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A persistence to sustain life within oneself was a battle a battalion couldn’t handle. Not when what kept oneself running fought against them. Not when one surrounded themself in carnage and loss of that precious something.
Being made up of killings and brutality tended to take a toll on a person—on any person with shreds of rationality still left in shards inside them. The shrapnel pierced, and it left the will to continue bleeding.
Dazai bled every waking moment.
Their hands were filthy, their soul bruised, and what did that leave them with? He didn’t want this—he didn’t like this. He’d go as far as to say he’d much prefer a different path.
Oh, but flowers too obscured from the gold of Life’s light would wither in its luminance, wasn’t that right?
Bred and born into the Mafia, there was nothing else left for Dazai to be but this. Their first words were etched in what would be their last, solidifying what fate they were reduced to. There was nowhere for him to go but further down.
Then came another petal. No, not of his brethren—his grandfather made certain that would be an impossibility. Never before had he seen this color. It was vibrant, and it was knowing. It saw through Dazai with just a peek—he couldn’t explain how that made him feel just yet.
Another fell, and Dazai trailed after it.
They were always a curious child—better said, a child too punished with knowledge. They were given the ends of worlds in their mind, and it was what left them alone in this life. Knowing more than anyone left one a spector. Never to touch upon reality but to watch it unfold. If he so much as brushed against it, he’d wreak havoc, he felt certain. What he touched fell to ruin.
But that petal… It was too lonesome to not pick up. They examined it; they pocketed it.
Oh, he had taken a misstep. He shouldn’t have placed his touch where it didn’t belong.
“Who are you?” a voice questioned. Untethered from polite inquiry, the voice asked without reservation.
Dazai remained unmoved at its tone. Wasn’t the story meant to play out differently? Those who spoke to him knew of him, wasn’t that right?
No one spoke to the demon child.
But this keeper of petals so bright dared to. And it dared to do it again. “Hello? Anyone in there?” it said, impatience hooked in its words.
Dazai opened his mouth, and nothing was said. The endeavor took too long, and he promptly shut it. There was no winning that battle this day. Instead, he unveiled his found treasure—ah, that petal.
Dazai looked at who gave him their voice, and found another boy. A taller boy, with hair the mirror of night, and eyes composed of viridian glass. Dazai had seen that color before.
Biblical depictions adorning the walls, sun blinding as it passed through Christ and His disciples whilst the family Dazai blinked into withered away, one by one. Before the last ceremony, Dazai waited for his own casket to close upon his body—but as it was, he was the last to remain standing. The last to see that stained glass and the forsaken cross.
The boy’s brows fell as Dazai gazed at him further, and something there seemed to settle—sand filling a glass and the last speck had rested. “I know you,” he whispered.
Dazai was right—he was always right. The story from here on played out in his mind. The boy would flinch from him, and he’d run. He’d run and hide because this child was a killer. Never did anyone know what he’d done to be here—to live. But they had their suspicions, and they had their rumors. They were correct without knowing it.
“What are you doing down here?”
Oh. More questions.
No, that couldn’t be right.
But it was happening. Dazai looked away as it unraveled.
“Mm, not much of a talker, huh? I get that way sometimes,” the other spoke. Did he understand? His cadence rang its truth, that there was equal footing here.
Dazai returned his way, and the boy let out a hum. “The doctor is the one who told me about you.”
Dazai didn’t understand, which wasn’t usual for him. Which doctor had said his name?
“But he doesn’t know you,” the boy explained. “Just the boss’s grandson.”
Ah.
That petal was brighter than Dazai had first believed.
“Weird, huh?” the older murmured. “When it’s so obvious.”
Weird, it all indeed was.
“I won’t tell him. Knowing what kid he’s saved from suicide won’t end well for you.”
Did this boy too comprehend the fate befallen upon Dazai? To be born into ruin was to fall in it, and Dazai was ever ready to leap. He only delayed the inevitable, this boy, by keeping his observations to himself. Dazai figured it was only a matter of time before the boy told—Dazai was surely only in the way.
No heir, nothing left to stand in the way of others and that throne. That jagged, encrusted throne.
Soon, this boy would realize the best course of action to take. Dazai decided to wait.
“You might as well sit down with me. You can’t hurt me being all bone and injured anyway,” the boy offered. Dazai realized he hadn’t placed enough attention on the rest of the other kid. His arm rested in a cast, his right cheek covered in gauze. Some scratches clipped over his face. Dazai held one of his own arms in response—the stitches lined there; he knew this pain.
