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A few important things to keep in mind while reading this story, are that Osamu Dazai has many secrets. There are three specific secrets however that he’d literally kill over, whether himself or someone else, just so that they wouldn’t know.
The first of these secrets is the easiest, the fact that he is ex-Mafia. His boss, Fukuzawa Yukichi, was the only one who knew, and he liked to keep it that way. His coworkers had respect for him even though his portrayed idiocy made that hard sometimes.
The second secret was what was under his bandages. This secret relates to secret three and so if you find out one, you find out the other. Now, his coworkers have a bet going to see who could make him take them off first. They guessed it was self-harm scars, of course, they weren’t wrong, but they had a feeling that with a mysterious man like Dazai, there would be something else underneath them.
Again, his coworkers weren’t wrong.
When he joined the Mafia, there were long scars caused by broken glass covering his chest calling upon the neck and chest bandages, and then there were so many cuts in so many different directions, his arm could barely be made out from under them. Either way, that was why he had bandages on his arms.
When his third secret died, he actually tried to kill himself. He had a craving for death, that was true. He wanted to die, but deep down he could never actually carry out a real attempt, deep down he guessed he was scared. That’s why, after secret three was murdered and told him to live, he didn’t listen the first day and he tried to hang himself in his apartment.
That didn’t go well because a certain investigator tracked him down, only knowing he was a friend of the deceased secret and cut him down. After that day, the reason he wore the bandages changed. Amongst the glass scars, newly added burn scars, and scars from a failed hanging around his neck, were words cut into his skin. They were his thoughts, carved into his flesh long ago. These thoughts related to his past and one such thought was the name of his third secret, Sakunosuke Oda.
Now of all his secrets, this third was the biggest. His lover, Oda, has been killed causing him to desert the mafia and to start gaining more of a conscience. He had no need, and he hoped he never would, to tell anyone around him about the only time he fell, and would ever fall, in love.
It was a sad truth he realized when he joined the Armed Detective Agency. When anyone would ask about his love life, his mind would immediately go to the handsome red-head, but he could never speak of him. When he tried, his heart strings pulled and his eyes stung, so he kept it a secret. His co-workers knew of course he had a lover once, but like most things, they didn’t know much about him or her.
Osamu Dazai badly wanted to keep it that way. He didn’t want anyone learning about the nights where he’d get just a little too drunk to find his way back home, the nights when he’d sober up with his secret and then wake up the next morning with yesterday's clothing covering the floor.
No one needed to know about his heartbreak, the unsmoked cigarettes, the gravestones he visited, or of the only person to ever see under his bandages.
Now, with his three secrets out of the way, you can learn about the day Dazai woke up and found himself sobbing out all three.
Osamu Dazai liked to keep his curtains open for two reasons. One was so that when he woke up in the middle of the night, as he often did, he could see the moon. The second reason was so that when he would wake in the morning the first thing he would see would be the yellow-white sunshine painting his face and bed.
This particular morning as the sun smothered him in light causing his eyes to open, he found himself feeling happier than he usually did. For the first time in years, when he placed a hand to his mouth he could feel a smile.
How strange. He thought to himself, getting up from his bed stretching. As usual, he wore a plain white t-shirt and fuzzy red pants that he could trip on if he wasn’t careful. His dark brown hair was a mess, it stuck up in the back and shifted to the left side of his head during the night, and his caramel-like eyes were hard to keep open as he binked against sleep.
His pant covered feet found themselves walking to the bathroom starting up the shower with a tanned hand outstretched to test the heat of the water. Dazai liked to shower hot, it made him feel safe and made him forget about his body while he cleaned up.
Looking into the mirror at himself, the smile still somehow remained. His bandages had a few red stains, he figured some new cuts had opened during the night as he unwrapped his arms and neck with care. Balling up the bandages, he tossed them out and then took off his shirt before checking his arms.
Only a few were bleeding, and not much at that. His neck and chest looked fine too. The skin still felt raw even after all those years, the doctors Ogai Mori had hired for Dazai’s sake after his accident, both accidents to be precise, told him there had been substantial nerve damage and that even if it did heal it’d still have phantom pain from time to time.
Today was the day the phantom was there. Taking off his pants and getting into the shower to wash his hair he tried to let his mind go to his latest case, but all he got were worthless memories he wished would burn.
“Is the grass always this green in the summer?” Dazai asked a tall man with his black hair slicked back. His eyes matched his hair and his skin was cold and pale.
The man laughed, watching as a little blonde haired girl climbed up a nearby tree. “It is. The trees aren’t this pink however. Elise seems to like them, so I suffer through looking at the hideous colors for a couple of weeks. Then I have to deal that the fucking ocean.”
“What’s the ocean?”
“A lot of salty water.”
“What’s the appeal then, Mori-San?”
Mori’s eyes trailed up the tree, watching as Elise got to the top and picked a few apples before dropping them to the ground so she could gather them later. “No clue, Dazai-kun.”
The light turned red at the stop light, but a black shoed foot pressed down further on the gas pedal. “You’re going to kill us both, Chūya!”
“Very funny, Dazai. The suicidal maniac doesn’t want to die.” The car engine reeved as they came closer to the crosswalk.
The brown haired man sighed, “I do if it’s in a car accident you dumb fuck.”
