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Nature's first green is gold
"Shuji!" a tall woman with dark brown, wavy hair called out. In her hands was a small blue box wrapped with dark blue ribbons. Her eyes held a mischievous glint as she held the box behind her. A young boy, no older than six or seven, bound down the stairs towards his mother. Covering the boy's arms and torso were band-aids upon band-aids, and the wavy brown hair that was so similar to his mother's bounced as he walked. "What is it, Mama?"
"Tada!"
The woman held out the blue gift box, which made the boy's eyes light up in curiosity. He gently picked it up, unwrapping carefully as to not damage the box. The woman watched, grinning from ear to ear. The boy opened the lid and took out something. It was a crab plushy. His eyebrows raised, mouth unable to stop itself from cracking into a smile.
The boy could hardly contain himself; it was the best day ever. He tackled his mother, pinning her into a hug. His mother responded with a light chuckle, pleased at the reaction. "Do you like it?" she asked softly, hugging her son back. He felt like the happiest human on Earth.
He nodded, burying his face in the hug to hide his huge grin.
Her hardest hue to hold
"M-mama?!"
The boy was older, but not by much. His eyes were wide, twitching at the sight in front of him. His fingers dug into the crab plushy he was hugging. Well, what was left of the plushy, which was just its left claw and a few bits of stuffing.
It felt as if the weather was feeling the same as the boy, because the pitter-pattering of rain was the only thing keeping him somewhat ground to reality. The moon was covered, so it was almost pitch black inside the Tsushima household. The boy wished it was pitch black. Maybe he wouldn't have to see the atrocious thing in front of him.
The silhouette was twisted and mangled. It was disgusting. Crimson seeped through the hardwood floors. The twitching of muscles that haven't died with its owner yet was the only thing moving. The boy's breathing was quick and shallow, as if the air was going to run away if he didn't breathe it in fast enough. He couldn't move. He knew he should move, get out, maybe even call the police, but he couldn't. His body tensed at the sudden light.
Through the glass window and semi-transparent, grey tapestries, the sun started to rise. The black sky turned purple, then blue. Light enveloped the sky, as well as the room around the boy. He turned back. His stomach felt like it had been put in a mixer.
It looked so much worse.
Nobody was moving. The blood around their wounds were clotting, giving them a somewhat gel-like texture. Skin was sliced, tendons severed, foam erupted from their mouths. The boy could see the squirming of his mother's insides, while his father's heart was veiny, soaking the newly-bought, white carpet. The arteries were still connected, but the heart was firmly in the woman's hands. The sound of calming rain was drowned by the angry, violent heartbeats. The sounds were too loud, causing the boy to slam his hands on his ears in protest. Too loud, too loud ..
Badump, badump, badump, badump, badump, badump, badump, badump, badump, badump
He drew a shaky breath, muttering incoherently under his breath. Not that he could even hear himself.
Badumpbadumpbadumpbadumpbadumpbadumpbadumpbadumpbadump-
Sausage-like intestines covered in sickening red spilled from the boy's father's huge gash, presumably made by the shiny kitchen knife that was strewn and forgotten nearby. The woman's hand was wrapped around the man's neck but no longer connected to her own body. Where her arm originally connect with her body was now pulsating, blood churning out rhythmically, in a pattern. Their hearts were beating. Their lungs were breathing.
They were still alive.
The woman was much less injured, so with a lurch, she yanked hard on the squishy, sticky tube that was her husband's small intestine. The man didn't have the voice to scream in pain. He saw his digestive system in the hands of his wife.
Was that .. his stomach? His intestines? His blood?
The man leapt forward, much to his wounds' discontent. His hand grabbed the knife that was drenched in his very own blood and stabbed her right in the eye. The woman had enough air to scream.
The boy watched. He hated it but couldn't turn away. His ears rung from his mother's deafening shriek. When would it be over?
Her eye. Oh, her eye.
The woman's eye was gouged out, falling to the ground with a sticky plop. It rolled towards the young boy, leaving a trail of blood and salty water. The eyeball's pupils dilated, a light glaze appearing over. It stared straight through the boy, who couldn't bear to meet its gaze.
Ten minutes later, the wet pump of blood from the hearts of both husband and wife stopped. The boy wished his heart would do the same. Oh, how the boy despised fate for doing such a thing. It was the first time he thought fate was truly, truly a cruel thing. If only he knew of the future.
The pile of anger and sorrow and disgust all mixed into a giant blob of nothingness. The boy no longer felt .. anything, really. He felt nothing, like the most vile monster one could ever imagine. More twisted than the mangled bodies of his parental guardians. More corrupted than any human, which was saying a lot. In fact ..
He didn't feel like he could call himself human. Perhaps he'd earn his humanity back one day. But the boy was no longer human.
