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Dazai had always believed he would remain alone. Completely alone in this vast world, where every person knows that their other half is waiting somewhere. Does that mean he was born whole? Of course not — it simply means he was born incomplete.
On Atsushi's wrist, Osamu had seen a dark blue ribbon that he carefully kept hidden under a glove, and on Kyouka’s wrist — a white one. How happy they must be — to have found each other.
Naomi’s wrist bore a fiery orange streak, which the girl didn’t even try to hide — on the contrary, she waved it in front of her beloved brother’s face. Could incest really be programmed by nature? Perhaps, judging by their happy faces.
“Lucky them.”
On his own wrist, Dazai saw only a dark stripe, frightening in how it looked like a seal of eternal loneliness. In the past, present, and future — a failed suicide sinks into darkness, and no living soul will offer him a glimmer of light.
“No one will.” thought Dazai. And yet — someone did.
On yet another gloomy day, when the birds outside screeched more annoyingly than the alarm clock, Osamu felt from the moment he woke up that something… unusual? Yes, unusual. Something unusual would happen.
Having decided not to go to the agency today, Dazai walked the streets, quietly whistling some forgotten tune, no longer paying attention to his surroundings, the noise, or the passersby.
But the image of one person had taken root in his mind.
A man, it seemed, sat beneath the shade of a tree — Dazai didn’t notice which kind. He sat, hunched over a book, occasionally turning the pages with slender pale fingers. His hair, black as a raven’s feathers, almost completely hid the thoughtful gaze of his amethyst eyes—eyes Dazai, the would-be suicide, would gladly drown in. Wouldn’t that be the most beautiful suicide of all?
The man didn’t mind a conversation.
Dazai noticed everything.
The black ribbon — something Osamu had long since resigned himself to — would no longer consume his thoughts. Its place was taken by the ribbon on this stranger’s wrist, a shade uncannily like the color of Dazai’s own hair.
The black streak wasn’t loneliness.
Just a soulmate… with dark hair.