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It was raining that night. Dazai leaned against a street lamp, idly watching the individual droplets of rain pelt down from out of the sky, illuminated a strange yellow by the light above, before plummeting below, joining their fellow fallen among the street floor.
A sigh escaped his lips. It could have been because of the smoke needing a release; the cigarette still burning in his left hand. It could have been the exhaustion that crushed down on him from every angle- or it could have been his own musings finally catching up to his brain. Who knew? Not Dazai, certainly.
Where was he?
He was stood at the corner of a street.
There was a bench about three metres away from him.
He was probably high.
His phone may or may not have been soaked through already, his Mori’s black coat wasn’t exactly waterproof.
Gently pushing his sleeve back, he slid a finger under the loose bandages he wound around his wounds last night, slender fingers brushing against the slightly raised red lines on his inner forearm. Running his fingers over every bump, feeling the sensation of scar tissue, the memory of how pretty they looked last night flooded through him, and he smiled. Just the corner of his lips upticking enough to classify as anything other than the neutral mask he wore like a crown. A death mask. How poetically fitting, he may have been a vagabond and tramp, disgrace to all, but he was certainly a wordsmith in his misery.
It wasn’t really smiling. He hadn’t smiled properly without a mask in… forever.
Regardless, he was left to wallow in his own thoughts, mind so cloudy it barely registered the burning sensation of a cigarette stub being put out on his arm. He couldn’t help but wrinkle his nose at the scent of burning hair and flesh, no matter how often he did this, it was not a thing he could ever easily accustom to.
Reaching into the coat pocket, he absentmindedly flicked open the phone- it was still usable despite the downpour, somehow, and he opened Messages, clicking on Chuuya’s contact.
-chibiiiiii
-chibi i miss youuu
He closed it, not expecting a response. It was around 2 in the morning, after all.
What a pointless thing life was. Time, dictating everything everyone does, people’s cruelty refusing to cease- why couldn’t he have just given up by now?
He had.
Why hadn’t his body, why hadn’t the kindness of strangers friends strangers people he knew finally relented?
Why wasn’t he dead?
Sluggish realisation creeping in- oh no, had he caught a disease from the redhead idiot slug he called his partner? Dazai noticed that he had no more cigarettes left. The pack was new, but he’d smoked through them already, leaving nothing other than that burning spice in the back of his throat, and the hope that this should bring him closer, closer to a human death.
Numbness drowned his emotions inside him. Something was so fundamentally incorrect in his brain, nerves had to be mixed up, they needed to send him back to Mori so he could stitch up his neural pathways in sick happiness, using Dazai, when did he ever just leave Dazai alone-
Would the waterfall of thoughts in his mind never cease? Yes they would. But there was only one way that would last longer than a temporary bliss, a short euphoria that nothing else had ever done for him. Feed him every drug and he’d take it with a smile, inject his blackened mafia blood with stimulant after stimulant
-ill mssi you
Because he knew Chuuya wouldn’t miss him.
And as he strolled through the rainy roads of Yokohama, he truly took in the sky, the trees- everything that nobody ever noticed, things that humans took for granted, things that after tonight, he hopefully never would see again.
-shitty dazai
-what the fuck have you done this time
-answer me
As always, his shipping container was cold.
Cold metal walls surrounded him. A cold metal floor at his feet.
And a cold metal blade, sharpened to subtlety so beautiful, Dazai most likely wouldn’t have noticed anything different about himself if it weren’t for the gorgeously stinging crimson, visibly flowing in rivulets from his left arm.
Differently gorgeous, he noted, to how he thought of Chuuya- his one gold, one ocean eyes, light of Dazai’s life when he felt human.
Was it wrong? To think of him while slicing his flesh to shreds?
His flesh. Maybe the only thing that truly ever belonged to him, for his sanity had left, and this shipping container was Mori’s. This coat was Mori’s.
Mori.
Seemingly everything about him led back to Mori- at least that tied in with the story he’d been fed so many times.
“I made you, never forget. You,” he would say, cradling Dazai’s cheek with slender fingers, “are mine. In every way that matters.”
“Yes Mori.”
Mind numb. No thoughts. Blank face. Blank canvas.
The perfect mould for that psychopath to use.
A curt nod, a look that lasted too long: and Dazai was free to leave.
Whispers trailed after him as he walked away. He left a trace in every direction he went, the soft murmur of ‘Demon Prodigy’ and ‘Mori’s Dog’ escaped lips into the air, carrying over to Dazai as he continued to walk away.
Isolate. Avoid.
It’s what he did best- only keeping up companionship around Odasaku and Ango at Bar Lupin, whenever the drink got to him and he was unable to keep up his detachment. Many times they had stopped him from suicide once more due to a word, a phrase, let slip over ice and whiskey.
Once again, he was reminiscing instead of focusing on the task at hand. He was good at that.
Disassociation saved him more than Oda and Ango on many, many nights with Mori.
The bruise on his neck from yesterday still throbbed- to all who had asked, it was a ruined suicide attempt- oh if only it was something as delightful as that. Mori’s teeth still stung there, and Dazai choked back sick at the flesh memory of human hands on his skin, personal scars exposed and desecrated.
No matter, it would happen again. It always did. Every time Dazai did well on a mission or every time Dazai fucked up a mission- the response was the same.
How could you tell Dazai he was wrong to do this? When this was the only way he could even dare, a smidge of rebellion- to carve his flesh to mangled gore, to soothe his mind and wound his body, therefore making him no longer desirable? How- if he was not lust over by those hands hands hands surgeon’s hands, he would be safe for just one more night?
Yet- if he succeeded; those times would be long gone. If there were higher powers above, then they would let him die, let him be, let him to rest. Let him die.
Dazai had never enjoyed living, but never had he detested it as he did now.
Blood blacker than the mafia- yet here it was, spilling out in cherry coloured glory, pain painting the floor in a delightful scarlet, pure ecstasy in the form of a severed artery-
Oh.
This was it.
Final words, Dazai Osamu?
But there were none. What could he say that had not already been said, what legacy did he care for? None. He was a vagabond, a poet, a tramp, a writer and he was finally, finally going to die.
And death claimed him in gentle arms, peace flooded his brain along with buzzing- be it the phone or be it his brain finally shutting down in the last moments of life, who knew? If he had the strength he would have cried in relief. If he had the emotions. Finally, he was at peace.
Close your eyes, Dazai Osamu. Go now, where you will be released from the mortal prison you have been kept in.
—
Bang.
Bang.
Banging on the door.
Metal crashed on metal, yelling filled the air.
A horrified gasp, maybe a scream.
Buzz.
Buzz.
“Hello? Yes it’s- my- friend, he’s bleeding; yes he did it to himself, just prepare a bed already- he’s dying.
—
Rattling. Beeping. Monitors.
Bandages, bandages, bandages.
“Bandage wasting machine. If you don't live, Dazai, I’ll kill you again.”
“He’ll be fine.” Female voice. “We are the best hospital in Yokohama- thank goodness you found him when you did, another ten minutes and your boyfriend-”
“Not my boyfriend.” Why did he know this voice?
“Your… partner- he would have died.”
Quiet crying, in the night. A dawn of nurses checking vitals, reporting to doctors, advising someone to go home. Stubborn someone. Never left his side.
Bleary morning came, pale sunlight streaming in through the windows.
Open your eyes.
And he did.
For a brief moment, everything was still.
Oh then horror, sheer horror flooded his memories, choking him, seeping into every corner of his brain as he softly whispered to those angry bloodshot eyes that stared back at him.
“What did you see?”