gentle angel • kousano

V. it was simple, it was sweetness

Yosano raised a condescending brow at the girl in front of her.

"No hard feelings? I threatened you at knifepoint and told you that if I were to ever see you again, I would kill you." Yosano deadpanned.

Kouyou cleared her throat awkwardly. "Right...you did do that, but not without good reason!"

"You're saying that I was right? You did kidnap me, and I did have the right to kill you?"

"No, that's not what I meant," Kouyou replied, suddenly regaining the mysterious composure that she somehow always had close by, no matter the situation, "I meant that it was a scary situation, and I don't blame you for threatening me. What if I had been a kidnapper? Then you would have definitely made the correct decision."

Yosano blinked hard at her words, uncomfortable with how comfortable the girl seemed to be about their situation, but it went unnoticed by Kouyou, who continued talking.

"Alas, I was not, but it was surely a dumb decision for me to bring a deathly-looking girl off the street and into my apartment. I think that was some foolhardy decision-making on my part. I had no idea who you were, still don't, and if it had been someone else, there's a chance I wouldn't be standing here, alive and in front of you, right now."

Yosano still didn't really understand why the girl still wanted to conduct the interview, she could find other jobs, and if she was honest, the idea of working with Kouyou did not make her too ecstatic.

Nevertheless, they continued.

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Kouyou, much to Yosano's dismay, had not lied. The interview went off without a hitch, as she had said, with no hard feelings, and she ended it by letting her know that Yosano would be hearing from them soon.

She hadn't really accounted for that, or maybe just hadn't thought the whole job thing through whatsoever, because she had no phone.

She awkwardly explained this fact to Kouyou, but the girl just waved her hand dismissively, saying that it was fine, and she should show up here in three days, early morning, to begin training and see if the boss was okay with it.

Yosano was, safe to say, quite shocked. She had gotten the job with her shady resume and with the fact that she had almost murdered her interviewer.

She wasn't sure if she'd even come by so much luck in her life.

That thought was quickly trashed as a shooting pain made its way up her stomach.

Yosano winced and wrapped her cold arms around her still-aching stab wound.

It had been more than a few weeks since the incident, and Yosano assumed everything was fine because Kouyou had patched up her injuries. But, as usual, the world hated her, and the fact that she had been stabbed with a rusty knife and proceeded to stick her dirty street rat finger inside of it led to its demise. I.e., it's infection.

Yosano was fairly certain that she had some sort of infection-induced fever, and the cold, along with her lack of nutrition, were definitely not helping her recover any faster.

She still had her bag of food and water she stole from Kouyou, but even with her rationing and running out quickly.

Apparently, a snack bar and a sip of water did not keep the doctor away.

Yosano slept fitfully that night in her little alleyway with the thin blanket that was barely big enough to cover from her stomach to her feet and was practically useless against the cold. Luckily, she still had the clothing that Kouyou had given her, and despite how dirty and torn up it was now, she was thankful for it.

The next couple of days passed in a blur, her fever only worsening and the pain in her stomach, an ever-persistent ache. And yet, she was not close enough to death to end the suffering. Yosano sometimes wished she had more guts. Someone with more guts would have just jumped off a building by now to get it over with. (Get it over with, in the sense that she would be able to hop back to full health because of how near-death jumping off a building would bring her.)

She stumbled to the cafe that morning, trying to put on some semblance of health but realizing that she had obviously failed horribly when she saw the look on a man's face in the cafe.

He looked to be around her age and was dressed pretentiously in a tan trenchcoat, a pinstriped button-up, and a bolo tie. His brown hair, as opposed to his outfit, was greasy and messy, and his red-brown eyes gave Yosano a chill at who they reminded her of.

Possibly the weirdest thing about the boy was the bandages wrapped up his arms and around his neck. Before Yosano could stare any longer he stood up and began to speak.

"My name is Osamu Dazai," he held out a hand for shaking, which Yosano took firmly, "and you must be Yosano, no?"

"That's me." Yosano nodded stiffy.

"Great," and something about the way Dazai said it made Yosano feel like it really was great. "I'm the boss."

She gaped at that. He was so young.

Dazai grinned at the expression on her face but said nothing in reply to it; he was obviously used to that reaction. "I'm going to be the one training you today."

He looked her up and down once more, taking in her slightly stained clothing that clearly didn't fit her malnourished body.

He hummed in thought for a bit before telling her to go to the back to get a uniform.

She nodded and made her way back there, slightly unnerved by the way Dazai's eyes seemed to be tearing into her soul. In the back, she made eye contact with Kouyou, but neither of the girls said a word in acknowledgment to one another, so Yosano kept walking, trying to find the uniforms.

They ended up being in some obscure corner of the room, and Yosano spent far too long scouring the area trying to find them because she was too prideful to ask Kouyou for help or go back outside to ask Dazai.

The uniform looked like it was her size, which was a nice change, and she quickly headed to the bathrooms to put it on and get to work.

She had been feeling rather lightheaded all morning, and looking down and around to take off her clothes and put on new ones only succeeded in making her dizzier.

She ignored the feeling, as one does, and headed back out to Dazai so that she could begin her training.