Chapter Text
Dazai Osamu, 16-year-old student council member, wants to die.
It comes as no surprise to anyone that has ever spoken to him. His usual way of acting, always so nonsensical in its whimsy is, somehow, always interrupted by the dreamy mention of committing suicide. Everyone is used to it; everyone responds in kind—Dazai’s heard good luck killing yourself so much that it’s lost its supposed meaning as a threat. That lack of surprise does not make the concern others feel for him disappear, however.
No one laughs when he is seriously injured, when the student council has to cut down nooses or force him to throw up or keep him away from rivers or knives or fire (an incident no one talks about anymore). Every single time, Dazai tries to brush it off and disappear and every single time he is forced to confront the trembling forms of those that have forced him to stay chained to life.
His very existence seems to, in a way, seek death and reject it all the same. It is a constant battle between the body—made as it is to heal itself—and the mind, eager for its demise. A divide between the conscious and subconscious. Dazai is eerily resilient, even though all he wants is not to be, even though all he’s ever wanted has been death.
He's been aware of that divide all his life—cooing nurses saying he’s such a strong boy, that Dazai kid. He always recovers so fast. He’s always taken these compliments with gritted teeth and perfectly-practiced smiles, saying thank you, miss when one of them changed the gauze covering him and thinking I wish I could be weaker. I wish I could die.
His brother visits him in the hospital every time he tries to die, stares at him for a very long time and says Osamu, you can’t keep doing this. Father is really mad this time, you know. Every time, Dazai pretends to regret angering his father and takes out a deck of cards to do tricks with. The nurses always chide him for it, say the Dazai kid’s so reckless, doing all that while bedridden!
Dazai wonders if one day they’ll say something about him that isn’t a judge of his ‘character’.
A clubmate visits him too, this once, catches him playing 21 questions with a nurse-in-training. (Dazai thinks he’s too much work for her, that she isn’t experienced enough to handle him, but she is sweet and kind and talks to him with all the gentleness in the world, and he has not the heart to deny her.)
“Dazai,” The clubmate mutters, when entering the room—soft and emotional in a way Dazai can’t place. He recognises the voice, recognises her, but he is not used to this sort of openness from Yosano. (She is usually mischievous and blunt, though he’d always had a suspicion that that wasn’t truly her. It is probably why they get along, he thinks. Neither of them are real.)
He can’t understand what it is in her tone, what emotion she feels specifically that is making her act like this. It makes him unreasonably scared, the idea of not knowing something, not being able to read someone so he can dictate how he is meant to feel.
Yosano takes a moment to assess his state and sighs, her expression twisting into a scowl. She does not sound disappointed when she speaks up, almost instinctively talking in a way most reminiscent of the school nurse. “You’re healing nicely.” She affirms, pointing to Dazai’s general direction. He’s roughed up, of course, though he does not look unwell—a few more days of stay in the hospital, at most, Yosano reckons. “Must be really disappointing you, junior.”
Dazai flashes her a grin he doesn’t entirely mean, even though he knows Yosano can probably tell he doesn’t. He does not know if he could handle being truthful now (not now, not ever.) “Ahh, what can I say?” Dazai shrugs, appearing frustrated by his situation. “Sadly still amongst the living.”
“Not that you haven’t tried, surely.” Yosano answers, walking next to the hospital bed whilst she looks around the room. Dazai's being well taken care of, it seems—a nurse and a room all to himself. Not that she’s surprised about it. It’s no secret that Dazai’s from a wealthy family, even if he doesn’t flaunt that money—it’d make sense that his family would pay for him to get special care.
The nurse next to Dazai frowns when listening to him talk—an expression that Yosano recognises as confusion. She’s confused over how he acts, over his way of speaking. It seems that this is an attitude she’s not used to seeing from Dazai.
It’s strangely comforting, knowing that Dazai has times when he does not pretend. Yosano doesn’t bother feeling hurt over the fact that none of those times have ever been with her. It's not like they’re truly friends—she’d want to think they are, though she’s smarter than that. Sharing wine with your junior doesn’t make you his friend—if anything, it makes you a bad influence.
(That's okay. Yosano does not particularly care about being a bad influence, as long as she is of any influence at all.)
Dazai’s answer is short, though it is not fully truthful. “You know me so well, Yosano-san.” He says, flashing his most perfect smile. She does, in a way—recognises his habits and learns to work with them, strange as Dazai is. It's not like she is particularly easy to crack, either, so she supposes it makes sense, this kinship they feel. She doesn’t truly know him, though Dazai doesn’t truly know her, either.
“How could I not?” She answers, in lieu of revealing her turmoil. “You’re always pestering me with it,” A truth, although not one that’s particularly fitting now. Dazai bothers anyone about suicide, really—Yosano is no different, in that regard (Save, perhaps, her affinity towards healing. She wants to become a doctor, she’s always said, though somehow Dazai always makes her feel like a nurse.)
“You should start going to an actual nurse.” Yosano declares, the grin forming on her face much too wicked for the words she utters. It’s advice, naturally, though Yosano always hides her kindness behind gore. “But actual nurses don’t let you drink in their office, do they?”