-
"Would you like to come with me?"
The man in front of him had black, shoulder-length hair. His eyes held a dangerous glint, and he wore white clothes one might see a family doctor wearing. The boy gazed up with eyes that lacked luster and a stiff smile. He knew this was stupid, but he didn't now what else to do.
He had no one to live for, so who cared if he died with this mysterious man?
"Sure," the boy responded curtly.
Her early leaf's a flower
"Eh?? Why do I have to work with that slug?!"
"Oi, who're you calling a slug, you stupid mackerel!!"
The boy now wore a black suit and a lot more bandages than band-aids. He appeared to be a teenager now, and was yelling at a short, hot-headed ginger with a fancy hat. The two started arguing about nothing and everything, constantly jabbing each other with their elbows. "I'm only fifteen. I'm still growing, dammit!"
Nobody knew, even himself, but the smallest hint of light appeared in the boy's eyes once more. Sometimes, just sometimes, were the smiles he wore were less forced than usual.
"Sorry Dazai-san ..," said the young, pale (though growing paler by the second) boy. The older of the two gave a harsh glare, making the other flinch, but then he stopped.
He was in too good of a mood to give such a harsh glare.
It was something the boy had never felt in a long time, and he didn't dislike it like he thought he would. He wanted .. to do something good, because he was feeling good.
"Just .. try again," he responded to his apprentice, who immediately perked up after realizing he was being let off the hook for his mistake. He tried again.
And he did good this time.
The boy was pleasantly surprised at the outcome of his apprentice. He was doing .. very well today. For what reason, though?
"Not bad. Keep the good work up, Akutagawa."
The younger boy practically lit up, like the horizon during sunrise. He quickly contained his emotions, but the lingering feeling of pride still surrounded the boy's apprentice.
The boy still thought his apprentice could be much better. That he was still weak. That he lacked the necessary cognitive abilities to keep up with any competent opponent.
But for now, that didn't matter.
They say smiles are contagious. It seems they proved themselves right in the boy's life for once, even if only for a moment.
"Hey, hey, Odasaku!" The boy practically skipped across the bar, facing an older man with a brown trench coat and light stubble. The older man in question smiled. "You're awfully jumpy today."
"Yeah, because I had to work with that annoying slug! Ugh, just thinking about him makes me sick," the bandaged said, dramatically fake-barfing. While the two were talking, another man with thin-rimmed glasses entered, ordering himself a tomato juice.
The shining crescent hung low in the sky. Streetlamps flickered, their yellow light blinking uncertainly. The whiskey in the boy's stomach did not affect him the way it did to others, but he didn't care. Alcohol tended to make things hazy, and slow.
The boy wanted to remember, for once.
But only so an hour
"Odasaku!"
Orange sunlight flooded the room. The man's stomach was sticky with blood. The boy, now at the age of adulthood, raced to the bleeding man. He was technically a man as well, but ..
The boy kneeled down. Blood soaked his now wet and tainted hands as he cradled the furrowed face of the man he adored as if his very own father ..
Badump, badump, badump ..
The boy's breathing hitched. The man twitched in pain, moving something, but the boy wasn't focusing. He couldn't. He heard it again. Was it the man's? He felt like he was eight again, watching, feeling, hearing-. It was too loud. Too loud, too loud-
Badump
Badump
Badump
badump badump badump badump badump badump badump badump badump badump badump badump badump badump badump badump badump
badumpbadumpbadumpbadumpbadumpbadumpbadumpbadumpbadumpbadumpbadump-
"Dazai."
It stopped.
Everything refocused. The boy could see out of both eyes again. He could see every quaking breath, every strand of hair. The slow breathing of his father figure grounded him. Not that it would last long.
"Be on the good side," the man croaked out. "If both sides are bad, be a good person."
The man stroked the boy's head comfortingly, as if everything was going to be alright. His eyes shone brighter than a thousand stars, as if grateful for just being alive.
Then they dulled, like when one suddenly flicks the light switch.
Eyes are the window to the soul.
The man's hand fell limp. His chest stopped moving soon after. But his mouth still curved upwards, even if for the slightest bit. Only the shaky breaths of the boy could be heard. The sun had completely set by now, and the world was filled in darkness as the brightest star humans called the sun set.
But the boy's sun would never rise again.
He was slightly grateful for the darkness. No one could see his face. The boy had once vowed never to allow the salty water to trickle down his cheeks ever again. But he had to make an exception.
Was it fate once again? Was it fate that brought closer the inevitability of death upon his comrades, as if he was a puppet whose life they manipulated for the sole purpose of entertainment?
How cruel, toying with what little remained of his emotions.
Perhaps this was for the better. Now, the boy had no exploitable weakness. Now, he had a reason to leave.
