[ This isn't as it should be, because Odasaku shouldn't be looking at him like that. Odasaku shouldn't be talking to him about something so serious. They've done it too often lately. It hasn't gotten easier, though he thinks that it should have.

Odasaku shouldn't look at him that way. It makes him feel like he's being seen - truly seen - for just a moment, for just a second; a brief period of time that's there and gone. The trance that gaze had over him is broken when he removes his hands, and Dazai looks away.

He's been here for three months. He knows how he should feel, but his heart just won't settle into place, because the middle is missing. It's like trying to pick up where he left off in the middle of a story that he'd forgotten the most important parts of.

It feels like there's something missing. ]

Honestly... I wasn't gone that long. I've disappeared for longer stretches of time.

[ He throws his hands up, waving them a little before dropping them back down and sliding them into his pockets as he walks to the door at a brisk pace, as though the moments before were nothing more than a daydream.

It was surely something important... ]

Do you remember the Dragon's Head Conflict? I was gone so long that even the Boss was worried!

[ He sounds proud of that. ]