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etrayalogs2024-12-21 05:15 pm
etrayamods) wrote in etrayalogs2024-12-21 05:15 pm
Entry tags:
- !mingle log,
- arcane: caitlyn kiramman,
- arcane: jayce talis,
- batman beyond: bruce wayne,
- batman wfa: jason todd,
- dimension 20: gorgug thistlespring,
- fe3h: yuri leclerc,
- have you seen my brother: chu wenshan,
- ice age: manny,
- jl gods and monsters: kirk langstrom,
- penny dreadful: vanessa ives,
- person of interest: sameen shaw,
- remnant 2: the custodian,
- the walking dead: brandon carver,
- ✘ blade of the immortal: asano rin
DECEMBER MINGLE
WHO: Everyone!
WHEN: December 21st - Early January
WHERE: Etraya
WHAT: Newcomers, a surprise gift from Tatianna, and a visitor!
NOTES\WARNINGS:
WHEN: December 21st - Early January
WHERE: Etraya
WHAT: Newcomers, a surprise gift from Tatianna, and a visitor!
NOTES\WARNINGS:
 ⏵ arrival ⏴ Welcome to Etraya! Arrival goes as expected - characters awaken on hospital beds and are offered an explanation of their situation: that they have arrived in the city of Etraya, and they are their world's only hope. They are welcome to wander the hospital if they would like to - the upper floors are mostly empty, full of pristine hallways and numerous rooms filled with supplies, cots, and things one would expect from a relatively average 21st-century hospital. The lobby is filled to the brim with tables of freshly baked goods. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" banners are taped to the walls, and several other typical birthday decorations can be found in this area. A few of the baked goods tables are lined with massive cakes covered in unlit candles, just waiting for someone to grab a lighter and sing off-key. Is it anyone's birthday? Who knows! The companion bots seem to believe it's every new arrival's birthday and will greet them as such - with friendly waves and cheers as they make their way to the lobby. A coat rack is situated by the doors leading out of the hospital, covered in warm clothing that fits the new arrivals just right - whether it's to their preferred style or not is something else entirely. Some of them appear normal enough. Others? Well. They can't all be perfect, now can they? Outside the windows, the grass is covered in a couple of inches of loosely packed snow. We hope you enjoy your stay.  ⏵ an unexpected gift ⏴ Out by the hospital stands a tall, decorated tree covered in candles and golden pinecones with a handsome, red velveteen tree skirt. In front of it are a few oversized wrapped gifts for show- and atop one of those sits a familiar woman. Or unfamiliar, if this is your first time. It's Tatianna in a slutty Santa outfit with a big ol’ burlap sack. “Hey, I got something for you,” she says, digging into the bag and rummaging for a moment. She produces a painted egg and holds it aloft. “It’s your Winter Solstice Egg! This is the egg holiday, right? Wait, shit. I’m mixing them up, aren’t I? ...Well. It’s a little late to change it. Here you go!” How one treats their egg is fully up to themselves. They can choose to ignore it entirely, or destroy it and leave the yolk and innards to rot on the ground. They can hand it over to someone else or care for it as if it were something precious. No one will prevent them from doing whatever they please with it!  ⏵ naughty or nice ⏴ Those who keep the egg and tend to it will get the benefit of being able to watch it hatch seven days after they are handed the egg. Eggs that are treated with attention and love may yield a loyal companion, or a weapon of choice that always returns to its owner, while neglected eggs may yield a curious, cursed trinket or an animal who treats its new owner very much the same way its owner had treated it before it was born. Please submit an egg request below for what items you would like your character's eggs to hatch into! Please note that these cannot be things that would be applicable in the game. Those whose eggs are destroyed or forgotten will simply get the gift of... nothing!  ⏵ free your spirit ⏴ With the winter chill gripping the air, a mysterious figure makes their presence known in Etraya - a towering, horned creature dragging a massive sack behind them. Regardless of a character's strengths or weaknesses, they will find that when Krampus raises his massive sack over their head, they are powerless to stop him from catching them. Those capable of great magical feats or other supernatural abilities will sense something... otherworldly about Krampus, but will not be able to place the source of that sensation. Once within Krampus' sack, they are welcome to fight, but escape is impossible. It will feel as if Krampus is dragging them over every rock possible, dragging the sack in through the rivers to the point it soaks through and drenches them - potentially almost drowning them. When the sack opens, they will find themselves in an impossibly dark space. Around them are others who have also been captured and dragged here by Krampus, trapped in small cages hanging from a massive, wiry tree. Krampus will return often, banging clawed hands and birch rods on the walls of the cages and knocking them into one another. The whisper resonates through the darkened area, regardless of Krampus' presence. Confess your secrets, and be freed. Otherwise? You'd better hope someone figures out where Krampus has set up base; those who refuse to confess may find themselves stuck here forever. Krampus' base is under Etraya! Deep within the catacombs, he has set up multiple cages to capture those who inhabit Etraya to punish them for their naughty habits. Fighting him is possible! Defeating him by means of combat is not, however, possible. Think of it like fighting a god: Krampus creates the rules in the space around him, including who can use what ability. For all questions relating to this log, please refer to the mod queries comment. All other questions can be directed to the FAQ. |
osamu dazai | bungo stray dogs
[There's little that makes Dazai want to participate less than the fact that Tatianna is the one giving them the eggs, given her last little request to gather gossip had been a big dead end along with the fact that the tea itself was tampered with in some way. But on the other hand, he still doesn't know whether this woman is actually an emissary of Echo and Aurora or not, or if refusal would be counted as a mark against his world -- assuming there is any danger to his world in the first place, which he isn't entirely convinced of, but has no proof against either.