The boy wiped his face haphazardly. It was not the time to dwell on this.
Be on the good side. If both sides are bad, be a good person. The boy would act upon the man's last wishes. He shouldn't have been the subject of the last wishes of someone as good as the man, but he is.
It was getting late. The boy ought to get back 'home' soon.
But he wouldn't forget. He couldn't if he wanted to.
Then leaf subsides to leaf
"Dazai! Let's go on this mission together!"
The boy, now much older, wearing the trench coat of his former friend, turned to the voice. The speaker had lopsided, white hair and a big, enthusiastic smile. "Sure," the boy responded, giving an equally big but strained smile.
The mission was a piece of cake. The boy and his companion solved it fairly fast.
It starkly reminded the boy of an earlier, darker time. When he wore a bandage over his eye, and was on good (about as good as one could get) terms with a certain gravity manipulator. Those two did everything together. Missions were fun, and a way to relax. They ate together. Argued together. Fought together. Lost together.
The boy hated those times, but he loved those times.
Ever since he went to the lighter side, it's never been the same. Perhaps he's been tainted too much, and can no longer be purified. Perhaps he was never meant to be on this side in the first place.
"Hey, why don't we get some ice cream on the way back?" The white-haired friend asked, grinning at how they managed to solve the case relatively quickly.
.. Yes, ice cream did sound good at the moment.
"Sure."
Going on a mission with his funny-haired friend was fun. They talked, laughed, and solved. The boy had a wide smile on his face. That meant he was happy, right?
So Eden sank to grief
"Oh my, looks like you caught me."
Guns pointed at the terrorist, who was smiling as if he was a waiter that just got tipped. The boy, not much older since last time, glanced at the Russian. That rat was the reason he and his coworkers were busy, fighting with the mafia. The reason they were in a state of conundrum and chaos. The reason they weren't hanging at the agency together, complaining about paperwork or something else unimportant.
"Hello to you too, Dostoyevsky," the boy responds coolly, turning his gaze elsewhere. The rat didn't deserve being looked at. Not after all that was disturbed because of him.
A soldier walked up to the Russian, grabbing onto him, before exploding in a fit of blood. Other soldiers gasped and gawked, while the boy sat there, unamused and slightly regretful for not saying anything sooner.
He knew in the back of his mind that that was not his's ability. It was an ability, the boy knew, but it wasn't distinctly the terrorist rat's. He had a sneaking suspicion of his ability, but there was no evidence. Plus, if his suspicion was right, then the world may be doomed if he died.
But the boy still wanted to die.
He was sick of this: feeling comfortable, then something or someone ruining it. He was sick of it, and sick of everyone's shenanigans, and sick of the Port Mafia, and sick of the Agency, and sick of life-
He cut himself off. "Be careful not to touch him," the boy said towards the still alive soldiers, knowing full well how touch didn't affect anything. "Now take him away."
It was great that the soldiers listened and actually took him away.
The boy sighed once the terrorist was out of his view. The situation was .. mostly resolved. Now things could go back to the way it was, before the arrival of the House of Rats.
But it wouldn't really be quite the same after this, would it?
He was tired of all the conflicts and fights. He wanted to rest. And plus ..
Did it really matter whether his side won or lost?
So dawn goes down to day
"HJUir8u49hwiy*HUJIKf?" the boy asked.
He was in a transparent box that was floating .. somewhere. His box stood right in front of another, which happened to have a certain terrorist that the boy disliked, so to speak. The two wore plain white garments, the boy still having some of his bandages.
"HIJfkre jugjiakrjaeu iroiw9qo29r3w9 t3qwiods," the terrorist responded. They appeared to be somehow communicating through the weird jumble of letters that looked as if someone slammed their head on their keyboard. The boy seemed amused at the Russian's response, giving out a light chuckle.
He was in no way happy from the answer he got. But he still gave a laugh, because that was what he was known for.
Smile, laugh, play it off. Joke around, slack off, appear incompetent.
It was the role the boy played, the role he would continue playing.
-
The boy vaguely remembered a time he was truly happy. It was like a long lost dream he wanted so bad, he constantly tried to fall asleep forever. He used to have a mother. He used to have a father. He used to have a house, and genuine friends that he never even considered may be trying to use him.
But he was also weak at that time. So perhaps it was better he hardened up so early. If he didn't he wouldn't be able to communicate with the rat like he did now, or even understand a mere millimeter of how he viewed society and abilities.
The light of his early youth had almost all but faded. The boy was twenty-two now, almost twenty-three. If he was a rose in full bloom in the past, he would be thorny and wilting by now. His colour would be desaturated, his stem weak and drooping.
But wilting or not, a rose was a rose. Some people picked wilting roses, for the sake of clearing their lawn. And some picked wilting roses for the sake of picking a rose.
