BSD Art School AU

Day 2 - 2/1/1 - a suicidal maniac has fallen into the river in yokohama city

The dorm seemed nice enough so far. Atsushi was lucky enough to get a lower floor at Building C, which made carrying his luggage a lot easier given his stature. He cleaned up his room quickly, organized the small number of things he had brought with him, and set up all his devices with the building wifi. He took off his sweater, then walked out.

What a fool he was to do so.

Immediately outside the dorm, Atsushi could see few students were crowded around a large TV screen, causing a disturbance while a boy wearing heels chased after a raccoon. A loud, green-haired man was standing in the middle of the room, waving his hands around and trying to lecture everyone while Fukuzawa-san stood in the corner, sipping from a cup of tea. Atsushi quickly zigzagged through the crowd, walked out the front door, and shut it behind him.

What in the world was that? Atsushi chose to ignore it, for now, hoping that it would just be a rare occurrence. (Which it isn't.)

The weather outside was quite nice, now that Atsushi didn't have a scarf wrapped around his face. The sky was a light gray, the plants near the building were all a pretty green color.

There was a river nearby as well, though Atsushi had to scrunch his face with disgust at seeing the trash floating across it. Plastic bags and bottles, cartons, two legs with a pair of shoes...wait what.

Atsushi took another look. Is that...a person? Well, it is indeed. Air bubbles were emerging from the bottom, but the person seemed to still be alive with their leg twitching every so often.

With no time to spare, Atsushi quickly jumped into the river. The water was freezing cold, which was expected of late autumn, but the currents didn't seem to be too fast, which was good for swimming. Atsushi quickly swam to the figure and grabbed what he presumed was their arm, then quickly swam back to the riverbank, wasting no time.

The person he had found seemed to be a bit older than him, at around 20 years old. He wore a large, beige coat, which would likely explain why he was sinking so quickly. The guy wasn't waking up though, so Atsushi was turning back to the building to get a medical professional when a cough sounded behind him.

"Ahhh, I didn't die again? That would have been such a boring death though! Suffocation is not fun at all, it seems. Who interrupted my regular suicide this time though..." So this is the man I had to save from drowning, a suicidal one.

"Sir, you were drowning in that river. If you need my input on it, that's not the best idea with all the trash in there."

"Hmmm, that's certainly a good point! But what sort of suicide will I even try now...poisonous mushrooms seem like a good bet, but using a barrel could work fine as well..." The rambling continued, and you could see the sweatdrop forming on Atsushi's head.

"Oh right, I forgot. You! You are a newbie at the art school aren't ya? Only students there can access any of this area. My name is Dazai, and I'm a senior at the art school. I can give you a tour of the dorms anytime you want! I'm hungry now though, should I treat you to a meal at the cafeteria?"

"The cafeteria...? No, thank you very much, I need to go change my wet clothes now. I'll just go back to my room, and you can go to your cafeteria. You can thank me by not jumping into a river again." Atsushi patted the water out of his hair, then turned around and sped-walk back to the building, hoping to get there as fast as possible.

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It turns out, unsurprisingly, that Atsushi just could not shake off Dazai. As he got to the lobby, a few dorm-mates looked at him in sympathy and made a clear path to the elevator, which Atsushi would have been grateful for if Dazai-san wasn't still trying to start a conversation about poisonous mushrooms and sneaking bleach into the cafeteria.