“I can’t hurt you either, see?” he lifted his casted arm. But the more Dazai hesitated, the less patience the teen had. “Ugh,” he groaned, his head leaning back against the wall behind him. “You’ll give in eventually.”
He may not have been mistaken. Dazai was tired.
When wasn’t he?
Their bones quivered beneath their skin, their legs on the brink of giving out after their interlude of a walk around the hidden doctor’s office. Dazai studied the other, his relaxed demeanor and his scratched up cheeks—he was older than Dazai, and yet so young. They decided they weren’t wary of him.
Taking a step towards the boy’s cot, the boy’s face perked up with glee. Lonesome petals perhaps they both were.
⚔︎
Nothing here was new.
Nothing surprised him.
Nothing here that he hadn’t been expecting.
But never did that mean it didn’t hurt them. A wound to the chest so small, felt as if needles were piercing through his bloodstream. They didn’t dare allow themself tears—so gentle were the salty streams they’d once known. Too gentle for a demon child. And still, it hurt.
It hurt, it hurt—it was unbearable.
Yet he did—beared it. He would continue to—
“Oi, wake up. Kid,” came a whisper, urgent and despaired.
Dazai couldn’t traverse through the thick smog, the images he never wanted to see closing in as they persisted.
A child, and then another, and then two more, gone. Thrown into the arms of death, and Dazai wondered if they were sweet. A torment unending was all that held them here, and they were then released. Dazai didn’t know then how much he’d want it now. To join them, and to be let go.
To join…
“Kid!” Hands shook him relentlessly, until his eyes snapped to life. They attempted to grab hold of the hands touching their skin, but they escaped. “Hey,” the voice quietly reprimanded.
Dazai scoured for the source, landing upon the young boy that had invited a demon inside.
The petals, they reminded themself. Seeing as there was not much point in ‘resting’ more, Dazai sat up, keeping safe distance from the other.
“A nightmare, hm,” the boy hummed, unquestionably. Did he tend to release his observations without room for being doubted often? Dazai couldn’t see it being any other way, and so the belief solidified.
A murmur caught Dazai’s attention, quiet as it was. “I have them too.” Wide eyes kept to the other’s face, until the boy snorted. “You look so lost right now. Did you think you were the only one?”
Dazai couldn’t say for certain, could he? What measurement did he hold for such a thing? Living night dreams that had been the memories he couldn’t bury. Did many experience tragedies every passing night?
Did they too avoid slumber because of it?
“Anyway,” the boy burrowed on, “they’re nothing worth worrying about. It’s not where you are now, is it?”
The boy kept a manner of which his words kept to—without care and airy. And seconds passed before it fell, crumbling before he could catch it.
“Oh…” he whispered. “It’s those, I see.”
For the first time since they arrived here, Dazai opened their scratched throat, parched of life and wilted of air. “Those?” he croaked.
His companion’s eyes flew open. “You can speak again.”
A cumbersome hesitation halted Dazai before nodding. They didn’t quite feel enough energy to form words, yet they tried.
But that exhaustion hadn’t lifted with sleep.
The older hummed, before a smile overcame him. It spoke of hidden views, things Dazai could not see but were only privy to the young boy in front of him. He was curious over the sights. “Those, don’t you know what I mean?” the boy asked, smile settling for a neutral something.
Dazai had a cynical rebuttal, for a question with an apparent response, but he held himself—for reasons he couldn’t propose.
Once again, the other’s smile gleamed with a knowledge Dazai didn’t know he’d been handing him. He then leaned toward Dazai, Dazai repressing the urge to lean away. “You get visited by them, at night?”
Eyes held open, so harshly they seared with what they took in, Dazai felt his head slowly fall.
A visit seemed such a harmless act, one something did with family. Wasn’t that right? A visit for the holidays Dazai read about, to come together and celebrate. Festive and wonderful was the feeling, he supposed.
Such a word didn’t fit, as they came to solemnly know.
Dazai was haunted. Dazai was tormented by their souls and the blood their cold bodies had shed.
They remembered playing with jigsaw puzzles and guns of metal, and they remembered strewn away children. Children who were never kids, not really.
Dazai didn’t utter a word, but the boy nodded. Nodded with understanding, but Dazai was certain he hadn’t gleaned in so far, so deeply. They just knew.
“Can’t run from them, but…” the other muttered, Dazai unable to face him, face what another saw within them, “your demons…remind me of mine.”
Heart struck, paused upon its own beating, Dazai’s head arose, claiming a fearful and surely ignorant hope to share this with another. How could anyone understand? He could only view it as an impossibility, and nothing else fit the image in his mind.
