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He’s so tired.
His limbs are weighed down like bricks, his breath smothered in fog.
He doesn’t have good days. Only better days, but for some reason, today is so much worse. He wishes there was a reason. He wishes there was a pattern. Unfortunately, depression is spontaneous.
Depression is not merciful. It sinks into your skin with such poisonous blades that it feels like you are permanently disfigured. Dazai doesn’t remember a day of his life where he didn’t have the sinking numbness lodged in his chest. A forever void, dark as his blood.
Dazai looks at the water. The way the evening sun sparkles tingles on his eyes. Usually he would stay to admire the view, but today he has no time for such a waste. The scene would almost be beautiful if only he didn’t see the tantalizing arms of death in its place.
He doesn’t remember moving. Doesn’t feel himself shift. He only blinks, and suddenly he’s cold. His outside is just as cold as the inside. It fills him with a monotonous thrill, leaving his bones quivering. His breath leaves his lips, and the chill of the river feels more at home than he’s felt in years.
This is the most peace he’s felt. He opens his eyes to the blur of the world above him, thoroughly distant from anything human. He is where he belongs. With air leaving his lungs, cold water turning into lava in his ribs, he doesn’t even thrash. The human instinct to survive and involuntarily try to escape never befalls him. This is the proof that he is truly not human. He hasn’t been for a while.
At first it burns, and soon it does not. Soon it is a blanket of warmth, of calm, and a feeling that is so familiar to him. It’s almost like Odasaku.
And then he’s gone.
—
When he awakes it is with a jolt. His chest aches as he retches water. Ugly heaves twist his back, soaked hair blocking his eyes. His muddy mind doesn’t process the life that was so graciously offered back to him. Instead, when the retching stills, spit spilling from his lips, he stares. He stares at the grass gripped tightly in his fingers. He feels the burden of existing be thrust upon his shoulders once again.
It is with a clarity of which he has felt many times before that he realizes he failed. The failure pulses in his gut. It reminds him of what more he must endure. How much more he must exist in a world that despises him. In a world so cruel and dark it blinds him.
“What were you thinking!?”
Dazai looks up at his savior.
Kunikida stands before him, a scowl twisting his face. He is soaked just as much as Dazai, and Dazai does not feel grateful. He wants to scream. He wants to punch him. He wants to choke him and watch life fade from his eyes- no he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to go back on his promise, and Kunikida is too good for him to kill. He is so much of what Dazai will never be, feels so purely and freely, and he feels untouchable. Someone as dark and as ungracious as he cannot taint someone so purely innocent. Not like he’s done before.
“You suicidal maniac! We have to meet up with a client and you’re out jumping into rivers!”
Dazai smiles, waving Kunikida off, feigning Nonchalance.
“Oh, Kunikida-kun, the water just looked too beautiful today! I couldn’t resist a swim, and it appears you couldn’t either!”
Dazai doesn’t feel much like jesting. His grin is strained, and awfully painful on his cheeks. It feels so foreign and fake. It twists his muscles in such a way that makes him feel warped. His chapped lips ache painfully with the stretch. It doesn’t feel like him. It doesn’t feel real. Right now, nothing does. Everything is covered in the haze of disappointment his failure brings forth. Or maybe it's simply numbness.
“You waste of bandages!” Kunikida grabs Dazai by the throat, “Do you know how late you’ve made-”
Kunikida pauses. Dazai stares into Kunikida’s widened eyes. Kunikida looks silly like that, he thinks.
“Oi, Dazai,” he starts. “Are you okay?”
Dazai stares. What? The uneasiness in Kunikida’s expression is one of which he has never faced. It is not fear befitting the one a monster like Dazai deserves. It is not wariness that such a good man should direct towards a man such as himself. It is something he can not make out. The fact that Dazai can’t read such an expression causes a twist of nausea in his gut.
Still, he grins. “Oh, such a silly question! Kunikida-kun, worried about me? Oh, you do care!” He swoons, places his hand over his head, and plays the jester. He plays the part that is expected of him. Stop asking such nonsense questions, he wants to scream. Don’t you know what's good for you?
Kunikida sighs, and lets go of Dazai’s throat. Dazai unceremoniously falls into the grass, and Kunikida kneels with him.
“You’re crying.”
Dazai doesn’t move.
Kunikida reaches his hand to wipe the tears off of Dazai’s cheeks, and Dazai can only stare.
Dazai grins, pushing Kunikida’s hands away, instead wiping his eyes himself, “My eyes just burn from the water, that’s all. You worry too much, Kunikida-kun.”
Kunikida only stares at Dazai. He stares into his eyes so intently that Dazai feels like he’s being torn into two. His soul is being torn to shreds at this very second, his every thought and emotion feeling as if it is placed for observation. In those few moments, it feels like Kunikida sees things that Dazai has never shown before.
“Idiot,” he chastises, “If you’re not okay, you can come to me.”
Kunikida says this with such nonchalance. As if that isn’t a death sentence. As if his very being is stupid enough to be exposed and used. As if his every thought cannot be twisted and morphed to be used against him.
Dazai doesn’t know how to behave in this situation. It is so unusual for a man as dark as him to be the target of such concern. So, he stares. He makes no move to speak, no move to take the opening that Kunikida so graciously offered.
Inside, he knows Kunikida is a good man. One of the best ones he has the privilege of knowing. He wouldn’t dare to use his every thought against him in such a way. He is too good to be involved with him. Too good to have to bear the burden of being partnered up with a man with hands as bloody as his.
He doesn’t feel much like being a jester, and so he takes up the face he has worn since days he can no longer remember.
“Thank you for the oh-so-gracious offer, Kunikida-kun,” he starts, eyes as sharp as glass. “But I believe it would benefit both of us if you placed your attention elsewhere.” He feels the sharp grin take its place on his face. He sees the way Kunikida balks, face turning pale, and he feels utter self loathing burn like fire inside his veins. Such an expression directed towards him, such wariness and fear, aimed at him from such a man he desires to be. From a man that he promised to become.
Isn’t this what he wanted? He wants to scream, cry, thrash. He wants to beg Kunikida to tell him how to be good. Still, he knows such concern is wasted on a man like him. That someone as ruined as himself does not deserve it.
As Dazai moves to stand, he feels Kunikida’s gaze on his back as he starts to walk in the direction they were going in previous. The smile doesn’t slip from his face.
It’s almost as if he hadn’t changed at all.