The Promised Fyolai fic. Yes, I know, I'm amazing!✨ (bc this definitely didn't take way longer than I intended for it to😍)

They meet in the snow. One has a braid running down to his waist, and the other's soft, purple hair rested gently on his shoulders to give a bit of warmth. Scarves were wrapped snugly around their necks, and they each had fluffy mittens on their heads.

"Hello, darling!" the first smiled brightly.

"Hm. You look beautiful."

"Thanks. I redid my braid for the first time in a while."

"Mhm. I can tell. It's glowing."

"Like the snow in the moonlight?"

"The very same."

"What... is this? What are we?"

He was answered with a fond smile.

"We can be absolutely anything you wish."

"Even beach balls?"

"Anything you want."

"Sheets of construction paper?"

"Anything."

"Strangers?"

"Anyth— huh..? Well, uh, yeah... anything you want..."

"Well, I don't want to be a stranger to you! Hm... can we be lovers?"

"...Don't say that."

"What?"

"Don't say stuff like that if you don't mean it."

"But I do!"

"Then yes. Anything you want."

"Okay. Will you?"

"Hm? Be your lover?"

"Yes!"

"Okay."

"Would you like to dance?"

"Here in the snow? There's no music."

"To the rhythm of the night, then."

"Okay."

They join hands and begin to waltz, here in the snow, smiling fondly at each other. It was quiet here. One step. Another. Held in each other's arms. Psh, psh, psh, psh. Stepping through the fluffy ice.

"We've known each other for a long time."

"You've stayed just as breathtaking all the while."

"You as well. You've bloomed like a lovely sage flower."

"Hm... Thank you."

"Of course. And I mean it."

"It's a beautiful night."

Yeah... You know, your eyes are sparkling in the moonlight."

"Mhm, they do that sometimes! The blue one looks like a pearl, right?"

"Yes... wait. That means you—"

"Look down, Dos-kun."

"M... my heart, then?"

"A fitting place to stab you. You see, I always meant to make it clear I loved you before I killed you. I had to, because see, that's an emotion I absolutely have to rid myself of, because it's wrapped me up in its rose-tinted dream, trapping me in it indefinitely. I have to stop it. I have to—!!"

"Hey," Fyodor said with a sad smile. "It isn't going to work."

"...What?"

"Even if I die, you won't be free. You'll just be stuck. You'll just feel grief instead of love. You'll just feel suffocated instead of infatuated... My death... It's not what you want. You don't want to be rid of feeling... You just want to feel right. You want to be happy. D... Do you remember what it was like to be happy?"

"I know what it's like..."

"...What?"

"I'm so sorry. Happy... how did I not realize? Happy is when I'm with you. It was always about you. You were always the one who made me feel light and free. I thought... I thought the light was inside you, but it was you all this time. The freedom came with you, it was part of you, and I've just... I've just destroyed that. I... I'm so sorry!"

"It's—... It's fine, darling. You'll just have to figure out... tss.. how to live without me..."

"What?!"

"Haha, this really is uncomfortable..." he said, touching the knife's handle and shifting around, trying to find some semi-comfortable position, wherever it might be.

"No, I... I'm sorry Dostoy. I have to save you somehow. I've... heh, I've never really done anything but use you for my own purposes. I drag you around, waste your time, then kill you, and as soon as I realize I don't want that, I try to reverse it. I have to fix this or it'd ruin me. I'm sorry. I have to..."

"It's okay. It's alright if it's you... You're special, so it's different. You were always different, yourself. It was always going to end something like this for me, in some violent way. This is... more than what I expected, actually... With you as my killer, it feels... fuller somehow, so I'm okay."

"But... I—"

"If you can get the doctor of the Armed Detective Agency here and convince her to heal me, I will allow myself to be saved. Otherwise, it'd do you well to have us say our goodbyes before I can no longer speak."

"...I think I love you," he said, running from the scene.

He made it to the ADA building and ran up to the 4th floor before bursting into their office, in the middle of their bimonthly office sleepover

"Who are you?!" Kunikida shouted, jumping up with a taser in his hand.

"Wait a minute, this is interesting," Ranpo said, scrutinizing the new arrival while sucking on a lollipop.

"Please! Where's your doctor with the Ability?! He needs it or he'll die!"

"Who's shouting, and who's dying?" Yosano asked, rushing in and back out of her office, returning with a chainsaw in hand.

"Me! Help, please! I've made a terrible mistake! I don't want him to die! Please..." he begged.

"Alright, let's go," she said seriously, setting her jaw and asking no more questions.

Nikolai half-sprinted out, Yosano hot on his heels. Ranpo and Kenji followed out of curiosity, Dazai went on an inexplicable hunch that he would be needed, Atsushi followed Dazai, and Kyouka followed Atsushi, Kenji, and Yosano. Kunikida, ever the overseer, went to make sure that nobody suddenly keeled over and died, or did anything stupid. (Between you and me, I think he oughta be quite a bit more worried about the second one, but—)

They made it back to the park fast enough to set some kind of record, Gogol skidding to a stop before using The Overcoat to get Yosano the rest of the way to Dostoevsky's side.