Chūya turned to face Dazai with a put out look on his face. This man's curly orange hair barely went past his shirt collar, his blue eyes were playful, and his light skin glowed red in the light of the approaching intersection.
In the backseat was a hat, a black trench coat, and what appeared to be a bottle of wine with a stuffed rabbit super glued onto it.
“Well, dumber fuck, we aren’t going to die because it’s three in the morning and no one is going to be dragging their asses outside at this time of night.”
As he said that, he looked back at the road only to find that someone had indeed dragged their ass outside and they were speeding towards them, maybe even going faster than they were.
With barely any time to react or to think of doing anything else, Chūya slammed his foot down on the gas pedal. He flew out the front window, his wrist retained a fracture from cracking against the steering wheel, his left shoulder and right leg broke on impact with the ground. The pain knocked him out as he lay defenseless in the road. Lucky for him, he had been tossed far enough away from both the cars to avoid getting hit.
Dazai wasn’t as lucky…
Gasping, the brown haired detective wiped water from his face and finished his shower. When he got out he shoe-shine dried his hair and then patted down the rest of his body. Getting a new bandage box from underneath his sink, he rewrapped himself and then went out to get dressed.
He put on a short sleeve white button-up with a small black ribbon tie with a blue gem in the middle, black pants, black dress shoes, and decided to carry his trench coat in his arms as he walked to work.
He stayed close to the sidewalks and paid close attention to traffic lights on his warm morning walk. When he got to the Agency’s building he found himself freezing. Had Fukuzawa always kept the Agency this cold?
Reaching the floor he worked on he opened the door to find Edogawa Ranpo chewing on ice cubes while writing up a report, Atsushi Nakajima leaning against a loud AC, and Kenji Miyazawa calmly walking from desk to desk asking the other detectives random questions.
“You guys should call this cool weather! It’s hotter where I come from.” Kenji jokes, sitting on Akiko Yosano’s desk.
The pale woman fanned herself and glared up at the blonde teen. “Actually, they left the heat on all night and now the whole floor is roasting, Kenji-kun. The rest of the building gets to be cold though, bastards.”
Making an “o” with his mouth he gets off her desk and goes to greet Dazai. “Morning.” His golden eyes narrow. “It’s weird to see you without a trench coat, Dazai-san.”
Smiling, he walked to his office telling the boy he, “so does hate being predictable.” He placed his coat up on the hanger in his office and instead grabbed a black windbreaker from the other side of the coat hanger and slipped it on. “Any news?”
From across the room, Jun’ichirō Tanizaki shook his head. “‘Fraid nothing new has been reported or seen yet. It might just be a…” he looked around the room and then whispered, “ report day.”
Making a disgusted face, Dazai made his way over to Doppo Kunikida’s desk to sit beside him and read over his shoulder. It seemed so far that the orange-haired boy was right. The day was going to be very dull and soon Dazai found himself falling asleep on his hands while skimming over the news reports Kunikida sped read through.
The shotgun seats buckle never did quite work right. Watching as the car got inches closer, Dazai couldn’t manage to get it undone. Even if he did however, he had no flashy ability that could get him away from the car fast enough, and if he could run away in time that wouldn’t work either.
When Chūya stopped the car, his nose and forehead hit the console with no remorse. His head throbbed, his nose bleed covering his lips and chin, and his vision grew spotty. But before being able to conjure up another plan of escape, the car slammed into the one he sat in. Fire started to hurl from the windows and…
A gun was pointed at the side of his head. He looked up in a mirror to see his own face staring back at him. Only this face was younger and had a bandage on the side of his head.“It’s been a while, old friend.” His finger itched to pull the trigger.
A game of Russian roulette played out as Dazai pulled the trigger of the empty gun over and over again while singing the only song he knew.
“And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad, the dreams in which I’m dying are the best I ever had…” his voice was raw, why was he so scared when he knew the gun wasn’t loaded?
“Dazai!” Eyes going wide, he watched as a shadowy mass grabbed Chūya and raised him above the ground. He was kicking frantically against the shadow's grip, he hadn’t had time to activate his ability and he didn’t even know what had him.
Afraid for his partenters life, Dazai’s hand reached for his gun in his back pocket and…
“Chūya!”
Eyes cracking open, he leapt from the chair he was sitting at, launching it back a good couple of feet, his gun was raised and shook in his grasp. It was almost touching Jun’ichirō’s forehead. Surprised, the orange-haired boy dropped the papers he was carrying and slowly moved his hands up to grab the handgun from Dazai.
All eyes turned to him as he shook violently trying to stop tears from falling. All of the room had their eyes fixated on him. Kunikida had backed up, Dazai hardly ever used his gun and now he was pointing it at a teenager. Jun’ichirō breathed as evenly as he could as he slowly got Dazai to let go of the gun, his face grew wetter and wetter by the minute, so when the teen had finally gotten the gun free from the worried man's grasp, Dazai’s hands immediately flew to his mouth as he muffled a tortured sob.
Today indeed was going to be different, it had been a while since he last had a nightmare about… well anything that didn’t involve the third secret or the Agency blowing up.
“What the hell?” Yosano asked, getting up from her desk, taking the gun from Jun’ichirō. Pointing the hilt as his face she asked again, “what was that about, Dazai-san?”
