Chapter Text
Osamu Dazai is suicidal.
He left the Port Mafia two months ago, he’s sitting on a beach in Venezuela, and he’s still suicidal.
I don’t know what I thought would change , he thinks as he readjusts himself in his lounge chair and reaches for the margarita a fit young woman carries over at just the click of his fingers. I guess it’s always been this way. I’ve never truly been human . The margarita is sickly sweet and he wonders what sweetener they used. Definitely not Stevia. Definitely something containing many more calories. He sighs and sets the drink back on the platter.
Dazai decided he was not a fan of food when he was still young. He never understood hunger, and never was hungry. His stomach never growled and he never felt the intense cravings for food that every other human being seemed to. He supposed his ability was fitting for him. He didn’t know what it meant to be human.
He was mortal regardless, and he was well aware of it. Used it to every advantage. And to Dazai, the only advantage a mortal had was the release known as death. Just as he had defected from the mafia, he planned on defecting from life. Or something of that sort. Why, just yesterday he had tried to drown himself by sitting at the bottom of the ocean and breathing in. Unfortunately some good citizen had been jogging by and pulled Dazai out of the water, administering mouth-to-mouth. Dazai had brushed his teeth at least a dozen times after that and had therefore skipped supper for fear it would taste of mint.
“Is it not to your liking, señor ?” the young woman asked, voice heavy with an attractive accent. In fact, the woman herself was very attractive. Her skin was perfectly tanned, most likely from standing on the beach for hours everyday, yet there was no sunburn in sight. The bikini she wore was high cut and the wrap she wore around her waist did little to cover it.
“No, señorita , it’s fine. I just think I could use something–” he swept his gaze down her long legs and sat up straighter, “a little more sweet.” Actually, the thought of something sweeter than the drink he had just sat down almost made him gag, but he kept an easy smile on his face and quirked his eyebrow as a dark pink dusted the woman’s nose and cheeks.
She looked hesitant as she continued the conversation, glancing to the side as if making sure no one was listening. “Well, we do offer a– private– room service if I could interest you in… something sweeter .” Dazai almost gagged again but kept his smirk in place as he stood up and offered his elbow.
“Well then, shall you escort me back inside?”
Dazai was never hungry, and barely human, and that stood for his sexual appetite just as much. Although he was a playboy and what his mother would have called an “absolute bastard” he really had no fancy for sex. He partook only for the distraction and the fact that he knew he could have basically any girl he went for. Chuuya had told him that himself.
When he woke the next morning and saw the woman still laying in bed beside him, he had promptly grabbed his only bag and checked into a new hotel. He knew this life was one he could not live forever, but he was desperate for a life he’d never had, and he was desperate to stay out of sight of the Port Mafia lest they drag him back screaming.
He was slowly checking places he wanted to visit off his bucket list. First had been Mexico City, now Venezuela. However, he was getting tired of the constant sun and heat and sand between his toes, and so next was Italy. He was thinking a small apartment in Florence, perhaps right near Galleria dell'Accademia . He was a fan of Michalangelo and had always wanted to see David in person.
Dazai’s apartment was small and cheap, but it was quiet and right near the Gallery. It’s ceilings were vaulted, the wood was stained dark, and a door off the kitchen led to a tiny balcony overlooking the narrow streets of Florence. The people were beautiful and the cappuccinos were great and Dazai had decided to spend the better part of seven months in the city.
When Dazai had finally left his cramped studio to see David he was just as impressed as he thought he would be. He had always been a fan of the arts and he felt he had a lot in common with David. He, too, was fighting a giant defaming the name of God, though his giant was located within himself.
He wished Chuuya could see it.
Italy was an exciting place to be for a handsome young man. Dazai had a lot of fun experimenting. The most exciting, though, was LSD .
He was in the back of a club in the basement of a bar and the strobe lights and electronic music had his head throbbing. He was on his third glass of some bitter drink and he kept praying the man behind the counter would hand him something stronger.
He never did.
When he had finally left his seat at the bar he ran into a beautiful Florentine woman. Tall, well-tanned, and clad in garish neon. She had grabbed him by the hand and led him to the bathroom and when he woke up the next morning he was in a hospital room with fluids pumping through his body. He had left without checking out and he decided that was his cue to leave Florence, though he loved the city.
In his apartment that night he packed his only bag and lit a cigarette on the balcony. The door behind him was streaming light from the kitchen out into the night, the bright stars mingling, and the fireflies in the air sparkling in and out of the streaks of light creating swirls connecting it all.
As his cigarette smoldered to a finish he thought how unlucky he must be to not have died from that bad trip. Why do humans feel such a need to be good when it no longer matters? He supposed he should ask that question himself. He stubbed out the cigarette and walked back inside, pulling the doors closed behind him. He slipped on his signature trench coat, looked down at the white criss-crossing marks on his wrist next to the Venetian wrist watch he had bought on the way up, and grabbed his bag, leaving under cover of the dark sky.
The next place Dazai found himself was Vatican City. Perhaps seeing David had awoken something in him, inspiring him to explore his most ungodly desires in God’s own city. Besides, he wanted to see the Sistine Chapel. He wanted to see God and man. He wanted to behold the Creation of Adam.
And he wanted to go to church. His mother had been Catholic and though Dazai had no belief in it, he was nostalgic and the guilt had followed him to adulthood. How ironic to despise the same religion you grew nostalgic for. To feel guilty toward the same God you don’t believe in.
Kneeling in a pew always made him feel like he was doing something right. Dazai supposed he was conditioned that way. He remembered Sunday mornings in Japan, and when the Pope came out to begin the service Dazai remembered his mother’s hand on his shoulder and the feeling of belonging that he felt. He remembered losing that feeling when he lost his belief. He remembered losing that belief when no amount of prayers made him hate himself any less, or feel any more human.
When he left the chapel he bought a pack of fresh blades and cigarettes and walked back to his hotel room humming Amazing Grace cheerily.
That evening, on his third cigarette, wrapping fresh bandages over new scars, Dazai wondered if he’d ever been happy.
This would not be the last place he visited before he ended up back in Japan, but it was the last place he cared to remember. Most other places were clouded over by the blanket of depression he carried with him at all times and failed suicide attempts in foreign cities. After two years were up, he decided he had finished his bucket list and it was his only option to return.
It wasn’t necessarily the place he wanted to be, but it was the place he thought he was supposed to be, and so, when Kunikida was assigned as his partner, he tried his best to be better.
To be more human.