"Ah!" She shouted, tripping and dropping quickly and calculatedly to her knees to avoid falling on the injured person in front of her. "Holy shit... This is a stab to the heart, no hesitation, this wasn't any kind of accident."

"I didn't say it was an accident, I said it was a mistake! Is there anything you can do? Do you need anything from me? Can you save him, please..?"

"Of course, but—"

"Stop, don't touch him!" Dazai shouted, and everyone froze.

"What are you talking about? Have you gone mad, he's going to die!" she asked, standing up to shout at him.

"Well I see that, obviously," he said, putting a hand on his hip and frowning. "But he has a deadly Ability, so I'll have to cancel it first. We want zero people dying, not two."

"Wha— how would you know that?!"

"Oh, but you don't question the one who stabbed him in the heart," Dazai says whneeling down in the snow, grabbing hold of Fyodor's right wrist and effectively disabling his Ability, leaving Yosano, who was standing to the unconscious man's left, to begin to heal him.

"Hhh... whatever," she sighed, kneeling as well before taking the knife out of his chest and quickly using her Ability.

Fyodor, with the resignation to his own fate as well as the knife in his chest removed, opened his eyes wide for a brief second, then quickly fell asleep. Yosano stood up and stepped back, Dazai doing the same. He looked... strangely peaceful, surrounded by the sparkling powder.

"Now that that's done, were you trying to kill Yosano?" Dazai said. "Bringing her here to treat Dostoevsky... I wouldn't put it past him to plan something like this, the bastard."

"What are you talking about, Dazai?" Ranpo asked, although he was unfortunately ignored by a Dazai who seemed to be deep in thought about something, then it appeared to click inside his head as he looked up with a completely unreadable facial expression.

"And you... you're that Gogol he'd sometimes mention, the 'dear friend who was trying to kill him.' '"

"What?!" Kunikida shouted.

"Have you never had a friend who wanted to kill you, Kunikida?" Ranpo and Dazai asked in unison.

"Of course not! And you two have?!"

"Chuuya."

"The Port Mafia executive?!"

"Of course. Do you know any others?"

"And Poe-kun?"

"The ex-Guild member?!"

"Yes, we're very good friends."

"...Alright."

"Back to you, Gogol," Dazai said. "What kind of messed-up shit did Fyodor do to you to warrant—"

"Nothing."

"...What?" Dazai asked. This was the first time in a while that he'd been genuinely surprised. Oh well, he supposed a friend of Fyodor's would know how to shake things up.

"He understood me. Always, he was the only one who understood me. I just... Oh, I've made so many mistakes..." he said, starting to cry quietly.

"Hey, don't cry!" Kenji says. "Your friend is okay, see?"

"He almost died, though," he said, picking up the knife and staring as the fresh blood dripped. It shone with the beauty of a thousand rubies, and its owner glowed with the dazzling gleam of a frozen lake.

Sinking into his flesh before he could stop it, the knife got stained a darker red, then he pulled it out of his arm.

"Utsukushii..." he whispered as the two shades of red mixed together, the same suffocating ruby color of wine, and twice as addictive.

The ADA stared on in horror, apart from Dazai, who understood his fascination completely, had felt that sane enthrallment himself, and that feeling, staring at the lifeblood, the vital force, of someone you cared about, wondering how you got there, and wondering, why the richly red substance in front of you was so utterly tantalizing.

"It's the most intoxicating thing you've ever seen, isn't it?" he said, sitting next to Gogol. "It's addicting, swallowing you whole, and it's the most beautiful thing in the world, right?"

"...Yeah," he said, swallowing the lump in his throat.

"Cry then."

"What?"

"Cry. It's the right thing to do."

"...okay..." he whispered, collapsing into silent sobs and leaning against Dazai.

"He's going to be okay. You're human—and sane— for worrying about him. You had your reasons for stabbing him in the first place, I'm sure, and then you realized that you didn't want this, and you did it, you saved him, he's alive. He's okay, I promise."

Nikolai still shook with sobs, hugging the knife as if it were a lifeline, holding it so tightly that it stained his clothes and skin that bloody red.

Then there was a soft rustling, and Fyodor sat up.

"And so I live. You saved me, darling," he said, smiling in such a way that it looked quite as though he was on the verge of crying.

"Not really. I am the one who hurt you in the first place, you know..." he said sadly.

"Stop. Don't do it. God, no! Fyodor, don't touch him!" Dazai shouted, recovering too late.

Fyodor cupped both hands around Nikolai's face, and then he died. His head split, and the very same braid that had glowed in the moonlight what couldn't have been half an hour ago, was now stained with the blood of its owner, a tortured, trapped young lover, who died a sudden, shocking death.