Within the last twenty-five years of his life, he hardly ever showed vulnerability. He never did when his father would beat him till his breathing became labored, when he killed his first man, when he lived alone for weeks on end, skeletal and lost. He never did when he joined the Mafia or when he was recruited for the Agency.
There were very few times he showed vulnerability, that he showed that underneath all of his anger, goofiness, or occasionally intimidation that there was still just a scared little kid who wanted to hide under his bed until all of the monsters went away.
That’s why, when Dazai sunk to his knees and shook his head saying he didn’t know, Kunikida hugged him until he stopped shaking. To say the least, Yosano (and the rest of his coworkers for that fact) were extremely worried, confused and scared. What could have caused him to breakdown in such a fashion?
As he calmed down, Dazai found his mind wandering again. But this time it wandered to slightly kinder places.
“ Wait, what?” The man with blood red hair raised his eyebrows in disbelief looking at the man with caramel eyes in front of him . “You really want me to replace your bandages?”
Dazai shrugged, “why not? We’ve been sleeping together for about a year now. I think it’s only fair.”
Oda snickered, “I’m dating the strangest man on the planet.”
“You signed up for this you know!” He yelled after his third secret as he went and grabbed a new box of bandages.
Coming out with the box he answered that, “yes I did, but that doesn’t mean I can’t comment on it.”
Sitting beside him on the couch of Dazais apartment, he carefully unwrapped his arms and neck watching as the scars appeared before him. Oda had always known his lover was covered in injuries, but the long cuts down his ribs surprised him.
In the future Oda would never live to see, these scars would be replaced by burns and his neck would forever carry the sign of the one time he actually tried to die.
“Where’d you get those?” He asked, tracing one of them with his index finger. “They look much older then the others.”
“They are.”
Spring was never green. Spring was full of dead flowers and crying children. At least that’s what Dazai had been taught. Indeed, the harsh, blackened hand of his father taught him that.
He was a blue-collar citizen, he worked as an engineer and was gone for long amounts of time leaving his eight-year-old son by himself. Not that Dazai minded, it meant hours away from the maniac with rings on his fingers that would itch to let off the days aggression onto a host who couldn’t fight back.
The day Dazai killed his first man, his father came home angerier then it appeared he had ever been. He popped his knuckles as he walked in and sat down in the kitchen to grab a beer from the fridge.
Dazai sat in the living room with a pistol he had found under his father's bed shoved into the cushions beside him.
“Osamu!” The boy flinched and his hand went for the gun. “Get in here!” He grabbed the weapon but left it just on the other side of the kitchen doorway.
He didn’t bother responding as he stood in the doorway. His father sniffed and took another gulp of the foul-smelling liquid before breaking the bottle against the table. The rest of the liquid poured out onto the floor, coloring the white kitchen tiles a light shade of brown.
Pointing the sharp glass at his chest, his father squatted before him saying, “Do you know, how hard it is to hide a gun?”
His heart dropped.
He dug the glass deeper into his chest making him whimper. His father's eyes narrowed as he dragged the ragged glass down his chest. “You know I don’t like it when you whine, Osamu.”
But Dazai couldn’t stop, it stung horribly and his heart called about whimpers and moans of pain. At the sound of this, his father drug the glass down his torso twice more. Dazai still stood, however, even though his white shirt was now wet and red.
His father growled and threw the remainder bottle onto the ground next to him. Raising his ringed fist, he brought it down with full force across the poor eight-year-old’s cheek sending him backwards out of the doorway.
His head hit the floor quite hard and he could hear ringing in his ears. His father rose to come and pick him up by his long hair as he usually would, but seeing this as the only opportunity he would ever get, Dazai used what strength he could find and grabbed the gun.
Cocking the gun he backed up with his left eye closed. He didn’t know how to shoot, much less how to fire a gun, but as his father got closer and closer with his arms outstretched to take the gun back, no doubt with the intent to shoot his son. As he got closer, Dazai closed his eyes and pulled the trigger. A bang echoed throughout the house.
Disgusted and terrified at his own handiwork, the gun fell from the small boy's hands as he got to his knees. There was a clean shot through his father's throat. He was still gurgling blood as the shot wouldn’t kill on impact. Scrambling to his feet, he stumbled into the kitchen and grabbed his first ever box of bandages.
The first man he killed drowned on the floor as he shakily covered himself and wrapped the bandages around his chest and torso best he could before blacking out.
Oda always wanted to write a book. Actually, he wanted to do a lot of things. He’d tell Dazai of such things when they woke up hugging the other in the morning or when he’d redo his bandages, which had become a common occurrence.
“I wanted to be a doctor when I was kid.” He’d say, finishing off his arms. “Thought it’d be so cool to walk around without a care in the world and to save people’s lives just by touching them.” staring at Dazai’s chest and neck he sighed. “I wish it worked like that.”
“Me too.”
Osamu Dazai wished he could write as well as his lover did the day he sat down and took a pencil to paper and realized that he sucked at getting his thoughts into words. He made it seem so easy, but then again his neck was still throbbing so maybe the pain and the fact Ranpo had to cut him down only a few hours prior made it hard to think.
Tapping his pencil against the notepad and humming, the young detective turned to him confused. “Are you humming something?”
Dazai nodded, getting a wonderful idea, letting the pencil run across the page without any real thought. Maybe this was how Oda did it.
