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No more than a few months ago, the Armed Detective Agency welcomed two new members; observant as he is, Oda has already managed to learn a lot about both of them.
Izumi Kyouka is a timid child, barely speaking up unless asked, brave and responsible. Oftenly distant, but possessing an aura that’s impossible to mistake.
Nakajima Atsushi is fierce and vindictive, two traits exploited and deepened by the Mafia to the point of scarring. Even so, his heart is trembling, searching for something to fill the deep void inside of him, thus listening to everything his superiors task him with and pushing through.
Last but not least, both of them are surprisingly well suited for the work of saving others, making it hard to imagine them as Mafia members, killing people mercilessly. They are fighting every day to discover a new path in the world of light, yet Oda finds it difficult to reach the point of closure expected for a mentor and mentee, something Akutagawa already shares with him.
More than he can ever say, Oda pities them.
For that very reason, he is surprised to spot Atsushi in a cemetery of all places while making his way home from the grocery store one Saturday morning.
Could he be visiting a grave? A long gone family member, perhaps? He never mentioned such a thing to the Agency, but, in truth, he rarely ever shares anything personal, having great trouble opening up after his life in the Mafia. Perhaps it isn’t so surprising, after all.
Making sure not to let himself get noticed, the older one slowly walks towards the place Atsushi had just left behind, an abandoned corner of the cemetery with a clear view to the sea, protected by the shadow of an old tree. Right in that place, there is a small gravestone with beautiful white flowers left on it.
"O. Dazai"
Oh.
Oda simply stands frozen in place, looking down at the grave of the man he feels as if he cannot understand no matter how hard he tries. It is a simple, small grave, nothing that would give anyone the hint of belonging to the most dangerous man to ever see the sunlight of Yokohama, unless someone took the time to lean down and read the name on it. After all, no one would expect such a man to be buried here, almost as if his resting place was not meant to stand out, simply occupying an unseen corner.
Could that have been the wish of the former Mafia boss himself?
He carefully leans down on his knees and closes his eyes, recalling the few moments he had spent with the man right before his unexplainable suicide.
He was a strange one.
He spoke to him in such a suffering tone, it almost made Oda believe that the whole story of them being best friends in another life wasn't entirely a fairy tale. It made no sense, after all — the Port Mafia boss, the one who doomed so many people, including Oda’s own student, suddenly showing up and smiling at him so lovingly? Sharing peculiar stories and expecting him to just understand, while laughing happily as if being next to a lifelong friend, not an utter stranger? It was beyond Oda's power of comprehension.
Something bound him to Dazai, something Oda will never be able to truly understand; something that perhaps only exists in another life, just as he was told.
This is but one of the countless worlds. And in another - in the original world, you and I were friends. We drank at this bar and spent time together talking about the most ridiculous things.
“Stop. This isn't right.” Oda always says to himself. “I am me, the Oda from the other world that he was talking about is someone I'll never know.”
Besides, how could someone even gain the power to know about things such as parallel universes? No ability possessed such a feat, it was something beyond anything ever known.
If you want to shoot me, then do it. But if I'm allowed one request, I ask you don't shoot me here. Not at this bar. I don't care if you shoot me anywhere else, though.
“But so was the unshakeable feeling that I should believe his words, the conviction that I should grant his wish,” the voice in his mind keeps going each time. He was never quite able to explain to himself why he ended up letting Dazai get away, even after all the pain he caused to him and the Agency, even after all the anger to run through his veins at the sight of him.
Though, in truth, he was never able to explain anything about his feelings for that man.
Thank you. Good-bye, Odasaku.
Was it Oda's fault? Was there something he could've done to stop him? Was it something he said that made Dazai take such a decision all of a sudden, throwing himself off of the Mafia headquarters right after their encounter?
But why is he giving it so much thought, wasn't the man in question an individual who unquestionably was better off dead, not deserving of his sympathy, or even worse, pity? Anyone else would think that way, right?
Oda is not just anyone, though. He never was, and it’s another one of the many things he hates about himself.
He wishes he wasn’t so empathetic. He wishes he didn’t doubt himself with every taken step. He wishes he didn’t feel everything so strongly.
He only wishes to take a break and go numb for a while.
When he finally opens his eyes again, he reaches out to lightly trace the name freshly engraved on the stone.
"Just who were you?" Oda quietly sighs.
The world goes silent and unmoving, leaving the redhead all alone with his mind. Even the crashing waves seem to fade away in the background, a sound too familiar to Oda, the soothing sound that accompanies him sometimes when he works on his manuscript all alone at night.
You already have the tools. If you can't write it, then nobody in this world can. I guarantee it. You're much better than you think.
When no one else ever seemed to notice or reach out, when not even he trusted himself and his abilities of making his dream of writing a novel come true… Dazai Osamu believed in him.
Nothing makes sense.
He stands still for a while, lost in his own thoughts that are running in circles and have been haunting him ever since the encounter. He finally draws his hand back, reaching out for the cigarette in his pocket to light it in hopes of gaining some sense of comfort and clarity. He looks at the smoke rising in silence, slowly following the sea breeze.
Dazai was a mad man. A mad man who had shown up out of nowhere and called him Odasaku. Surely a strange name, wasn’t it? No one had called him that before.
Don't call me that. My enemies have no business calling me that.
He vividly remembers earning that tormented expression from the collected, feared Mafia boss himself. Reaching the ice cold heart and breaking the unbreakable, gaining such control over someone like him, something that many dreamed of, but never dared to try. In truth, Oda didn’t think much of it at the time. Coming to finally think of it now, it was, in fact, a little strange. He did nothing but say the first words to cross his mind in a moment of rage and fear for his own life, didn’t he?