"What?" Fyodor whispered, his completely stunned mind refusing to process that he had just killed the only person he had left to care about.

"Fyodor," Dazai said quietly. "You've killed him. I'm... I'm so sorry."

"What? But... that can't be. I... I would never, he was... he was so sad, he just... he felt guilty... And Crime and Punishment killed him, didn't it, then?"

"Yes. That's my fault."

"No. No, it's not. I lost Nikolai. He... was my everything. He saved me from him, and I couldn't save him from me. I'm, uh... I'm never gonna be able to forgive myself for that."

"I know. But he's dead now."

Then silent tears started rolling down Yosano's face as she buried her face in Ranpo's shoulder.

"I could've saved him," she whispered in shock. "What kind of doctor—"

"Shut up, Akiko," he said, laying his arms around her warmly and comforting her much in the way an older brother would. "You did absolutely everything you could, and you nearly saved them. It's too late now, but don't blame yourself."

She just sniffles, in a state of shock.

"So..." Fyodor says, still attempting to make sense of this monumental loss. "I just killed my best friend, right Dazai? That's what just happened... right? And he saved me, and I couldn't save him?"

"...Yes."

"If Crime and Punishment worked on me, I'd have been shred to ribbons by now..."

"You forgot, in your moment of joy, just how fast joy can turn to grief when you're like us."

"Me, Dazai? Like you? I... never thought of it quite like that. Similar, yes, but the same..." he said, face sinking into a fake smile that was incredibly reminiscent of Dazai's. "Then, if I am like you, am I also inhuman?"

Shock came into the expressions of all except Yosano, who still looked upset over Gogol's death, and Ranpo, who'd already deduced that the conversation would steer itself toward this topic. Them, and Dazai, who simply smiled, nearly laughing at the utter strangeness of the situation.

"Of course. And then, you may also be feeling a bit—" Dazai threw the knife down in front of him so that the point stuck in the ground, leaving the handle straight up. "—suicidal?"

"Dazai!" Kunikida shouted. "Stop this madness!"

In the wave of grief that suddenly rolled over him, he grabbed it by the handle and buried that knife in his heart for the second time tonight. And the ADA were struck dumb, apart from Yosano, who was not about to let anyone else die on her watch. She ran up to him, about to help, when Dazai took hold of her wrist, simultaneously disabling her Ability and holding her back.

"Don't. You don't have the right. This is a choice he's made for himself. He's just lost the last person he cares about. He has nothing left to live for. Just don't. It's not worth it. If he wants to die, he'll find a way. And there isn't any reason for you to stop him, not this time. There's nothing to save him for."

"But I—"

"I know. But let him have this. He's going to a better place than here."

"...Fine. But I don't have to like it."

"I'm not asking you to. Just your acceptance of his wishes is enough to warrant my thanks."

"Hm. You are a man of many secrets," she says. "Don't let that be a bad thing."

"Of course," he says, letting her go as she goes to stand back next to the group.

"Dazai," Kunikida says, not even having anything to say in his shock and frustration at the two lives that were just lost in front of him. "I—"

"This time, be quiet. I think he may have been my friend, although we'd never really done much but lie to each other. The conversation I had with him just now... may have just held the most honest things we've ever said to one another... Ah, well, something to ponder on, I suppose!" he grinned, wide and enthusiastic and clearly, painfully fake, wiping his hands on his pants.

"Dazai-san..." Atsushi frowned, looking at him.

"Let's go back to the office, huh?" he smiled. "There's still some lemonade left over!"

"Uh, okay!" Kenji said, trying to lighten the mood. "Let's do that, it sounds fun!"

"Yeah," Ranpo agreed. "You all are making it painfully obvious that you're only trying to distract yourselves, but I think that's a good idea for now."

"Yeah," Yosano said, taking a deep breath. "That does sound like the right thing to do, at least for the moment."

"Yes, I agree," Kunikida said, clearing his throat authoritatively.

"Yeah, okay," Atsushi said. "I'd honestly prefer not to spend the night alone after seeing that. I think I'd be too scared."

Voices chimed in quietly, agreeing with each other about wanting to spend the night at the Agency for moral support, after watching the emotions of two strangers laid bare, before their eventual deaths.

And so they walked back to the office shocked beyond talking. The next day, Fukuzawa told them to take the rest of the week off, and for that week, as a sort of testament to the void that those deaths in the snow left behind, the ordinarily lively workplace of the ordinarily lively detectives was left empty and collecting dust.

~

So I think I did pretty good, right? I think I'm proud of this, it's fairly flowery and a lil depressing, with a hint of the creepy Fyolai touch and a bit of Dazai's secretiveness. This was cool. Only thing is, I made Yosano a bit of a crybaby, so that may not have been completely accurate because she really just isn't one, but I choose to believe that she hasn't let anyone die in a long time so Nikolai dying right in front of her hit hard. If you still don't like that, sorry, because I don't really like it much either. Have a nice day or night loves!♥️♥️♥️