“Trying to become the next Shakesphere?” Ranpo asked, walking up to Dazai reading the first few words on the page.
He laughed, “maybe.”
Kind wasn’t the right words for the memories coursing through his head, maybe thoughtful or comforting. He let himself go to Oda, he killed his biggest fear, and he even started to embrace life. Either way, he couldn’t stop himself from crying even if the memories were, in their own way, comforting.
He had stopped shaking though, making Kunikida have Dazai face him. His eyes were red and his face damp. There was the ghost of a smile on his face but a frown on his lips.
“Would you like me to take you home, Dazai-san? Because if work is getting to your head you need to rest for a while, none of us would mind.” None of them did, and none of them even noticed that in his hurry to get to work that morning, his bandages were put on looser than they usually were and could come off at any given moment.
But no one paid any mind to it as Dazai used the same strength he once used when dragging himself around his own home to tell Kunikida that, “I’m just tired… the nightmares will go away soon.”
“I don’t believe you. Go to your office and take a nap.” He nodded and left the room. Locking the door behind him, he leaned against it and once again allowed his mind to wander.
When the cars collided, he couldn’t decide if Chūya had woken up for just long enough to stop the fire from reaching his face and other parts of his body or if something, or someone, had been protecting him.
Either way when the second car exploded, the only things badly burnt were his chest and neck. And by that same mysterious magic, the buckle finally worked and he clawed his way out of the car. Dragging himself to lay beside Chūya he watched as both cars became engulfed in flame. Turning Chūya over, he took his badly scratched phone out of his back pocket and dialed 9-1-1.
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”
“The dumb ass I was driving with got us into a car accident. I think I’m going to vomit or back out soon. We’re on Luna boulevard. It’s hard to miss us, two cars blew up.”
Hanging up the phone he did indeed black out.
“If you have no clue, why take Elise-chan at all?”
Mori smiled and watched as the girl climbed down the tree and collected the apples she had hurled at the ground. “Because she enjoys it, and if she likes it then I’ll find a way to enjoy it as well.”
Dazai made a “Hmph” of agreement as Elise ran back over to where he and Mori were talking. The moment she walked got within range she started yelling at him for God knows what, but he wore a smile anyway.
“A doctor, aye?” Dazai asked, trying to brighten up the darkening mood. “You’d look hot in one of those uniforms.”
Oda looked up with his eyes narrowed. Was he really trying to flirt now? He wondered. The answer was yes, but trying to look seductive while covering a grin only made them both break out into laughter.
“Idiot.” The redhead said looking at the ‘accidently’ undone bandages around his chest and neck. “Look at that! I’ll have to redo them now.”
“Oh for shame!” Dazai remarked sarcastically before taking his lovers face in his hands, kissing him gently over and over again.
When his eyes opened again, he checked his watch. An hour had passed Dazai realized. Sighing, he placed his hands on the ground beside him. His fingers brushed past a sticky note, he looked down and picked it up absent-mindedly and then continued to read it with tired eyes.
“Come out soon. I want to give you something, Mafia boy.
Ranpo”
He almost dropped the note. Of course he knew! He cut him down, he knew who Oda was, and he was smarter than anyone he knew. Still, the shock made him choke. Had he told anyone? He shook his head, Ranpo knew better then to rat him out. Dazai knew the older detective paid attention to the fact he liked to keep such things under wraps. His body language and other hints told him this, it’d be hard for the raven haired man not to notice.
Standing up, Dazai grabbed the door handle and walked out. The office was almost empty, only Ranpo and Kunikida remained. The two of them talked while looking through computer files, the younger of the two had his eyes narrowed as he typed away and the older chewed on more ice cubes.
“Can I borrow you please?” Dazai asked, holding the note up in between his index and middle fingers. The older of the two detectives nodded and walked over.
Ranpo took the note and then tapped Dazai chest with it, “you aren’t very smart about hiding such things considering everything. Brightside! I’m the only one who knows. Now, I have something for you down in the archives.”
The blonde looked up from his computer. What was he talking about? Looking back down at his computer screen, he decided to do the one thing the employees weren’t supposed to do, google each other.
Kunikida figured he could delete the history later and have no one catch on, so he typed in his coworkers name without so much as a second thought.
When the results loaded in, he looked up at the empty doorway in disbelief.
“NIGHT TIME TERROR RETURNS!”
“BLOOD RUNS THROUGH CITY STREETS!”
“FATHER DEAD, CHILD IN CRITICAL CONDITION!”
Wait , he scrolled down and clicked on the last title. As it opened an old photo of his partner appeared, he was smiling in it and three of his teeth were missing. He looked so innocent, it was no doubt an old yearbook photo, but something about it seemed off. That smile didn’t seem genuine. As he read the article, he could almost feel bile rising in the back of his throat, he was right. That smile wasn’t in the least bit genuine.
The ekg beeped loudly in the eight-year-olds ears. Where was he? How had he gotten here again? Dazai’s ears rang and his eyelids felt heavy. He tried to look around the hospital room, but his whole body ached.
“I see you’re awake.” His eyelids weren’t so hard to open now as he gazed up at a tall doctor. The doctor had short brown hair and a beard covered by a face mask. “Anything hurt?”
Dazai glared at the doctor, he might have been young but he had so shortage of snark, “ Everything hurts.”
