[There is so, so much to unpack here. Dazai feels akin to a balloon, ragdolled about by gale force winds in every direction. I don't want you to die, Chuuya says, perhaps for the first time since they've known each other. It's not exactly a revelation, or anything, and yet to hear it makes him feel uneasy, like a child anticipating the return of monsters under the bed the moment it grows dark. He remembers Atsushi had said something like it once, beneath a sky aflame with fireworks. He'd pretended not to have heard him. Dazai wants to disappear painlessly from this world and leave nothing behind, not a trace that he ever existed. Odasaku wanted him to live, but that's different from not wanting someone to die. Not wanting him to die is a curse in the shape of kindness, binding him to someone else's grief. It curdles in his stomach like spoiled milk. He's not unaware of his selfishness, in this; he will never forget watching the light go out of Odasaku's eyes, after all.
The notion of a burden like that weighing down Chuuya's shoulders is strangely dissonant. It doesn't suit the way Dazai sees him -- too loud, too bright, too offensively much, and yet, for such somber things to dim him down ... it feels profane, in a way he can't define.
He's the Boss 'cause he listens to his executives and underlings.
If Dazai had figured things out sooner, if he'd been able to go to Mori and asked him not to sacrifice Odasaku, to find another way to obtain the Gifted Business Permit ... would it have changed anything? Would he have listened? It's not the first time Dazai's been haunted by the question. Yet too many of the pieces were obscured, and he'd been so, so stupidly blind to the rest. Could he have ever figured it out, before it was too late? Or was his mistake much, much sooner ... in not hunting down those former police thugs to the last man until they revealed exactly who was after that painting, and how much he could buy them off for, in not having rumors spread that the painting was in the wind again. Not keeping Odasaku far away from Mori's chess board to begin with so there would never be a risk of him being used in such a way.
The silence stretches even longer this time, the only sound breaking the stillness being the clank of the cages as their captor moves about.]
That's no good, Chuuya. You're not a beautiful woman, nor would you commit suicide, so I can't die beside you like that.
[Leave it to Dazai for that to be the first thing he says. Then, at length:]
You know ... you're quick to say you'd allow yourself to be discarded, yet you hate the notion of discarding others. You willingly left the Sheep behind so they wouldn't be slaughtered as our enemies. You resent me forsaking Mori-san and the Port Mafia for the Agency -- yet despite that, if I were to abandon them to return for some reason, it would bother you even more, wouldn't it? For you, the idea of severing a connection -- even to someone you hate -- is like ripping out your heart from its chest with your bare fingers.
[He looks...tired, as he says it. He can't really understand what that feels like, as someone who struggles to connect to humanity at all. But then -- there's Odasaku, there's three glasses of whiskey at the bar. Someone to say goodbye to, a goodbye to lament from the bottom of his heart. It's the evidence that something was there, and real.]
What would you do, then, I wonder ... if one of those connections were to be sundered by someone else, too late for you to put a stop to it?
[...]
[He lets the moment hang, then drops the metaphors and insinuations and states it openly:]
Mori-san knew Ango-kun was with the Special Division. He looked the other way to bring Mimic to our doorstep, so we could have the Gifted Business Permit for crushing them. If he'd intended the Sheep to die in that crossfire, rather than Odasaku, would you still have been able to bear the weight of any atrocity Mori-san committed, for the Port Mafia's sake?
[The black hole inside him feels like it's expanding, like he'll take others into his gravity now as well, crush them at the event horizon simply by being there. He doesn't like saying any of this to Chuuya, would rather take the source and scope of his resentment to his own ever-elusive grave. But it's as though they've been injected with snake venom, and the only option is to bleed it all out at once. If nothing else, he's certainly built new resentments in Etraya that far outstrip anything he could feel for Mori, now. Someday, he'll tear Echo apart, piece by piece.]
It's my fault, too. I didn't see it soon enough. Didn't want to see it, perhaps. But I can't forgive him.
[The door all but rattles. It's so close now, the latch holding back one last notch before it comes loose. Something still held back, clung to by the fingernails in vain hopes of being released before offering it. Chuuya can probably feel it too. Their escape is imminent, but the last part of ripping off a bandaid always hurts the most.]
no subject
The notion of a burden like that weighing down Chuuya's shoulders is strangely dissonant. It doesn't suit the way Dazai sees him -- too loud, too bright, too offensively much, and yet, for such somber things to dim him down ... it feels profane, in a way he can't define.
He's the Boss 'cause he listens to his executives and underlings.
If Dazai had figured things out sooner, if he'd been able to go to Mori and asked him not to sacrifice Odasaku, to find another way to obtain the Gifted Business Permit ... would it have changed anything? Would he have listened? It's not the first time Dazai's been haunted by the question. Yet too many of the pieces were obscured, and he'd been so, so stupidly blind to the rest. Could he have ever figured it out, before it was too late? Or was his mistake much, much sooner ... in not hunting down those former police thugs to the last man until they revealed exactly who was after that painting, and how much he could buy them off for, in not having rumors spread that the painting was in the wind again. Not keeping Odasaku far away from Mori's chess board to begin with so there would never be a risk of him being used in such a way.
The silence stretches even longer this time, the only sound breaking the stillness being the clank of the cages as their captor moves about.]
That's no good, Chuuya. You're not a beautiful woman, nor would you commit suicide, so I can't die beside you like that.
[Leave it to Dazai for that to be the first thing he says. Then, at length:]
You know ... you're quick to say you'd allow yourself to be discarded, yet you hate the notion of discarding others. You willingly left the Sheep behind so they wouldn't be slaughtered as our enemies. You resent me forsaking Mori-san and the Port Mafia for the Agency -- yet despite that, if I were to abandon them to return for some reason, it would bother you even more, wouldn't it? For you, the idea of severing a connection -- even to someone you hate -- is like ripping out your heart from its chest with your bare fingers.
[He looks...tired, as he says it. He can't really understand what that feels like, as someone who struggles to connect to humanity at all. But then -- there's Odasaku, there's three glasses of whiskey at the bar. Someone to say goodbye to, a goodbye to lament from the bottom of his heart. It's the evidence that something was there, and real.]
What would you do, then, I wonder ... if one of those connections were to be sundered by someone else, too late for you to put a stop to it?
[...]
[He lets the moment hang, then drops the metaphors and insinuations and states it openly:]
Mori-san knew Ango-kun was with the Special Division. He looked the other way to bring Mimic to our doorstep, so we could have the Gifted Business Permit for crushing them. If he'd intended the Sheep to die in that crossfire, rather than Odasaku, would you still have been able to bear the weight of any atrocity Mori-san committed, for the Port Mafia's sake?
[The black hole inside him feels like it's expanding, like he'll take others into his gravity now as well, crush them at the event horizon simply by being there. He doesn't like saying any of this to Chuuya, would rather take the source and scope of his resentment to his own ever-elusive grave. But it's as though they've been injected with snake venom, and the only option is to bleed it all out at once. If nothing else, he's certainly built new resentments in Etraya that far outstrip anything he could feel for Mori, now. Someday, he'll tear Echo apart, piece by piece.]
It's my fault, too. I didn't see it soon enough. Didn't want to see it, perhaps. But I can't forgive him.
[The door all but rattles. It's so close now, the latch holding back one last notch before it comes loose. Something still held back, clung to by the fingernails in vain hopes of being released before offering it. Chuuya can probably feel it too. Their escape is imminent, but the last part of ripping off a bandaid always hurts the most.]