Work Text:
What are we, really, but a product of our own imaginations?
What facets of our personalities truly exist ? Do we not simply create, and create and create and create, bringing figures to life, fabricating an ideal person in our minds, and embodying them until we’re not sure which way is up, which way is right, and how to behave like a human being? For that matter, are we even sure human beings have life? Are we even real? Or do we simply dream, and live in our dream worlds, fiction and unreality and broken stories until we can’t dream any longer? What truly makes somebody a person? Am I a person? Are you a person? Is the old lady you always see shopping a person? I don’t know. I don’t know if I want to know. Humanity is a dark, deep, black hole, and while I find myself fascinated by it and its true meaning, I fear that if I get too close, I might fall, tumbling down and down and down with no end in sight.
Dazai types all of this in less than a minute. He stares at his computer. It seems to stare back. Maybe he’s dying of radioactive waves, he thinks. That would be amazing if he was.
He deletes it all. No point in getting sent to the guidance counselor over a dumb project like this one, thank you very much. There’s only so much wallpaper to analyze in her office before it gets boring.
The school is empty at this point. It’s nearing eight, and the sky is already dark outside, and they’re pretty sure they’re the only person left in this entire building. Suits him well enough, although inconvenient that it happens at nighttime. When it’s this dark out, there’s no shadow for them to miss. It’s during the day that things get weird.
Maybe the Matrix truly had been onto something. How do we know we’re really living life the way it was intended? How do we know that the flow of time wasn’t disrupted years ago, breaking us off into an alternate timeline that was never intended to happen? What then? To me, that seems entirely plausible. But then again, all of this might just be caused by my inability to exist in society like everybody else does. I just don’t understand. How can one simply sit there and go through school, get a job, get a partner, and then just- die, once it’s all over? I don’t really see a point in an existence like that. I don’t know what kind of existence I would see a point in, though. I don’t consider myself an “existence” kind of person. It’s all rather gray for me, if I’m being honest. And figuring out what the afterlife really is sounds much more interesting than staying alive on this horrible, horrible planet.
…all of this is dependent on me actually being real, though.
Delete, delete, delete. He lets his head swing back and smack the wall harshly. There’s not a sound. Man, why can’t he just find an opening to this essay? It was a relatively easy question for the class, although now they’re wondering why they even decided to take Philosophy. It’s definitely not something they’re interested in.
No, there’s only one thing they’re interested in, and it’s a short, angry redhead with the clearest blue eyes Dazai has ever seen. There’s a smattering of freckles across his shoulders and nose, and he’s always yelling at him, but he’s always smiling when he does it, and he knows it’s with love. Because the two of them are in love. They’re dating, and he’s possibly the most real thing that Dazai’s ever done.
Maybe they could write their essay on Chuuya. Surely he’d get mad, though? He’s always telling Dazai to shut up about him, even when he just wants to sing his love from the rooftops. He never would, though, because then he’d get the urge to step off the roof, which would lead to another reset, and then he’d have to find another kindly man to take him in as an orphan, because Odasaku certainly won’t do it twice in a row.
Huh. This is so hard. He’s almost surprised by it.
Sometimes I find myself wondering about the meaning behind “emotions”. I don’t quite understand them. Do we all feel them? Every single one of us? Do we all sit in our beds late at night and think about all of our emotions, and how strongly we feel them? I certainly don’t. I’ve only ever felt one thing, I’m quite sure, and it’s just a strong, unbreakable love for Chuuya Nakahara, who you won’t know, because he’s not real, either, just like me. He and I are the same, did you know? Fake. Unreal. Not-existing. I am just a figment of his imagination, and he’s a figment of mine. But where did our imaginations originate from? They must have come from somewhere. Did another person imagine the both of us, and then our own imaginations fed off of each other to create two unreal people, both living an unreal existence? It sounds absurd, even to me, and I’m the one living it. All of this just cements my beliefs that we’re not real. People are not people. There’s no way they are, not when Chuuya isn’t, because Chuuya’s the most human person I’ve ever met. He likes to call himself the monster. Did you know that? He tells me that, and then I laugh and laugh and laugh, because it’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard, because how could he be the monster when it’s so clearly me?
Neither of us are even real, and we’re already calling ourselves monsters. Maybe we’re more real than I had originally established.
Now, this is more like it. Unfortunately, a paragraph of Dazai’s ramblings about a fake person won’t cut it, and the worst-case scenario would be getting sent to an actual doctor, rather than just his guidance counselor. Life would be so much easier if Odasaku hadn’t forced him to go to school! Sometimes, Dazai wishes he’d showed up on Kouyou’s doorstep, completely dry despite the rain, shadowless despite the sun, alive despite his unexistence. Chuuya had gotten lucky with somebody who let him just go to the arcade and learn to fight. Dazai loves Odasaku, though. He wouldn’t trade him for the world. Even if this school thing is a nuisance.
“Oi, shithead, what are you doing here?” Chuuya walks down the hallway, one second empty, the next second not. He slams his heels into the floor, but the hall stays silent. “Thought you weren’t allowed after five.”
“As if they’d catch me,” Dazai bites back. “I’m not real, remember?” He quickly stuffs his computer in his bag, swinging it over his shoulder and standing up. “I’m basically immortal, Chuu-ya. Unfortunately.”
Chuuya snorts. “Sure, idiot. Now c’mere. I wanna go to that ice cream place you suggested.”
“Right now?? It’s, like, dark out!”
“So? Don’t tell me you’re scared of a little shadow,” he laughs. “Actually, that would make sense. You don’t have one to get used to.”
“Hey! Neither do you, slug.”
“I’m not complaining about it, though,” Chuuya says, looping an arm around Dazai’s neck and pulling him close. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Dazai replies, breathless. The kiss they press to his lips is soft and gentle, domestic and full of love, love that isn’t real. There’s no body heat coming from Chuuya’s body. Dazai doesn’t care. He’s not emitting any, either.
They make a funny pair, don’t they? Walking down the hallway like that, acting enamored and in love. They’re as physically close as they can be, feet trailing shadowless underneath them. There are no scuff marks on the floor. If you really look closely, you’ll be able to make out the fading wisps of Chuuya’s hair. Yes, Dazai thinks, we’re really quite a funny pair. Pretending to be touching. Pretending to be in love.
Pretending to be real.