The doctor nodded, “I’ll get you some more pain medicine. You’re lucky to have survived though, Mr Dazai. You lost half the blood in your body from those cuts of yours, no doubt they’re going to scar, and that concussion could have been fatal. Don’t know why it didn’t kill you since you didn’t stay awake or black out sitting up.”
The confused kid shook as he used his sore arms to help himself sit up against his mounds of pillows. “Hardly say lucky, doc.” His eyes were dark and his face was contorted into a frown. “Figured the blood loss would kill me, why do you think I only tried to wrap it instead of calling the cops?”
The doctor sighed and rubbed his eyes. “My name is Kazue Hashimoto, Mr Dazai.”
The boy growled and looked down, pulling up his hospital gown he looked at the bloody bandages. The bleeding had substantially stopped but there was still some blood seeping out. His head was wrapped in a bandage too and it throbbed like he got hit with a baseball bat. Concerning what happened, he figured that the fall combined with the ring-fingered punch added up to a hit with a baseball bat.
“How’d you know the blood loss would kill you?” Dr Hashimoto asked, looking through the boys file. There had been records of street fights, domestic disturbance, and domestic violence.
“I’ve seen enough people beaten to death to know.”
What the fuck was going on with this man? Did Ranpo know somehow? Well, Kunikida wouldn’t be surprised if he did, he knew everything for better, or for worse.
Dazai found his hands in his windbreakers jacket as he walked down the freezing stairwells and hallways to the archive room. Which was, as it always is (for whatever reason), in the basement.
The older of the two walked in front of the surprisingly trench coat-less man. “It’ll be in the S section.” Dazai cocked his head following the detective deeper into the archive room. The S’s started appearing one after another until one of the names began to look familiar.
Sakunosuke Oda.
His name was written beautifully in nice handwriting and it hung above a small pull out cabinet. There was only one cabinet with his lover's name on it and that was the one Ranpo opened. He picked through the small files in the metal drawer before finding the one he needed. Inside were a couple of papers, all but one addressed to Dazai.
“Have a look.” The old detective said, waving the file in his coworkers face. “You going to take it, or not?”
His fingers twitched and his hands trembled as he reached out and grabbed the file gingerly. He sat down and opened the file, Ranpo quickly accompanied him watching as his friend’s face turned into a portrait of gentle sadness.
Cigarette smoke had become Osamu Dazai’s favorite smell, even if it made his eyes water in the years to come. Late at night, when he’d wake up and see Oda curled up on the couch he’d usually sleep on after long days of work, he’d smell smoke and smile.
It wasn’t a pleasing smell exactly, and it was never weak, but something about it made it easy for him to fall asleep. Maybe that’s why when Dazai hummed, holding the old pistol the corpse had been carrying, he couldn’t help but pick up the unsmoked, blooded cigarette and take a few long drags on it.
“All around me are familiar faces,” he pulled the trigger to the empty gun and flinched slightly. “Worn out places, worn out faces…”
He continued through the song, pulling the empty guns trigger every so often. In the pool of blood underneath him, a mirror almost, he saw himself a week younger. A bandage still covered his face and he was laughing as small kisses were planted along his unwrapped collarbone and shoulder blades.
Somehow, the scene in the pool looked like it happened a billion years ago.
The pistol dropped out of his hand as he took a couple more drags on the cigarette. Oda had stopped smoking a long while ago, but somehow the smell still lingered on him, and that smell was one Dazai craved.
“He left me letters.” Dazai murmured reading through them with care. The all too familiar handwriting brought him back to better times, evenings spent drinking, mornings laughing, and nights in a warm bed.
The first letter he held was one he could almost quote from memory, it was only a few words. “ Met me at Lupin tonight at 7? Only the two of us if you don’t mind.
Sakunosuke Oda. ”
The second was one he’d seen only once before and it read as follows: “ If I don’t come home tonight, don’t worry. I don’t want your last memory of me to be one of me dying somewhere cold and alone. You’ll be receiving a phone call soon, I know you’ll come looking for me, I wish you wouldn’t. I hope you know that this… THING I’m doing isn’t because I regret anything, I never will. I realize that’s hard to accept, I realize you’ll never forgive me, and you have to right to. I also realize that this request is horribly selfish of me, but if I make it, save me a seat at Lupin.
Sakunosuke Oda.”
Fate worked in many ways and because of this, fate often thought it was a hilarious nuisance. Fate knew it couldn’t be avoided, and fate was right, no matter how much the receiver of it wished otherwise, fate always came through.
Oda knew this as he called the man he’d fallen in love with, he was breathless and his arm stung having fallen on it after the explosion. And he was tired, tired of running to where André Gide claimed he’d be.
“Dazai! I-I’m sorry.” The caramel eyed man on the other end of the phone shook, and the phone threatened to slip from his grasp as his lover continued. “There’s somewhere I need to be, I know you’ll probably track my phone after this, if you aren’t already, so I guess I’ll keep it on me. I would love to drop it, but I think you’d have a heart attack if you never found my body…”
His heart hammered at each word, each one slicing into him. Oda gulped, “I’ve left you a letter, it should be on your desk at home. Um... I know I don’t say this very often, but I love you.” The redhead hung up the phone leaving Dazai silent on the other end. The phone indeed fell out of his hand as he shook racked with sobs. What was he thinking? What was he supposed to do without him?
