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“I hate you.”
To most, the idea of love is simple. Spending time with your loved ones, raising a family with your significant other, growing old together, creating beautiful memories; it is all truly a blessing to obtain such peace in life. This love may be what most consider to be ‘accomplishing the true meaning of life.’ There is nothing more, nor is there anything less. It is the key to eternal happiness and peace.
“So straightforward, Chūya. The least you could do here is show some respect.”
It is what most people strive for and spend their entire lives chasing. They’ll give anything for that life.
“Fuck you and what you think. I swear, I’ll never forgive you.”
That kind of life is not what they have, it’s not something that they ever will have. It’s not something that they chase, and deep down, they knew it was never something to hope for. It was never meant for them. They were destined something completely different, something that truly completed them.
“Now, Chūya, I-”
They both knew they weren’t fated a happy ending. Both Dazai and Chūya had come to accept that fact. Only, there was one thing Dazai had known that Chūya was unaware of.
“You didn’t have to do this, you know. So why the hell did you?”
Chūya knew that no amount of words would change anything, because that was just how Dazai was. Still, he couldn’t help but hold onto a sliver of hope. “You promised, Dazai.”
“You know it had nothing to do with you.”
Perhaps Chūya was aware of said fact, and simply couldn’t bring himself to face it as Dazai had.
“Then why, Dazai?” Chūya’s voice unwillingly strained, yet he kept his composure. “Why promise something you knew you couldn’t keep?”
They sat in silence on the hill, the crisp breeze of the air caressing their faces like a frigid goodbye. The dull sky hid itself beneath the clouds, and trees danced to unheard cries.
Chūya sat on his knees, palms rested atop as Dazai sat in front of him at a respective distance. His soft, dark brown curls blew softly around his pale, doleful skin. An eye remained hidden underneath the bandages, fresh and white.
How someone could look so tragically beautiful was beyond Chūya, especially someone as calamitous as Dazai.
The contemplating silence they sat in was painfully unbearable, and almost drove Chūya into insanity, but Dazai found it in him to speak up.
“I haven’t been giving you any hope. You’ve been feeding it all to yourself. No one has ripped anything out of your hands except yourself,” he spoke soberly.
Chūya would be an idiot to say he hadn’t expected a response like that, because he had. Except, hearing it aloud tugged on a string Chūya couldn’t identify. It was the truth— the reality, and there was nothing to be done about it, as always.
“You were being too naive, Chūya. That’s where you messed up. I never wanted your pity.”
And that’s where he snapped.
“I’ll never fucking pity you. Your ungrateful ass should be thankful someone even bothered to put up with your shit!”
Chūya paused, inhaling a quick breath before he continued again.
“You really do try to push people away, don’t you? You’re not pushing me away this time. I—“ He felt himself choke up, still straining to keep his composure from crumbling apart completely.
“Dazai, I’m i—“
“Don’t. Don’t say it, Chūya. This was supposed to happened, this is what was meant of us.”
“But I don’t want this.” Chūya murmured, just loud enough to be heard underneath the ruffling of the nearby leaves.
“What?” Dazai asked, unsure whether he had heard right or not.
“I said,” Chūya’s voice hardened like molten sand into glass, capable of being shattered at any given moment, “I don’t want this.”
Silence was all there was. Dazai hadn’t even been looking Chūya in the eye, instead staring catatonic at the grass beneath him, an expression in his face that Chūya couldn’t decipher.
“Does Chūya remember that time we went to the arcade?”
The sudden question caught Chūya off guard. Cautiously, asked, “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”
“You threw a slice of pizza at that guy because you lost.”
Chūya did in fact remember. It hadn’t been very long ago. A random guy had approached Dazai, asking to go for a round. Only, Chūya found it best that he’d go against the guy, only it didn’t turn out exactly as he planned. In the end, he ending up losing miserably, and in his rage ended up flinging a stray slice of pizza directly at his opponent’s face.
The poor guy yelped as the warm sauce splattered over his face and dripped down onto his shirt, the cheese slowly sliding off his face and landing onto his seemingly new shoes
Chūya bolted out of the arcade, Dazai quick to follow behind as to not collect any more witnesses. They were both overcome with an unforgiving storm of laughter, Dazai complaining that he’d heave all over Chūya if they continued running any longer.
After what felt like eons of running from nothing, they found an empty field of grass, presumably a park, and crashed.
