A boy with tousled brown hair and bandages wrapping half his face stood on the pre-last floor of a skyscraper.
The sky was a gray gloom - a perfect reflection of his life so far.
He hummed the last notes of a grim parody of a happy birthday song and looked at the sky.
"Hah, another year of a meaningless existence"
His face contorted in a grimace as he scoffed, "What a farce"
His lithe fingers were toying with a coin, sending it twirling along the railing of the balcony.
"Welp, here goes nothing," he cheerily exclaimed, grabbing the coin, "Heads I poison myself. Tails I hang myself. And if the coin falls off the ledge I jump after it"
He tossed the coin high up. It flew above the roof, spinning lazily. The boy watched with disinterest.
When it descended, he did not catch it, letting it land on the railing instead.
The coin clinged cheerily.
The boy followed it with his gaze, still vacant, hollow... Lifeless. Like he had already poisoned himself or hanged or jumped off the roof.
He watched it spin. And spin. And spin.... Before stopping balancing perfectly on its edge.
He stared at the railing for a few seconds, trying to piece something together.
"Stupid coin has it out for me..." The boy grumbled in disbelief. Grabbing the coin in a swift motion, he cheerily proclaimed, "Next year it is then!" before turning to leave the rooftop.
Dazai Osamu would live to see his next birthday.
The sky that was the gray gloom of misery of the boy's life was split open by a fiery red ray of the sun. It slid up the railing of the now vacant balcony and onto the roof above it, tangling in the equally fiery red hair of a boy.
The boy could do much. He could take out enemies in one swift hit. He could tople buildings with a touch. He could end lives with little more than a thought and a crushing embrace of gravity.
But today... It did not matter to him. Today, all that mattered was that his gravity was enough, to make the coin land on its edge.
A boy with fiery ginger hair and fierce loyalty to those he loved stood on a roof.
For the first time in the last five minutes, Chuuya Nakahara could breathe freely again.
A/n: A short thing I wrote for our favourite suicidal maniac's b-day! Am I posting it a little late? Yeah... But I'm sure it's still 19th June somewhere...