It didn’t fit, it didn’t fit…
And their mouth opened to negate, to argue, perhaps to snap back as they spiraled out of control, but a hand was laid in their sights—untouching but there.
“So it’s only logical I fight them both,” the boy grinned, and it held a warmth Dazai wasn’t allowed until right then—had never seen so up close. “Besides! I’m the best ability user around. I can fight them off no problem,” he proclaimed, quietly yet it rang so loudly in Dazai’s mind, the treetops inside shook with its fierceness.
Could his word be true? Dazai didn’t know this boy and didn’t that usually mean he should be fearful of the other? He was in the way, wasn’t he? He should be gone, and this boy should be the hand that did it—with that sight of his.
Dazai should be gone.
His beliefs were never mistaken—the boy that knew too much. Yet inside, there was nothing but the hope for this older boy to hold to that word—because Dazai hadn’t been able to save himself. No matter what he tried, the nightmares plagued his head, sickening his every step day after day.
“You don’t know me, I know,” the other idly stated, Dazai’s attention brought back to him with the thoughts they hadn’t spoken being placed into the world. “I’ll give you my name to hold over me,” he lightly offered—too lightly for Dazai’s comfort.
Dazai kept to the demonic face others placed upon them, figuring it was safer under there. To be feared, wasn’t that the plan—
“It’s Edogawa Ranpo,” he smiled. Such a simplistic raising of his lips, and Dazai feeling him further give himself to them—if not himself, then something Dazai felt they should cautiously cup in their damaged hands.
Glancing about the room, glancing at the place they’ve remained in together, empty other than just the two of them, Dazai carefully swallowed.
They murmured, waveringly with the danger gifted to the action, “My name is Dazai Osamu.”
Ranpo smiled brighter thereafter, almost as if this name were a precious jewel he’d never release again. “You’re never getting rid of me now, got that?”
Helplessly, Dazai giggled at such a silly statement. After all, nothing was ever set in stone, and nothing of his ever stayed. But Dazai still found himself softly nodding, with the wish that something here would cement.
That was difficult to break down. Cement.
Yes, he decided he wanted it to become hardened, unbreakable cement.
Ranpo snickered along with him, and in a moment, it was stolen from him. Dazai couldn’t hear a thing, but Ranpo’s eyes had trailed towards the door. Opposite of the one he had entered from the day before.
“Do you trust me?” Ranpo asked, eyes closed and hidden.
So much hidden from Dazai’s point of view, it should repel him—but it didn’t.
Dazai nodded.
A tiny lift of his lips was Ranpo’s response, and Dazai felt they made the correct presumption. “Get up and stand by the other door, and don’t say a word. Remember what I told you yesterday?”
Dazai didn’t need even a second to recall—the doctor had no assumptions over who Dazai was, and they were to keep it that way.
“Good,” Ranpo relaxed, gesturing with his uninjured arm for Dazai to get moving.
Scurrying to his feet, Dazai scuffled over to the door, legs frail as he moved, body aching as it turned. He didn’t count the seconds, but it couldn’t have even been a handful before the other door’s knob twisted open.
A man with straight, shoulder length inky hair in a doctor’s coat strode inside. He took in the room, the boy on the cot and the one by the entrance. “Ah, young man. I couldn’t find you in your room,” he greeted, smile polite, but Dazai didn’t like it.
Something there wasn’t all right.
They had in fact taken to roaming about the small doctor’s office yesterday after being sewn together, skipping over patients and criminals alike, until this room had called them inside, all of its own.
They had almost been tempted to stay put.
“Come, your stitches need to be checked,” the doctor informed. Dazai didn’t want to be touched any longer, but from the corner of his eye, a gesture from Ranpo told him it would be fine.
It would be okay.
With a taken breath, Dazai walked over to the doctor—Mori, said his nametag. Mori opened the door for him, a smile given to clueless children presented to Dazai. He knew better; saw a bit further.
“Mori-sensei,” Dazai muttered. The man hummed inquisitively. “I think my eye…something’s wrong with it.”
Mori blinked down at him, a brow raised confusingly. “Oh?”
Dazai nodded, not even having glimpsed up at the man since they’d roamed closer. “What I see is always a little off in this one eye.”
“Hm… Let’s have a look then,” Mori indulged, and the two slipped out of Ranpo’s room.
Ranpo, alone in his thoughts, in the world that made more sense, sighed. That little boy with his last little lie wouldn’t leave his mind, with the dullness of his skin and eyes. They shined for just a second, those sullied browns, didn’t they?
Ranpo wanted to see it again.