Fear for his life? What fear? What he felt towards Dazai wasn't precisely fear. No, it was something quite different. It was more like…
"He was holding a picture of you before dying, you know."
It is Atsushi's voice from behind that brings Oda back to Earth, at last. He turns his head towards him, preventing the surprise from showing on his face.
"One of your promotional pictures with the manuscript of your novel. You were smiling in it,” Atsushi continues in a small voice. "He was smiling, too. He looked really happy, actually. And then…" Atsushi pauses. "Before jumping, he told us that his only regret was not being able to read your novel. He…"
The young man is seemingly struggling to find his words. Perhaps not even he fully grasps the situation, nor Dazai's true feelings. Perhaps it is too hard to talk about it after such a short amount of time.
A sigh. "I don't know what he said to you before coming to us, but whatever it was, it was true. He wanted you to be happy."
Atsushi's voice gradually gets smaller until he finally stops talking. His palms nearly bleed from the rough grip of his nails, while Oda looks down with his teeth gritted, his expression betraying no hint of emotion.
It was hard. It was really hard fighting Mimic without you in the organisation. I had no choice but to take over for Mori and make enemies of everyone around me to expand the business. Everything I did was for this world's—
Every word he spoke to him in that strained voice, carrying prolonged exhaustion and longing, is now engraved into Oda’s mind, forever to follow and haunt him.
"I know."
Somehow, he always knew. Hearing it all again from Atsushi only managed to put more salt on the wound, for one thing he knows and can firmly claim from the bottom of his heart is that he had never asked for anything. He had never asked for so many people getting hurt and the entire world turning upside down, something that supposedly only happened for his sake.
What did he ever do to deserve so much?
I did it to protect this world.
He would've never wished for that, not in this world he lived in and not in a different one, either. The simple thought that he might have been the reason behind all the misfortunes of the people he deeply cared about would make him crumble inside, entering another endless, painful cycle of denial. The mere thought that he shared a connection with the man, an unusual, bittersweet feeling flooding his heart at the memory of their encounter, would make him even more determined to find a way of forcing his own feelings and thoughts out to stamp them to the ground with all he had.
He can only wonder… Why him?
Why me, of all people in the world? I'm nothing special. I'm just a regular man trying to earn a living, a man who isn't even confident in the career he's trying to pursue and doesn't possess any outstanding qualities. Why would someone as mighty as him treasure me so much?
He had been trying to convince himself that the strange encounter didn't hold any particular meaning to him, especially that the man in question was his most dreadful enemy. Likewise, the aftermath was just an unfortunate coincidence. That was the only logical way to explain everything and bring himself to push deep down all of his mind consuming doubts. They had never met before and there was no reason for him to grieve.
But if that were true, why did Dazai look at him as if he was about to burst into tears? If that were true, why is Oda, too, hurting so painfully much inside his chest?
"I don't resent him. Our relationship was never as close as I thought, he never revealed his true intentions to anyone until his final moments. But he was the one who saved me and took me into the Mafia when I had no one else." Atsushi says, looking into the distance at something that cannot be seen.
Oda gets up and nods rigidly, standing by Atsushi’s side. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“I didn’t expect to find you here, Oda-san. Could it be that you miss him, too?” Atsushi almost whispers.
After all, it’s a confession of his own as much as it’s a curiosity regarding the man who accompanies him.
For a moment, Oda forgets to breathe.
Does he miss him? Does he miss the boss of the organisation he hated most, the one who opened his heart to him with a child-like smile, keeping him awake for so many nights after jumping to his death?
Unknown to everyone, Dazai's heart wasn't ice cold. Oh, it was far from that. It was so warm, it was on fire. A fire that consumed him and everyone around him, mercilessly burned his insides, but no trail of smoke would ever show itself on the outside. Even so, it burned with such a dreadful yet silent rage that getting any close to Dazai meant getting bruised forever. Everyone feared him as much as he also feared and despised himself and the monster he had forced himself to become.
That fire, though, burned solely for one person who breathed in the same filthy, fake world as him. For that person only, it would come out as pure, soothing warmth, like the calming fire burning inside the furnace on a freezing cold winter night.
The unthinkable depravity of the Mafia boss' soul, for the first time, would show itself in the form of tenderness.
At the sight of those honey-brown eyes only, his masks would shatter one by one, like glass colliding with the floor; instead of a soulless, terrifying figure, they would reveal an adoring, warm smile. A childish and familiar way of speech, a way to recall the few moments that kept him going all those years, moments as silly as finding an unexploded bomb. Surprisingly gentle gestures and the embodiment of genuineness in his eyes.
A feeling of finally arriving home.
A feeling of love.
A life with someone you can say good-bye to is a good life, especially when it hurts so much to say it to them. Am I wrong?
Odasaku was so loved. So painfully, incredibly loved. But he will never know that.
If he had the chance to go back in time and change his words, would anything be different now?
Oda doesn't give Atsushi any answer. The two of them can only stand together by the grave, not saying a word, silently sharing their impossible to comprehend kinds of torment. Just like a mentor watching over his equally troubled student.
In the following days, though, something changes. Every week, Oda can be seen spending a few hours in the same spot, sometimes reading a book, other times smoking a cigarette while contemplating things no one will ever know about, with his head leaned back against the lonely grave of Dazai Osamu, a weirdly familiar presence. The man who loved him far beyond the boundaries of life and death, enough to bend the laws of nature itself in a desperate attempt to make things right and see the other happy and alive. A love bigger than the world itself, one that will keep on living through Oda fulfilling his dream.
That particular evening after their farewell, the moon happened to be incredibly beautiful and bright. Hopefully, the next lifetime will have more mercy on them.