They stayed put lying in the prickly sensation of the grass beneath them, rambling about everything that came to mind as the sky above them shifted from velvety azure to a deep sapphire with twinkling flecks of light scattered amongst the sky.
What Chūya hadn’t noticed in his time gazing at the mesmerizing stars above him, that Dazai had been looking at something a millions time more captivating.
Thinking back at the memory causes a pang in his heart. Such a moment now would be impossible.
A drop of water on his nose pulls him out of his thoughts. A few more drops and Chūya realizes that it’s starting to rain. Thankfully, it’s nothing too bad, but Chūya would’ve much preferred if it hadn’t rained at all, especially now.
“You know, I’m not too particularly fond of wet dogs.”
Water continued to trickle down his face, as if the sky was crying tears he couldn’t shed. The silence spoke more than they were ever capable of verbalizing in this very moment. For someone so bent on the idea of them being otherworldly, Chūya’s not sure if he’s ever felt so human before. Filled to the brim with emotions that would never be labeled; so dead yet completely alive, was this truly the human life?
Chūya hopes this is the last time he’ll feel this way. Though, something tells him this’ll be far from the last.
He wonders if something could have gone differently, if he could’ve prevented such an outcome like this one. Was it selfish to take what he wanted and run with it? Of course it was, but selfish was the rule of thumb especially in his occupation.
Chūya knew just how insane Dazai was, always so discreet about everything. You’d think you could read him easily, but instead he’s an open book with its pages stuck together with no way to separate them. There truly was no way for him to have predicted when he’d pull another stunt.
“Hey, Chūya,”
Sure, they were not supposed to be a normal pair of teenagers. Sure, they would never experience life the way others would.
However, this was downright unfair. Chūya thinks they deserved a little more bit than whatever this was.
“ Slug ,” Dazai’s arms opened in an embrace, a sight Chūya never thought he’d see.
Chūya thinks they deserved a little more than this, a taste of what everyone else was allowed to bite. A sense of normality, something, anything.
“Thought you didn’t like it when people touched you,” Chūya murmured, unable to hid the unstable wavering in his voice.
“You’re not people, you’re Chūya. ”
He couldn’t fight the urge in him to not squeeze Dazai even a little tighter, a word escaping his mouth without permission.
“Why?”
A question that could mean many things. Chūya himself hadn’t even known what he was referring to anymore, yet he couldn’t find it in himself to pinpoint what exactly it was, instead basking in the warm comfort which was that of Dazai Osamu.
“Chūya, behind you, a rainbow. Pretty, isn’t it?”
Unwillingly to turn his face away from Dazai, he reluctantly looks behind him, and indeed is a rainbow so colorful and bright, a noticeable contrast to the sullen environment surrounding them.
“It reminds me of you, hm?”
Chūya kept his arms embraced tightly around Dazai’s center, afraid that he might leave as soon as Chūya lets go.
“Beautiful and vibrant. A sight I’ll never want to see diminish.”
The words choke Chūya mercilessly, his heart punching his chest dangerously, trying to escape and flee somewhere faraway, and Chūya would let it happen. He’d watch as his beating heart would bleed its way as far as it could, with no desire to chase after it.
“Chūya,”
How he wished he had it in him to say no, don’t say the next words, because Chūya isn’t so sure he can handle it.
The words never escape his throat, and Dazai ignores the tense and rigid limbs trapping him in an embrace.
“I’m sorry.”
The silence is far too silent. He hears his blood rush through his forsaken body, trying to contain the fleeing heart. He hears the rapid breaths that only grow more shallow the longer he looks away, the harder it gets.
Because for the first time in what has felt like forever, he feels dread.
“Osamu…” he whispers quietly, as though a word too loud will envelop the world around him in a storm of fury and resentment.
Slowly, impassively, he turns his head back to face the other, his cheek grazing against the rough, rocky granite of the stone trapped in his embrace.
He doesn’t remembering getting up, when he stopped desperately holding onto the gravestone.
Chūya stares at the dull sight of two gravestones sat next to each other, unmoving and wet from the downpour.
“I hope death is everything you wanted it to be,” he rasps out in a voice completely unfamiliar.
“Hope you’re able to put up with him while I’m gone,” he averts his gaze to the other stone, inhaling an unsteady breath before turning his gaze back to the stone he has once been holding onto so tightly.
“I can’t forgive you.”
The two gravestones, S. Oda and O. Dazai watch as Chūya stalks off into the hazy distance, no particular destination in his desolate mind.
I can’t forgive you.
So I’ll miss you forever.