it took me two days to get him to speak," Oda piped up, looking at Dazai with an expression one might describe as pride.

Kyoyo laughed affectionately, looking at Dazai gently, "It took my little Chuuya over here, three weeks to get him to speak. I think two days is impressive."

"Says the one who just met him," Oda replied, sounding a little bit pouty, he was younger then too.

Kyoyo laughed and then the two stood up and continued to talk while their children stood awkwardly in awe of the other's family.

The rest was history.

The two became inseparable.

They went through Elementary together, which of course, then led to them going to Middle School; that's where they discovered the sacred art of swearing, they swore in every sentence, even around adults, they'd swear under their breaths; they even began to learn how to sign just so they could insult and swear at each other from the other side of the room.

They were both granted permission to walk home alone at thirteen and that's when they discovered what would end up being one of their most beloved places ever. The arcade.

As soon as the school bell rang the two would race and push each other out the entrance of the school and run at full speed until they reached the arcade where they nearly passed out of exhaustion. They'd play games and argue over who won or who lost and make ridiculous bets, but even with so many useless quarrels, which they threatened would end their friendship, they'd be back at the same time, the next day.

They wouldn't have thought that life could get any better (but also somehow worse) until, as many would have guessed, High School.

The two were put in separate classrooms for the first time in their life and unsurprisingly they both despised it, especially Dazai, who had leeched off the friends Chuuya made, seeing as he had no problem making friends. Dazai, on the other hand, struggled to be social at first, when he got comfortable he'd never shut up, but on his own, he kept to himself.

For the first month of school, Dazai came out of homeroom with a pout and whine, hugging Chuuya with a near sob, which made Chuuya giggle, Dazai was like a lost puppy -not to mention how unbelievably clingy he became. But it wasn't too big of a deal, Chuuya had formed his own group and they all liked Dazai anyway, plus, it was nice to feel so appreciated from time to time, considering Dazai woke up on a mission to insult him every day.

Of course that changed, by the second month, Dazai had made his own friend group.

It was comforting to see the younger come out of his classroom with someone new by his side. That was how Chuuya met Kunikida, Atsushi, Tanizaki, Naomi, Yosano and Ranpo and then of course Chuuya's friend group - Akutagawa, Tachihara, Higuchi and Akutagawa's sister Gin.

With Chuuya and Dazai being as close as they were it was only natural for the two groups to merge into one, it felt rather good to be referred to as a group rather than a duo.

Dazai then discovered that he enjoyed skateboarding -Chuuya was sure that the only reason Dazai liked it was because he enjoyed watching him falling off though. Chuuya on the other hand discovered that while skateboarding wasn't his thing, biking was.

They began to go to the skatepark on the days they didn't go to the arcade, or to one of their houses to play video games or hang out. The kids at the skatepark then introduced them to graffitiing and the two teens spent three days coming up with their graffiti tags, eventually, Dazai settled on the name 'suicide', considering he sometimes fantasized about what it would be like, it made Chuuya nervous.

Chuuya on the other had chosen 'Corruption', mostly cause he thought it sounded cool, it resonated within him for some reason.

Sometimes they would sneak out late at night and run around the city spray painting on any available surface they could find. Those nights were the ones they laughed the most. Chuuya remembered one time when he gave one of his AirPods to Dazai and the two ran around listening to music as they graffitied, even when it started to rain they didn't think to go home, instead, they found themselves dancing around, like a pair of morons, to one of their favourite songs.

Chuuya held Dazai's shoulders with one of Dazai's hands around his waist and the other flailing about happily, it had been just the two of them in their own world. Chuuya hadn't been happier.

They'd set up Dazai's phone under a garage roof and recorded themselves, so they could remember and also take aesthetic screenshots to send to their friends.

When Chuuya watched the video back, he hadn't noticed Dazai staring at him, looking something akin to terrified, he should have known something was wrong though given how Dazai seemed to be avoiding him the next day at school, he didn't go to the arcade or the skatepark or even to the lunch hall with him, in fact Chuuya had no idea where Dazai had run off too during their breaks, he wasn't answering his phone either.

Chuuya had purposefully asked if he could be excused to the bathroom, so he could walk past Dazai's class, only to find him with his head on the desk, not paying attention, he also noticed that his arms had been covered in bandages, a garment he'd forgone many years ago.

Thankfully this period of sadness only lasted for about a week and then Dazai approached him and said he hadn't been feeling well.

All was forgiven and then everything went back to normal.