He stares at his egg, bemused, lightly twirling it in his fingers, though carefully enough that there's no risk of it falling and smashing on the ground.]
Isn't this the kind of thing they give teenagers in school to encourage them not to have unprotected sex?
[Not that Dazai's ever been to an actual high school but he's familiar with the concept okay.]
ii. 🥚 very very eggstraordinary
[As in most things, if Dazai is going to be Required to do a thing, he's going to be weird about it. As such, he has put googly eyes on his egg, along with a mustache he stole off a mister potato head knockoff at the Kwik-stop, and now he is pushing it all around town in a baby stroller, loudly narrating his adventures to his "child":]
Did you know coffee can be hot enough to cause third-degree burns, Tama-kun? There was a famous American lawsuit about it. A woman was hospitalized for eight days, and that was just an accidental spill. Imagine what would've happened if it was deliberate! So if you ever make someone angry enough to throw a drink in your face, try to make sure it's a cold one--
[Ah. The baby stroller bumps into someone. The egg wobbles dangerously, but ultimately remains in place.]
Oh dear. That was almost a categgstrophe!
iii. 🌲 free your spirit
[It is, Dazai thinks, an incredible ripoff that being able to inherently nullify abilities does nothing when you are unceremoniously scooped into a sack and dragged away. Extremely rude, frankly! The entire time he's being kidnapped he shrieks and bitches and yells like a cat being forced to take a bath, and the whining does NOT cease when he's dumped in the cage. Does he think he can annoy Krampus into letting him go? Maybe. Or he's just a really, really, fucking annoying prisoner.]
Alright, you caught me! I admit it! I took the last cookie out of the cookie jar at Heather's party! I was really hungry, alright???
[That's all he has to confess to, right. Not any of that mafia executive stuff, with all the murder and extortion and fraud and such. Absolutely not.]
ii
[ Calling you out, Dazai, calling you out!! Which is what is Gorgug's conclusion here, after having his legged bumped into, and then staring at the pair with the disbelief they deserve. His accusation doesn't follow swiftly after, though; Gorgug spends a couple of seconds really staring at that egg with a...grimace forming on his face.
That he then looks at Dazai with. And Gorgug himself is currently eggless, carrying in his hands a thermos. ]
no subject
[He's not. But no further complaint on the matter seems to come as Gorgug gets distracted by the shenanigans he's committed upon his egg, presumably, and Dazai is absolutely cackling internally at that expression on the younger man's face.
Externally, though? He just smiles innocently, gesturing to the egg as one would an actual living flesh and blood child.]
But I suppooooose I can overlook it this once. You haven't met Tama-kun yet, after all. Say hello to Gorgug-san, Tama-kun...!
[Perhaps notably, the usual honorific he uses for Gorgug changes when he seems to be "speaking" to the egg, which, obviously, doesn't respond, because it is an egg. Roughly fifteen seconds of silence later:]
We're working on his manners.
no subject
And Gorgug has not chicken with that egg, but beef.
But he does eventually look back at Dazai, even if, still, he takes swift glances against the offensive....egg. ]
What if it grows up and tries to eat you.
[ What then, Dazai.
What then. ]
cw ... hypothetical vore? SI? cw dazai tbqh. im sorry for him.
Like I said, we're working on his manners. Of course I'll need to teach him that if he wants to eat me, he ought to break my neck in one blow first, and then polish off my corpse afterward.
[His tone does not falter for an instant, as though he's really talking about how to discipline a toddler, here.]
I certainly wouldn't want to end up like one of those chickens that keeps running around after its head has been cut off, after all. That would just be unseemly.
no subject
...