Before he knew it, he was screaming and his nails dug into his arms. He was sure whoever lived near where he knelt had woken up and was staring down the street at him. By the time he run out of air, it felt as if his vocal chords had been shredded. He got onto his feet unsteadily and rubbed his throat. With each step, his speed increased until he was running, desperately trying to find the redhead before he killed himself.
What is this? He looked over the letters over and over again even though they were only a few words each. I don’t understand.
Then there was the last letter, it was addressed to Oda rather than himself. Holding it up in front of him, his heart almost stopped. “I wrote this.” He looked from the envelope to Ranpo. “Why did you keep it?”
The detective shrugged, ”I figured that one day you’d want to read it again. I thought that maybe now would be a good time. You showed all the signs of needing something like this. The nightmares, the falling asleep at your desk, that fact that you’ve been so distant lately.” His eyebrows narrowed and his eyes opened, the dark green shining dangerously in the cruddy light of the archive room. “I might be the only one who knows why you look and feel like shit, but I’m not the only one who’s noticed.”
Dazai shook his head and placed the letter on the ground in front of him. “I know. I figured that I could just slip away eventually if they just stopped paying attention to me. You know, when I woke up this morning, I could feel myself smiling . That never happens and at the very least it hasn’t for a really long time. Then I got to work and everything just went downhill from there.”
“Then maybe it’s fate telling you, you might actually need to work on your problems instead of pushing them down.”
Dazai laughed, but it was hollow and sad. “If I did that, I might actually die.”
Ranpo frowned and placed his head on the cabinet behind him, his eyes gently closing again. “How about you tell me about one of your nightmares, and then we can work from there.”
The younger if the two bit his lip before saying, “okay I guess.”
There had been many threats to the Port Mafia, most of them weren’t bad. Most of them were quickly dealt with. They were in and out jobs consisting of a three step plan: shoot everyone, blow them up, and leave.
Twin Dark knew this very well and they figured the “mission” they’d had been sent out on would be easy enough. Someone had been killing extremely low tier members and would leave their bodies hanging from trees near the beach. Each one would have their eyes torn out my human hands, and their hands would be tied above their heads, eyes sewn into their palms. The strangest part of it all however, was the fact that words had been etched into their skin with no DNA recovered.
Mori had gotten sick and tired of watching this group murder and string up his people, so he figured if he wanted to get this team down quickly, he’d send in his most reliable members.
Under regular circumstances, his plan would have worked out without a single kink. These were not normal circumstances, and it would leave both halves of the Twin Dark waking up in a cold sweat more times then they’d dare to tell.
It was a winter's night and snow came down in large clumps. It piled up for hours and continued to as the two trudged through it trying to get to the building Mori told them the target would be in. By now the snow was four inches high and heavy jackets were needed. “I can’t believe he made us go out in this shit. My everything still hurts.”
Chūya was complaining, he did that a lot. He never did like the snow, or being cold at all for that matter. “We already got magically healed by that Kazue Hashimoto. You’re a little scarred up, but you’re also an assassin. Wanna know what that means? Suck it the fuck up.”
Glaring at his partner, Chūya responded, “I have a right to complain.”
“Sure.”
“Asshole. Whatever, we’re here.” The orange haired assassin was right, they had made it to their destination. The building wasn’t half as intimidating as they thought it would be. “What a sad little building.”
Twin Dark pushed their way through the frozen shut doors and into the lobby. The building was an abandoned hotel. The chandler above them hung on by three chords and flickered on from time to time. There was a large interconnecting staircase in front of them and a large pair of French doors sitting in between the stairwell.
Dazai pointed forwards, “ladies first.” Chūya growled at him and shoved past as he walked to the doors. He opened them by kicking them in. “I guess that’s one way to do it.” The caramel eyed man said flatley, following Chūya inside.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything in here…” before he could finish speaking, a large shadowy mass grabbed the man from behind. The darkness slithered around his neck and into his open mouth. “Dazai!”
His eyes were wide and were becoming cloudy, his throat hurt and his lungs felt as if they’d burst.
Shit! Dazais hand immediately went for his gun as he shot three times around Chūya’s head. It’s not hitting anything!
“Of course it's not going to hit anything.” A child with long platinum hair walked out from the shadows. It seemed as if she was encased in the darkness, her eyes were grey and cold and her hand was raised in a threatening manner. “And I won’t kill your friend. See this?” She flexed her fingers, causing Chūya to kick more. The shadows moved deeper into his mouth. “I hold his life in my hands. He won’t die as long as I don’t shove too much down his throat. Now what do you think you’re doing here?”
Gun still raised, Dazai pointed it at the girl's head. “I’m here to kill you.”
The girl laughed into her hand. “I’d like to see you try. I can hear your thoughts and I can make them suffocate you. Is that what you want, Omasu?”
“I mean, if it won’t hurt, go ahead.” There was still some will to die in him it seemed. Then again, only a few days had passed since his suicide attempt, and his lovers death. He had met a nice detective, he had written for the first time. Plus, he’d gotten into his first car accident, it had been a long week. He figured that if he were going to leave, he might as well do one more mission before he left. Dazai never liked Mori, but in some cruel way, he owed him his life.
The surprisingly one-man team smiled and raised her hand, “if you insist.”