Not too long after that hiccup, Chuuya found love in sports, playing football at lunch with other people outside of his friend group.

He could still remember the first time he scored his first goal and looked towards the field for Dazai, to see if he was watching, even if he wasn't a fan of movement. Surprisingly, when Chuuya looked towards Dazai, he found that Dazai was in fact looking at him already sporting a proud smile.

Then in their Junior year when they were out to skate, one of their local friends offered them a cigarette, the two teens looked at each other and without much hesitation Dazai reached out for one and lit it up as if he had done it one hundred times, Chuuya following in his steps. Neither of them was a slight bit concerned about what the hell they were doing.

Chuuya took a drag and scrunched up his nose in disgust, it tasted bad and it felt bad, turns out it didn't feel any better once he coughed, either, but he shrugged it off and took another puff.

It wasn't long before the two of them regularly smoked, Dazai did it a lot more than Chuuya but they still managed to limit themselves to a pack in a week.

But like all bad habits do, they grow and soon after came the drinking.

Chuuya still looked fondly back on that memory, it was one he held close to his heart.

Odasaku was out of town, he had published a new book and it was selling incredibly well, so he had to go to a lot of signings and meetings, leaving Dazai alone at home.

One evening when Chuuya had gone to knock at Dazai's door and get him to come out so they could do something, he'd found a bottle of sake at Dazai's doorstop, no doubt for Odasaku. When Dazai opened the door and saw Chuuya crouching down to pick up the bottle a mischievous idea popped into his head.

That was ultimately how the two of them had wandered to their old Kindergarten and seated themselves on the wall, across the road, directly in front of the entrance to the building.

Chuuya took a moment to admire the school, a sense of nostalgia hitting him like a wave, that's what prompted him to turn toward Dazai, finding him already looking at him with loving eyes, Chuuya really couldn't help but smile, he then peered down towards the bottle, he took it, taking the cork off with his teeth and then spitting it out somewhere.

Just like Dazai with the cigarette, it seemed like Chuuya and down this 100 times.

"ahh, I just realized we don't have any cups," Dazai spoke looking back at their kindergarten.

"Hah?! Are you dumb? We can drink from the same bottle," Chuuya looked at him, he could clearly see how the idea made Dazai look uncomfortable "What? We've shared before? I don't have STD'S if that's what you're worried about."

"Chuuya you can't get STD'S from your mouth, you can get other things like Polio and meningitis and influenza an-"

"Fucking nerd," he bit as he rolled his eyes and took a swing of the bottle, cringing a little bit at the alcoholic taste before finding that the fruity aftertaste was actually very good.

"For spending twelve years together," Chuuya murmured in a mock cheer as he held the bottle up for Dazai to take.

The brunet offered him probably the most heartfelt smile Chuuya had ever seen

"And even more to come." the younger continued, chugging down a good amount of the sake.

Chuuya couldn't help but shuffle next to Dazai so their bodies were touching, their legs swinging as they looked at the building where they'd met so many years ago.

It was funny to Chuuya, how much things had changed and yet Dazai had stayed by his side through it all, he couldn't have asked for a better person to spend his years with.

After that, along with smoking, drinking became a relatively common thing as well, though it only happened on Fridays as a way to celebrate that they survived another hellish week of school.

That was until senior year, they're rebellious and unhealthy habits had quieted down a little, Dazai still smoked a lot more than Chuuya did, but he managed to have a pack last more than a week and Chuuya mostly turned to it when he was angry or deeply stressed and upset, finding that the nicotine helped him calm down.

Now they spent a good portion of their time inside, it was purely out of laziness at first but with final's creeping in, it became more of Dazai helping Chuuya study rather than simply lazing around in their rooms.

Chuuya, though good at everything to do with literature, was terrible at math and science, however, it wasn't uncommon knowledge that Dazai was a genius, he did the bare minimum and got good grades (It infuriated Chuuya to no end). However, it turned out that even the best of the best couldn't put off picking up their pen once in a while. Dazai had been so busy helping Chuuya study that his grades had slipped, if only a little, in fact, it wasn't a big deal, Dazai had never cared much about his grades but Odasaku did and as such he was going to make him proud, so the both of them put their heads down and studied.

Of course, they both passed, Chuuya had done even better than he anticipated, so it was no surprise that Dazai got the top grades. It didn't matter though, they both got what they needed. And that was to start literature.

Once summer was over though, their life at University was about to begin.

And if only Chuuya had known how much sadness he could have spared himself.