I'm leaving.
[ Turns out, he doesn't want to respond to or acknowledge any of that! And he's going to start on walking.
GOOD BYE. ]
iii.
Once dumped into one of the cages, she lets out a loud gasp that is equally shocked and offended. Oh dear, what fresh hells has this place -- or Echo -- cooked up this time? She could swear she feels her blood rushing through her veins.
Well, at least if she dies, there's a reasonable chance they'll just bring her back. That's good, right? That's good.
When the strange creature just hisses that one word, demanding confessions, she is back to her more rational self enough that she can roll her eyes at it.
Of course it's this kind of thing.
Soon enough, she hears a voice nearby making a confession that sounds... unduly dramatic for what it is, really. Rin looks over at Dazai -- ah, yes, she recognizes him. The guy who traded her hair strands. ]
Do you really think that's gonna cut it?
iii
Instead, he's going to glare at Dazai like this is his fault. It is, of course, because this fucker is always the one who's responsible. Dazai is always the one keeping secrets, running off on his own, abandoning those around him at the drop of a hat, keeping his goddamn plans to himself, and Chuuya has this instinctive sense that he doesn't have one up his plan more which pisses him off even more — ]
You asshole...
[ Secrets. Chuuya doesn't have many of his own. He's too simple and honest for that. They're there, but it's not the same as the man he's glaring daggers at, who is constantly hiding everything. ]
This is your fault. If you don't find a way out of this, I'll kill you myself.
[ He won't. They both know that. ]
for spice i wanna say this happens after a couple other krampus threads i did, if that works?
Chuuya's not wrong. Between the two of them, Dazai is the one who keeps it all close to his chest, playing his own personal game of chess with the curtain drawn over the pieces so nobody else can see. But where Chuuya isn't quite right either is that it's not those secrets that the creature demands of them. That's the trick of it. Fraud, extortion, blackmail, drug dealing, gun running, murder .... there's no end of crimes they could waste their breath confessing, here. None of it will do any good. Hell, many of them they committed together back in the day.
He does have a plan, and he doesn't, because the only way out is to bleed. With outsiders, with Shaw and Castiel, he could bleed without exposing the source of the wound -- without having to show them the knife being borne into flesh. Chuuya is different. Chuuya has been there from nearly the beginning, since they were only fifteen years old. Echo and Aurora don't just ask them to bleed for each other, but to lay the knife against each other's throats, and trust each other to make the cut.]
Oh? Do you really think you could?
[Tossed almost carelessly back, a reflex action for a known script, while his mind busies itself thinking of costs and benefits, loopholes, misdirections. How soon was the next mission? Could he run out the clock bantering with Chuuya, like this? What could he tell his former partner that he doesn't know, that won't sever his own carotid and leave him to empty out on the cool metal floor?]
Hey, hey, Chuuya, do you still have your gun? I bet it could fit through the bars. Aim it just right, and you could hit me! If it's the perfect spot, I might even go into a coma....a pale imitation of really dying, of course, but because I'd still be alive, nobody could heal me because of No Longer Human, and Echo couldn't do anything about it, either!
[It's an inelegant solution. The opposite of a quick and painless death, a clean ending that doesn't trouble anyone. Perhaps the simple fact he even said it betrays that the matter has been weighing on him. There is a perpetual sword of Damocles that hangs above Dazai's neck. He's been waiting for it to fall for as long as he can remember. And yet, of late there's something laced there that taints the blade, and he is no less ready for it, but -- not here. Not in the space Echo controls, not until he is able to wrench their power away so it cannot be used to entrap him.]
I think I'd make an excellent Sleeping Beauty, don't you? Though the only true love's kiss I'd wake to would need the taste of hemlock to seal the deal. It'd be a proper double suicide, then.
[Spoken almost like a correction. You didn't hear anything, Chuuya. Nothing at all.]
yes!! let's do it.
Tch. There's not a single person that would want to kiss you. We'd all be glad to have you stuck in a coma.
[ Not someone who knows him, anyway. There's the girls that he picks up and dumps at the drop of a hat, the fangirls who soon over him, but no one who loves him - no, not even that. He doubts that Dazai loves anyone.
He might not understand him the way that some others could, and certainly he doesn't offer more than a fraction of the kind understanding that they might, but that doesn't mean that Chuuya is blind. There's a reason they were partners. There's a reason that Chuuya finds him to be so absolutely infuriating. ]
Even if that much hemlock were enough to kill you, [ Which it is decidedly not, ] You'd just come back pissing and moaning about how it didn't work when you got yanked away from death's door again.
