Chapter Text
They brought him back like they always did—arms too thin beneath the sleeves of his white shirt, wrists unmarked but twitching faintly, and eyes half-lidded as if reality itself had lost flavor.
Room 16. His room. The nurses didn’t even need to check the clipboard this time. By now, the familiarity of it all bordered on ritual.
“Welcome back, Dostoevsky,” one of them said, like it was funny. He didn’t reply, they always assumed silence meant compliance, or brooding, or progress. How quaint.
Once alone, he sat on the edge of the edge of his bed, thin mattress, no sharp corners, no sheets that could be twisted into nooses. This was his fourth stay. Every precaution had already been exhausted on him.
Fyodor folded his hands and tilted his head back until it rested against the wall, dark hair sticking slightly to the paint. He stared at the ceiling for a while, expression still. Thoughtless, almost. But the gears were turning.
They’re all so boring.
He memorized every tick, every twitch, every stare. The patients here were simple, predictable. A parade of sob stories and fragile egos, all parading their trauma like it gave them depth. He'd picked them apart like threads from a fraying tapestry—nothing new left to unravel.
And yet they still called this recovery. Still thought placing him in this sterile, padded box would somehow sand down the edges of his mind.
Recovery. He almost laughed.
Days passed like fog through windowless halls. The food was tasteless. The therapy sessions were the same as they've always been in the past years. Same questions, same answers. He spoke when he had to, lied when it amused him, and remained silent when it didn’t.
He’d already cracked the nurse who pretended not to be scared of him. Knew which doctor was cheating on their spouse. He'd even memorized how long it took for the antipsychotics to kick in for the patient in room eleven. Predictability was its own kind of madness.
He spent hours sitting cross-legged on his bed, thin fingers tapping idle rhythms against his knees. He thought in full monologues. He conversed only with himself.
On the fourth day, just as he was beginning to mentally list which of the new staff members would be the quickest to snap, he heard voices outside his door.
Two nurses. He didn’t know their names, didn't even care about it.
“He’s coming tomorrow,” one whispered.
“...Another suicide case?”
“Yeah. Bad one. They had to stabilize him first. Young guy. Attempted many times already, apparently.”
Fyodor didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Just turned his head slightly toward the door, letting the voices trail off. A smirk began to pull at the corner of his mouth.
Young guy. Attempted suicide. Coming here tomorrow.
Someone new. Someone who hadn’t walked these halls. Someone whose mind he didn’t already own.
The corners of his lips twitched. Just slightly. That was going to be interesting for sure, hopefully for more than an hour without losing its meaning shortly after.
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Morning light crept into Room 16 in thin, reluctant strips. Fyodor had been awake for hours, of course. He didn’t sleep much. Not because he couldn’t, he simply didn’t care to.
He sat in the chair by the window, legs folded beneath him, cheek resting against knuckles. From this angle, he could see the courtyard below. Empty, for now. The world always looked more dull through reinforced glass.
And then he saw an ambulance park near the entrance. Two nurses came out. A doctor. And between them a young man.
Slender, tall, pale, bandages peeking out from under the sleeves of a too-large sweater, on his neck too.
He watched as they disappeared into the entrance, supposing they were going to give him a tour before assigning him a room.
“He’s here,” one of the nurses said, after some time, outside of his door. Fyodor didn’t move. His fingers curled around the fabric of his sleeve.
“How bad’s the intake?” asked another.
“Mm. Not as bad as they expected. He’s alert, but not talking much. Refused to give us a name at first. It’s in the file though—Dazai Osamu, twenty years old, tried to throw himself in front of a train. Third attempt this month.”
There was a short silence, then a concerned sigh. “He’s so young...”
Fyodor’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
Dazai Osamu. It was the kind of name you didn’t forget.
It wasn’t the method that interested him—suicide attempts were as common in this place as sedatives. It wasn’t even the silence, the refusal to speak. What caught Fyodor’s attention was something subtler: the tone of the nurses. Hesitant. Pitying. The kind of softness they reserved for things they either didn’t understand or feared.
After some time, there was a knock at the door, quiet and polite, Fyodor didn’t respond and the door opened anyway, it always did, it didn't matter whether he replied or not.
