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The pain is unlike anything he has ever experienced.
Blinding, grievous, searing, excruciating—hundreds of other inane words that attempt to scale the heights of his suffering and fall short of reaching it.
His situation is simply too ironic for him not to attempt a wry laugh, though it comes out raw and leaves his chest feeling rattled.
Hasn’t he always romanticized the notion of a double suicide? This death shouldn’t feel as different. It is one that is begotten by love, after all.
But the disparity between a union of bound souls that have jointly escaped the confines of their bodies and a love that revolted against the body that hosts it in anguished loneliness is too grand; too miserable for him to fully contemplate.
This isn’t what he wanted. Not by a mile. Not by a damned light year.
To think that he has finally found the one person whom he would love forever, only to discover in the cruelest way imaginable that this person does not reciprocate—will never reciprocate—the depth of his feelings outweighs the physical pain of flower-inflated lungs and resin-suffocated airways.
Unbidden, the question why comes to Dazai’s mind.
Why.
Why did this happen to him?
Why does it have to be Chuuya?
Why… can’t he love him back?
Dazai’s vision is blurred by a traitorous mist that gathers in his eyes before being quickly blinked away, and he swallows the petals that threaten to escape his mouth. He is in public, after all.
And just in front of him is…
His heart clenches in pain, but a sad smile tugs at his lips. Seeing Chuuya laugh, even if it isn’t at something he said, will never fail to make him smile. But this meretricious joy is fleeting, and quickly enough, jealousy and bitter yearning come to replace it.
Suddenly, Dazai’s eyes widen as the pressure in his throat builds up until it becomes unbearable. He dashes between the corridors as fast as he can, unable to take note of a single object or person in the premises, and bursts into the bathroom with a shoulder push against the door.
Just when he reaches the sink, knuckles whitening at the desperate clutch of its edges, he retches and dry heaves at a force that corrodes his throat and leaves it chafed. Orange marigolds drenched in crimson blood taint the white marble, and through unshed tears, he finds it in himself to smile at the sight. It is all too appropriate.
Marigolds symbolize sorrow and despair, after all.