Chapter Text
Dazai laid in bed and stared at the ceiling. The ceiling stared back. Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe Dazai was just too awake, too asleep, too far away. He blinked sluggishly, turning over to his other side.
Sleep didn’t come. It was taunting him. How could he be so awake yet so desperate for sleep? He spent his entire day waiting for the moment he could go to sleep again, yet now that the opportunity presented itself he couldn’t do it?
Dazai closed his eyes. His mind slowly wandered, spiraled, until it grasped onto that one thought. The one he couldn't get rid of, the one that haunted him. Why was he even still alive? He really should just kill himself. There is nothing for him here. All he does is wait. Wait till he can go home and sleep, wait till it’s weekend, wait till he’s dead. Why not speed up the process?
He already knew he was going to kill himself. It’s a truth that’s been etched into his collarbones, his soul. A promise he’s made to himself that he will fulfil.
Twisting, Dazai opens his eyes again. He really wants to sleep. And doesn’t he know just the way to do that? Just the way to get his mind to quiet down, just the way to feel real again?
But he shouldn’t. His skin was marked enough, and wasn’t it a bad thing? Shouldn’t he abstain from cutting himself? His mind is flooded by images of razors running along his arms, his thighs, his hips, his legs, his shoulders, his chest. His body is already so scarred. And he didn't mind. He thought they were beautiful, in a way. That they where proof. Proof of what, he wasn't sure. But they were proof all the same. So really, what’s a few more?
Dazai looked back up at the ceiling. It’s so easy. All he had to do is get up, grab his razor, and sit down somewhere. But his body is heavy. It's like gravity is pulling him down, sticking him to his mattress, the sheets a prison.
Pulling all his willpower together, Dazai sits up. And now that he’s up, it isn’t so difficult to stand up and walk over to his drawer. In the back, behind stacks of office supplies and other random bullshit, sits his razor, gauze, bandages, some paper towels, disinfectant and medical tape. He gathers it all into his hands.
He can feel himself floating away from his body. The actions he’s performing become almost mechanical. His emotions disappear completely, and so does the exhaustion.
Dumping the stuff on his desk, Dazai sits down on his desk chair. Peeling his pants off and pulling his underwear up, Dazai gazes down at the skin. It’s already marred with intersecting white lines. He runs his hand over them, feeling their texture.
He watches as he grabs the razor blade and digs in before pulling. The pain puls him back in. He pushes the razor blade in again before pulling.
The vivid, red blood spilled trough the cracks in his skin, the cracks in his mind. He ran the razor along his thigh again, feeling the skin pull and give way, feeling it split open. More blood beaded before joining the rest of the blood to pool on his thigh.
His face is expressionless as he watches, dragging the razor along his thigh once more, this time in the opposite direction. More blood spills. More red. More pain to pull him out of his mind. He blinks. More red appears. He feels connected to his body again. Though cutting himself did make him feel connected to himself, it made him feel disconnected from the world. But it was better than being disconnected from both. What purpose is there to life when you’re not living it? Cutting himself was better than committing suicide, he figures.
As he runs his blade along his thigh again, Dazai ponders why he hasn’t just killed himself yet. In a way, he’s scared. Scared of something he can’t quite grasp. Because he knows death will be kind, and he knows it’d be for the good of others, but he just- he can’t. Dazai rolls his eyes in frustration, grabbing a piece of paper towel and wiping at the blood to clear it. He looks down at the mess he’d made of his thigh with vague satisfaction. He felt like he was floating above.
After wiping the knife on the paper towel too, Dazai grabbed the gauze and put it over the wounds, sticking it in place with some medical tap before wrapping it with bandages. The process was soothing and helped him come back to earth slightly. Yet, once he was done, he still felt the itch, the gnawing emptiness.
With a sigh, Dazai manoeuvred so he had access to his other thigh and dug in. Beautiful red blood soon flowed from the gashes, decorating his pale thighs. The dim lighting making the scene less intense, though it did nothing to dull the pain.
This time, Dazai cut and cut and cut till half his thigh was covered. Once he finally felt like it was enough, he dapped them dry with the paper towel and put some disinfectant on them. He wrapped them with bandages after putting some gauze on.
With a groan, Dazai got up and walked over to his bed, dropping in and closing his eyes. He savoured the pain in his thighs and smiled. Sleep came soon.