Dazai deflates at the question, mouth curving into an embarrassingly childish pout. “You’re so mean to me.” He mutters, running a hand through his hair (and ignoring the nurse at his side when she frets over his IV, because when has his health ever mattered?) “Wretched woman, you are... A terrible upperclassman. I’m reporting you to the council.”
Yosano hums dismissively, sits down next to Dazai’s bed and smooths her skirt down. “Surely, but,” a pause while she looks, tilts her head and pretends she hasn’t seen Dazai—pretends she doesn’t notice his bare arms, his uncovered neck. The skin is mangled, worrying. “Am I really that terrible, if I’m visiting you? I’m not so wretched that I’d go to a hospital just to torment the patient.”
Yosano pretends she doesn’t see, so Dazai pretends Yosano hasn’t seen, too. He’s always so careful—always making sure his every interaction flows smoothly (even if it is at his expense, even if it aches to pretend.) “How would I know? Yosano-san’s full of surprises.”
“And I'm guessing you’re predictable, then?”
“But of course! I’m a simple man, aren’t I?” Dazai asks as if he is not lying through his teeth. He knows Yosano won’t tell him the truth, knows she’ll play along without fail. It’s something he appreciates about the student council, something he enjoys about their presence—they don’t go against him, even if they are smart enough to realise that he is not always truthful.
It’s not as if he always lies, nothing further from the truth—he is capable of enjoying himself, though it does not happen as often as it’d appear, as often as Dazai finds himself pretending.
(It used to be conscious, at some point. Once, Dazai had to make an effort to pretend.)
(He doesn’t realise he is pretending, now.)
Yosano leaves the room, eventually. She can’t stay forever, even if Dazai wouldn’t mind if she did. She promises to send Dazai his homework and summaries of the last student council meetings through LINE whilst he childishly complains about being overworked. She argues that he can leave the council at any time, but that he needs to do well on his exams regardless. He tells Yosano to leave and that she’s breaking his heart, pouting childishly.
Dazai starts missing her as soon as she walks out.
He wants to say something, maybe ask the nurse for his phone so he can text Yosano, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t do anything, looks at the wall as if in a daze.
He feels like a corpse while the nurse moves him around—realises once more that his ‘true’ self is nothing but a husk of a person, that he only appears alive when faking who he is. It is not a hurtful realisation. It is not something he resents. There is no reason for him to resent it, nothing that he can blame but himself.
When his body is finally stable, the hospital’s psychiatrist asks Dazai why he tried to kill himself. Tells him to try to find something—anything—that will make him go on. They tell him that being suicidal is not something that ends easily, but that he should live, even if only for selfish reasons.
Dazai listens and hums, thinks I don’t think I’ll ever want to live.
He doesn’t remember ever enjoying his life, nor desiring a future in the way his peers do. He talks to others his age and receives countless plans—hopes for the future, dreams of a long life and even longer companionship—whilst the only hope he can find in his heart is to not wake again once he falls asleep.
Dazai remembers asking someone why they go on, why persevere if their struggle is great as they’d described it. He remembers being told I want to live a better life and thinking but wouldn’t dying be easier?
He wonders if it is because he is weak, if this manner of resorting to death is simply a way to give up, to not fight the pain of living. Is suicide a sign of character, a symbol of his otherness? Dazai thinks about why—why he, out of everyone, wishes for death in such a way—and receives no answer. No matter how much he thinks about it, he will not understand.
There is nothing he can do to understand himself, and so he will give up on trying. It’s a soothing promise, though Dazai can only imagine for how long he’ll manage not to break it. Knowing him—his nature, more like—any promise he makes will be broken, eventually.
His visit to the psychiatrist ends with a promise to be better, to not resort to suicide again. Dazai’s already broken that promise, he knows—is already considering when he can try again, when he’ll be left alone once more. Dazai thinks about lying, about sin, about punishment—falls asleep thinking that to most, suicide is a sin, and that by killing himself he’ll be sinning much less than by living.
Dazai doesn’t get more visits.
He awaits one, wants to do anything but let his mind make him rot the same way it has for days on end, now. He doesn’t get visited, is discharged and lead to his father's car without flair a few days later. A week-long stay. It’s not the worst that could’ve happened to him. He’s just in time for his exams, his father reminds him.
Dazai looks at the window while his brother hands him a jacket and a scarf, says Mom told me to give them to you. She’s worried sick, you know. Dazai stays silent and puts the clothing on, ties the scarf as best as he can to cover his neck.
It’s cold out. Not so cold that he’ll be sick (even if his body is weak, prone to illness), but cold enough to feel it, cold enough for his mother to worry—A body like yours isn’t made for this, Osamu, she’s always said. Dazai’s always thought that, if his body weren’t made for this, it would’ve given up already. This is what it’s made for, this is what it knows how to do.
Through the years, he’s learnt that dying is easy, if you don’t try. Once Dazai wants something, fate or God or his own body makes it so that it will not happen. Nothing he has ever desired has been granted to him, and so he desires nothing.
(A lie.)
(Dazai Osamu will always be a liar, no matter how he tries not to.)