'To the Stray Dogs'

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"By the way, Dazai-san, how long have you been up here?" Atsushi took a small sip of his drink and his face contorted in disapproval at the odd taste

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"By the way, Dazai-san, how long have you been up here?" Atsushi took a small sip of his drink and his face contorted in disapproval at the odd taste.
"Since I first got here," Osamu sighed, "I'm not really interested in parties, I only came here because I was forced to."
"Really? You didn't come just to harass Junko-san?"
"Give me a break. This is a victory party on a boat. She'd never come to an event like this." Osamu took a long sip of his own drink, enjoying the warm burn of the alcohol much more than Atsushi did.
"Dazai-san, seriously, how long have you been up here? She did come."
"What?!" Osamu spat his drink.

Atsushi then told him how earlier today, he and Kyouka were just getting ready for the party when they heard someone making a ruckus outside, so they took a look and saw that Louisa was at Junko's door and the two seemed to argue about the contents of a fancy looking paper bag. When they asked what all the fuss was about, Louisa explained that Junko declined the invitation to the party, and then Francis demanded to know why, and then Junko sent him a note saying 'Apologies, sir, but I don't like parties. And even if I did, this is a black-tie event, my wardrobe isn't compatible with your requirements.', and then Francis threw a huge fit and ordered Louisa to go get Junko a dress —

At which point Osamu tuned out the rest of Atsushi's story because the only thing that he was interested in was WHAT IS JUNKO WEARING RIGHT NOW?

It didn't take Atsushi much more than three more sentences to notice that Osamu was clearly not listening to him anymore, and it wasn't hard for him to guess why.

"I think you might want to go back in there, Dazai-san."
"Yeah, I think I'll do that."

Stepping back into the ballroom was a nuisance. Clinking of glasses, chatter and laughter of people, a band playing a bland tune made a few of the attendants join the dance floor, stuffy and pretentious events such as this always seemed pointless and stupid and draining to him, but somehow he managed to find the strength to endure all that useless waste of everybody's time just for long enough to find the one person that was actually worth all that trouble.

"I didn't know you had a suit." she looked up at him.
He finally found her sitting on the stairs with a look that seemed even drearier than his own.
"Do you like it?" he smiled, "I was planning on wearing this one on my funeral."
"In that case, I hope it's an open casket, it would be a shame if nobody got to see it." she sighed, "though I have to admit, even without any casket, I would much rather be at a funeral right now."
"Let's commit double suicide, then, I'm already wearing the suit, we can have our funeral right now."
"I already upset Fitzgerald-san once today, and it got me here, if we steal his thunder and turn his own party into our funeral, I can't imagine what he'll do."
She finally stood up, and since she stood on the first stair, she almost reached his eye level, and for a couple quiet moments they both took pleasure at how easy it was to make eye contact when their faces were not so far away from each other, but then his eyes drifted lower to take a look at the rest of her.

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