The second secret was uncovered that day as the shadows ripped through his clothes and skin leaving his thoughts scrolled out on his arms. The dark hands around Chūya loosened as Dazai was hosted into the air. Blood came out of his mouth in mini-waterfalls.
Gasping for air, the orange haired assassin managed to get out a few simple words: “Oh, Grantors of Dark Disgrace. Do Not Wake Me Again.” The little girl turned around only to see glowing red designs appearing all over the man's skin. As each design appeared he grew stronger and was soon able to rip away from the grasp of the darkness.
The little girl gasped dropping Dazai. He was still awake but his body hurt all over, he would bleed out soon. He knew he would, he’d been in this situation before, and he couldn’t quite remember how long he’d lasted before the ambulance, which was sent by that asshole of a man Mori, came to his rescue.
He stood, and coughed into his hand. The little girl had her neck broken. Reaching out, he grabbed onto Chūyas neck. His eyes regained focus as he fell backwards. “Good job, fancy hat. Now we’ll never know why she killed all those men.”
“Fuck you, I saved your life.”
“And then I saved yours.” He wobbled, “I’d say we’re even.” Falling over, Chūyas eyes widened. Dazai had actually fallen, he’d actually got hurt enough to need to kneel over. What was the world coming to?
Crawling over to his friend, he took scraps from the shredded trenchcoat and carefully wrapped them around his arms and chest. In doing so, he read what his skin had to say.
Hours later, Dazai woke up leaning against a wall. “I feel like I have a vodka-induced hangover.”
“How long?”
Raising an eyebrow, he looked to Chūya who sat crossed legged in front of him, eyes cast down. He was ripping apart a piece of fabric. “How long?” He asked again. “How long were you planning to leave?”
“I don’t understand…”
Looking up, Dazai realized the assassin was actually crying. “You can’t just leave me here! I could die, half the people working alongside me hate me, and that subordinate of yours wants to cut my throat open. How dare you, you selfish walking box of bandages! You fucking asshole!”
“A couple of days now. Then again you would have known that, I’m guessing you read what that girl ripped into me.”
“You tried to kill yourself and you want a do over.”
He nodded.
“You pathetic bastard. What’s new then? You fell in love and now suddenly you think you can be a good person? People like us can’t change. We don’t change.” Standing, he threw his phone at the barely awake bandaged being. “I have the Agency on speed dial. I figured you’d want to call them since you’re going to go anyway.”
As he reached the door, he stopped and turned around. “My bloods on your hands, Dazai.”
“I doubt it! Your life has always been in my hands. And besides, Chūya, you can kill me whenever you want. I don’t fear for you, I fear for those who think they can kill you.”
Chūya stayed in the doorway for a few more moments after that before forcing himself through the snow again. Looking down at the phone Chūya had thrown at him, he clicked through the contacts before finding what he needed. Putting the phone to his ear he asked for Edogawa Ranpo.
The two sat in silence as the older detective patted his friends knee subconsciously. “I never knew, and that scares me.”
“I scare myself sometimes, Ranpo. I scare myself more than I care to admit.”
Kunikida sat upstairs with his hand covering his mouth. He had erased his computer data and was now just sitting in silence staring at a black computer screen.
Was he supposed to say something to Dazai? Was he supposed to tell someone?
Obviously Fukazawa knew, how could he not? Ranpo was bound to know, there was nothing he didn't afterall.
When the two returned from the archive room, Kunikida stood up to greet them, but as they walked in, the blonde haired man noticed something... off about the caramel-eyed detective. His windbreaker wasn’t on. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t wearing any of his bandages. The only thing he wore was his undershirt and his dress pants.
Long scars and burns riddled his body, but so did millions upon millions of words. “What happened?” He asked, walking up to his colleges. “Are you okay? When did this happen?” he had been repeating himself, Kunikida was afraid for Dazai. His partner seemed as though he lived in pain, he walked through it, swimmed through it, but did it all without wanting to.
“A few years ago.” He answered, placing his index finger on the word ‘murderer’ tracing it a couple of times. “Some are older, some are newer. I can hardly remember half the time.” He smiled and placed his hands back into his pockets. “I think it’s time I told the Agency.”
Ranpo’s eyes widened, he said he wanted to be up front about it, to tell everyone about it when the time came. He hadn’t figured the time would be so soon, to be right now .
For once in his life, the blonde was at a loss for words. “They’re a floor above us.” Dazai nodded and walked through the door to the stairwell. With each step he swore his bones were breaking, that his heart was getting ready to explode. Fear coursed through his body, adrenaline swam through his blood.
If there was ever a time to do something so rash, now would be it. Afterall, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever get the confidence to do so again. It seemed that there were more than fifteen steps when he reached the door to the floor he needed to get onto. Kunikida and Ranpo walked close behind him, completely and utterly confused.
The door opened slowly, causing his coworkers to turn and face him. They were surprised to see him, it seemed like he had, had a breakdown earlier that day. They’d figured he’d gone home. Then of course there was the fact that his arms and chest were barren. His coworkers couldn’t help it, their eyes were glued to his scars.
The two detectives following the caramel-eyed man came in not too late after. The eyes sitting in a circle looked up at the detectives like they were aliens. One by one, the Armed Detective Agency got to their feet.