Nothing gold can stay
"Urgh, this is just the worst!!! I'm losing to Dostoyevsky AND I'm being killed by Chuuya, of all people?!"
The boy whined, his shoulder bleeding and a gun being pointed to his forehead. Sure, he was whining like a little baby, but his heart was beating at the speed of light, and he didn't have the energy to slow it down. Humour was his best coping mechanism at times like these.
This was it, really. One might expect some crazy trick where the one shooting wasn't actually being controlled and only pretending to be. But no. He had no plan left. He was two steps ahead, but his opponent was four steps ahead, and the consequences came to bite him back. He was going to die by the hands of his former partner in the mafia, and by a Russian terrorist. Just wonderful.
The boy's hands shivered, not from the cold, and he was glad that they were hidden behind him and that the cameras probably wouldn't detect something that subtle. He always joked about dying, not that it really was a joke, but death scared him. Sure, it was fascinating as well, but it was scary.
For eons and millennia, human beings have had a fear of the unknown, which is a part of the reason why humans know so much in this day and age.
The boy .. wasn't human. Even at his deathbed, he could not be classified as such an abhorrent creature. That goes without saying, the boy wasn't less of an abomination as the beings known as homo sapiens, perhaps even more so. He could never quite be described human, and yet .. he still shared an attribute with those creatures.
Fear of the unknown.
The boy despised the fact that he still held such an attribute, but it never quite left, even as the light kept dimming. Perhaps it wasn't limited to only human beings. Perhaps the boy really had some humanity left in him.
.
.
.
Ha. No way.
As if the human in him hadn't died out ages ago.
-
The redhead's finger hovered over the trigger dangerously, as if daring to shoot. A part of the boy wishes that he would shoot already, so he wasn't left with all his thoughts and feelings. But nothing ever went his way without him interfering.
"Looks like you're all out of plans, Dazai," came a drawling voice from the intercom. The boy gave a slight smile; one that felt like a business smile but looked like a genuine one. "Perhaps if I say some sappy words, Chuuya will snap out of his vampire trance," the boy joked, knowing full well that miracles like that could never happen in real life. In a movie, maybe. But life wasn't sunshine and rainbows.
"If you think that'll help, then please, go ahead," said the sinister voice of the terrorist rat.
The boy felt like he was being mocked. Perhaps the rat had a bit of humanity unlike himself and let him do one last thing that he desires before meeting his untimely death.
.. How benevolent of him.
The boy started speaking some sappy gibberish one might find in a fairytale. In the back of his mind, he thought that these words would be awful last words, but it didn't really matter. No one would care enough to make a grave or tomb for him. He was just the happy-go-lucky, lazy coworker who happened to die.
Maybe it was karma. All the souls of the people the boy killed back when he was in the mafia were coming back to haunt him, kill him, and drag him to the deepest pit in hell, where he would be chained and face eternal torment. The boy was not looking forward to that. But it wasn't as if he didn't deserve it.
The boy vaguely thought about how his other coworkers were doing. Would they know they were in his very last thoughts before his soul parted with his body? There was still the vampire breakout. Would they be able to stop things from going haywire, let alone survive?
Hopefully. The boy got attached to them, unfortunately.
He hated that it was that certain ginger that would be he one killing him. He was one of the few people he truly confided in, and one of the few people who the boy has known the longest.
He thought about the damn rat. He only managed to hurt his arm a bit, and at the cost of his life. How uneventful and weak he was. The boy remembered the look on the terrorist's face when the code didn't work and the room started filling with water. The leader of the House of Rats, the Conjurer, was scared. Of just some water.
The boy hated that his theory was coming true. That the rat's ability may actually be ..
Because he was about to die. And the world could be doomed once he dies, because no one else could stop the terrorist. And he would become more than just a terrorist.
..
But did it really matter what happened to the world? To Earth? To fate? Fate was the one who made him the was he is. The boy, the redhead, even the rats, were all controlled by fate. It was kind of sad.
Nothing anyone did was really out of their free will, was it? It was just the illusion of free will, made by the all-powerful, enigmatic fate.
Everything he ever wanted would be taken away. That was a fact that the boy lived by. He didn't care if he lived or died anymore. He wasn't even in control.
So, he spoke.
Pain flared in his shoulder and leg, but he spoke like the lead actor in the play of life.
"Chuuya. Snap out of it. Our story will not end here. Because we are destined to-"
BANG!
..
..
His eyes became hollower than usual. The sliver of light that he had desperately kept holding on for all those years finally slipped away. The last bit of energy was used to adorn the boy's face with an upwards curve called a smile- something he could never genuinely make anymore. The pain barely lasted a second, and the boy was grateful for that.
..
..
He never did become a man, did he?