Two nurses stepped in, one holding a file, the other guiding the new arrival with light pressure to the elbow. Dazai Osamu walked like someone still halfway in another world, his dark hair framing a face that looked far too amused for someone admitted for suicidal ideation.
Fyodor’s eyes met his, and something inside him stilled.
That smile. That emptiness. That performance.
This one was pretending too.
Dazai didn’t flinch under his gaze. Most did, eventually. He merely blinked once, slowly, then let his eyes wander around the room. Fyodor watched him, unmoving, head slightly tilted, like he was observing a new species introduced to an ecosystem he thought was sterile.
"This is your roommate for now," one nurse said. "Room Sixteen's one of the larger ones, and we’re low on singles. You’ll both have space."
Dazai nodded. He moved further into the room, it was clear he didn’t really care where he was being placed, didn't care about having lots of space.
"Let us know if either of you needs anything," the other nurse added, too bright, too polite, it was obviously fake. Then they were gone. The door clicked softly behind them. Fyodor remained in his chair, watching as Dazai looked around slowly, his gaze moving over the walls, the bed opposite Fyodor’s, the chair, the floor. When he looked back at his roommate, his expression hadn't changed: neutral, faintly amused.
"You must be the welcoming committee," he said, dropping his duffel bag on the bed without ceremony. Fyodor tilted his head a fraction. “And you must be the entertainment.”
Dazai smiled again, this one was thinner. “Depends on the audience.” He sat down, back straight, hands resting on his thighs. Not slouched like most of them. Not twitchy. Too still.
Fyodor watched him through the corner of his eye, leaning back into the chair by the window like he hadn’t already taken apart the entire conversation in his head.
Dazai glanced at the door. “How’s the food?”
“Awful quality,” Fyodor murmured.
“I figured.”
Silence settled again. They didn't really feel any need to speak, Fyodor could hear it in Dazai’s voice, the cadence of someone who knew how to manipulate conversation without investing in it. Someone who shaped his words to provoke response while remaining untouched. Someone who knew what pretending looked like because he did it constantly.
He was like Fyodor.
No. Maybe not like him. Adjacent.
Parallel lines never touch, but they travel forever together.
That should have irritated him. Should have pushed him into another monologue about tedium and imitation. But instead, Fyodor sat forward, elbows on knees, eyes fixed on the brunette.
“You don’t snore, do you?” Dazai asked after a moment, toeing off his shoes, stretching out on the thin mattress like it was a hotel bed.
“I don’t sleep,” Fyodor said.
“Even better.”
“Did you come here for the ambiance?” Dazai asked, gesturing lazily at the walls.
Fyodor didn’t answer immediately, either way, he knew the reason between these stupid, pointless questions. The walls were pale green now, not the grey they used to be during his second stay. He wondered if that was supposed to help. Make the mind feel soothed, contained, give some color to something that didn't have it.
“No,” he said finally. “I came because they insisted.”
“Ah,” Dazai replied, tone too light. “A man of conviction.”
“You came because you failed,” Fyodor said, his gaze flat. “And they called it survival.”
Dazai’s smile didn’t falter. “We all fail at something eventually.” He wasn't surprised by how Fyodor already knew the reason he was there, he knew how fast rumors flew in places like these.
The silence between them changed shape, the sound of footsteps outside passed by, faded. Somewhere a door clicked shut. Fyodor’s fingers drummed against the armrest. Dazai turned to face the ceiling again, arms folded beneath his head.
“I don’t like ceilings,” he said absently.
“No one here does, they make you feel like they're staring.”
Dazai snorted. “So philosophical. Are you going to tell me the meaning of life next?”
“No. That would assume it has one.”
“Disappointing. You look like the type who’d try.”
Fyodor didn’t answer. He was too busy memorizing the exact curve of that smile, studying the way Dazai’s eyes drifted across the cracks in the ceiling paint, not quite focusing on anything. His mouth opened like he might speak again, then didn’t.
That restraint. That conscious choosing of silence. Fyodor knew it well. Wore it well.
Dazai’s eyes had fluttered shut, lashes resting against his cheek, but he wasn’t asleep, Fyodor could tell.
He leaned back into his chair again, fingers under his chin, eyes not moving from the silhouette on the bed.
He’d said he was bored. That wasn’t true anymore.