“I have no clue why I’m doing this.” Omasu Dazai said, his hands still in his pockets. “It’s not smart, I’m being rash. I don’t have to tell you any of this, or show you what I am, but yet I‘m going to anyway.” He looked up and crossed his arms as if to protect himself. “There are a few things I’m going to tell you, the three unspoken. I don’t expect you to retain any respect for me, if you had any in the first place, and I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. I pity myself enough and I hate myself enough without needing anyone else to add on to it.” Taking a deep breath, he continued. “So let me speak, but after I’m done I’m going home. I might come in tomorrow and I might not, but for now I have a story to tell you… a few important things to keep in mind while I tell you this story, are that I have many secrets. There are three specific secrets however that I’d literally kill over, whether myself or someone else, just so that they wouldn’t know.”
For one long hour he recounted his childhood, the first man he killed, and the doctors who ended up introducing him to Ogai Mori who in turn recruited him into the Port Mafia by age eight. He told them about the time when he was twelve and learned that the grass was green simply because it had to be, and of how the person he loved wanted to be a writer.
He told them about the last phone call he ever received from him, his game of Russian Roulette, and of having to be cut down. He told them of how the night after that he got into a crash crash, and just barely a week after that was carved into by a nightmare leaving him encased in regret.
Once he finished, he traced Oda’s name a couple more times and then walked out the door. The room was stunned, but Ranpo managed to follow Dazai down onto the street. By the time he caught up with him, he saw the caramel-eyed man had put his trench coat back on and was reading a piece of paper. They were maybe another mile away from his apartment, so the older detective decided he’d confront him when he arrived at his home.
And that’s exactly what he did as Dazai walked onto the steps of the building he lived in. “What the hell was that about? I didn’t think you’d be so blatant! Or maybe I should have. You don’t make any sense, Dazai! Every move you make swings to the left if I think you’re going right. You didn’t think anything through, and I bet you’re just going to sulk in your house for the next few days! You can’t just keep doing that!”
Opening the door he looked back, “I know. Come upstairs and I’ll explain.”
He clenched his fists but followed the younger detective anyway. Using a different key, he unlocked his apartment door and let in his friend. Once Ranpo was a ways inside, he closed the door and flung his coat onto the bed. He had bleed slightly into the sleeves of his coat and then quickly realized he’d have to wash it, and his arms soon. How annoying.
His breathing was shaky, but he started talking anyways, “I thought that maybe it was time to stop killing myself.” He wasn’t really looking up from his coat, the idea of looking his friend in the eyes so soon made him want to collapse. “I’ve been doing that for a really long time now actually. The physical pain made me stop thinking about it, made me stop thinking about how all the sadness and grief and selfishness and regret eats you alive because maybe if I only looked like I hurt myself on the outside, like I thought dying was a game, it would hurt less. It didn’t, it didn’t at all. So today I said to myself, ‘hey Dazai, maybe if you got all this shit off your chest it won’t hurt so much. You can trust these people, right?’ I’ll admit. It does hurt less, but I still think I have a way to go, Ranpo.” Turning around now, the green eyed man could see tears running down his face. “I know I have a way to go.”
Placing a hand to his mouth, the raven haired detective stood stone still for a minute before pulling Dazai into a hug. “You could have told me first.”
“If I did, you wouldn’t have let me say anything.”
In the pocket of Omasu Dazai’s trench coat was a poem he’d written the night he’d been cut down. It was about himself, his favorite song, and it was addressed to Oda. As a matter of fact, the poem went like this:
“ All around me are familiar faces
I’m sick of seeing the same people, is there more that I’m supposed to do?
Worn out places, worn out faces
Ryūnosuke is a face I see all of the time, as is Chūya’s. I feel as though I’ve failed them. I know I have.
Bright and early for their daily races
Was Oda right? Was I meant to see the light?
Going nowhere, going nowhere
I feel as though all I know is darkness.
Their tears are filling up their glasses
I learned the other day that I’m not the only Mafioso Edogawa has run into in the past few days, I wonder if he met him.
No expression, no expression
The strange thing about it all, is that even though I could feel my life slipping away, I didn’t care that it hurt.
Hide my head, I want to drown my sorrow
I don’t even like pain, so maybe all this black surrounding me tuned it out for a little while.
No tomorrow, no tomorrow
I wish he wouldn’t have saved me.
And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very very
Mad world, mad world
Children waiting for the day, they feel good
I heard about the explosion on the news.
Happy birthday, happy birthday
I feel as though I may too die in a car crash. Something about small moving metal boxes makes my stomach hurt.
Made to feel the way that every child should
I wonder if crayons can burn, if they can, do you think that when they melt they make their own pictures since no ones using or abusing them any more?
Sit and listen, sit and listen
I’m rambling, I know what this song means to me, but I don’t know at all what to say.
Went to school and I was very nervous
I’m writing to you, you know that better than anyone, but it scares me to know that the only reason I’m writing this is because you're gone.
No one knew me, no one knew me
I feel like I’ve lost a part of myself. Is that normal? Is any of this normal?
Hello teacher, tell me what's my lesson
I’m lost.
Look right through me, look right through me
I’m lost.
And I find it kinda funny, I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you, I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it's a very very
Mad world, mad world
Enlarge your world
Mad world
Will you ever be able to find me again? ”