[ But, all of that is beside the point. He heaves out a sigh. ]
Of all people... Why the Hell did I have to get stuck here with you>?
chinhands, perfect
[Dazai rolls himself over from where he's flopped on his back halfway onto his stomach instead, leaning his chin upon bandaged wrists and kicking his legs behind him. He hums, filling the air with idle noise before continuing on.]
Did you know, people in comas are said to be able to dream, depending on the nature of the damage? Some who've come out of such a thing have even claimed to remember different worlds entirely! The only evidence that we're awake in this reality right now is that the both of us can confirm it to each other. It's an idea called "consensus reality".
[A beat of silence, before a soft chuckle escapes him.]
Not that I think that's why we were put here together, though! Rather, it all seems a bit "Parent Trap" to me.
[The kicking of his legs slows to a stop, as he pretzels himself a little to get proper eye contact with Chuuya, for once twisting up a bit more than his spine is necessarily thrilled with.]
Perhaps someone thinks we might yet have things left to say to one another. Pretty ridiculous, mm?
[Ridiculous, and yet not. Because there's always layers of meaning to anything that Dazai puts to voice, and it's a way of communicating what's expected of them without needing to lay it bare upfront. If they are expected to engage in this exercise that's just as much Russian Roulette as it is trust fall, he is not so noble as to willingly walk into the knife while obscuring it from Chuuya's view. He's always hated pain, after all. Mutually assured destruction is the only way this works.]
no subject
God. Shouldn't Dazai's new partner be here by now and freeing him from this Hell? If he listens to the Boss then the answer is "no," but he's sure looking against just in case, but the Boss is always right. Well, sort of - the boss probably didn't anticipate whatever the Hell this is, but them having to work together, surely.
That is, Chuuya is stalling. He really hates the fact that he has to work with Dazai. ]
Yeah, yeah, I'll kill you as much as you want later. I'll smother you with a pillow while caving in your chest cavity or whatever, just leave me out of your sick fantasies. Unlike you, I don't want to die in this shithole.
[ He glares, his voice almost a hiss, like whatever's left unseen doesn't matter because he knows it's there. There's always things that are left unsaid; things that are better left unsaid, because it's just toxic spew now, feelings that Chuuya - sharp enough, but too emotional, too human - has neither means nor need to articulate.
He hates Dazai. He popped open a vintage wine when he left, hates him all the more for knowing that he was the bastard who left a bomb in his car, and that's that. His thoughts are relatively simple by comparison, really, and that is perhaps half the problem.
Half the issue is that there's a reason they were partnered. And with that all gone through - ]
I ain't got nothing to say to you. What do you have to say for yourself, you asshole? [ Chuuya's voice lowers, becoming a hiss, ] Betraying the Port Mafia on one of your whims, and for what? To join that shithole Agency? And now I can't even appreciate being free from your annoying ass since the Boss told me to work with you before, and now this mess...
[ Chuuya gestures vague because like. Really. This is insane even by their standards. ]
no subject
Why he's resisting is ultimately far more petty and childish than merely a lack of desire to complete their task. He hates pain, but perhaps what he hates even more is showing it to others, baring that patchwork hand-me-down quilt of his heart with all of its holes to she sunlight where all the missing spots become especially evident. He doesn't want to tell Chuuya something that will hurt. He especially doesn't want to tell Chuuya something that will only hurt him, that won't leave its own cactus burrs in Chuuya's skin to have to dig out carefully later.
The hollow jocularity of his voice drops as they reach the inevitable, though; his rambling tangents have taken them about as far as they can get, and now all that's left to do is decide where to place the incision into his own throat.]
...I know.
[He sighs. It has the sound of wind rustling through a canyon, stretching across the emptiness with a sound wave trying to be heard.]
I could tell you why I left, but I suspect it wouldn't be enough.
[It wouldn't really be a confession, when it's simply something he had no occasion to tell, and Chuuya would have had no desire to know. He turned against the Boss, left the Port Mafia, and lived to tell about it. Why would the reasons matter to someone like Chuuya, whose entire identity belongs to them?]
Not to mention, your resentment on the matter is about as far from a confession as my saying I want to die.
no subject
Dumbass. You don't need to tell me. Everyone knows why you left.
[ Everyone really just being a select few. Chuuya lifts one foot, pressing it against of the bars of the cage and experimentally pushing on it further. His hands are tucked into his pockets, hidden away and unused as they so often are.
Though to say that he knows isn't quite right either, because it's really just a way of deflecting from what is a sore spot for both of them. Still, if Chuuya isn't omnipotent or the type to go digging into other people's business to know the specifics, even a single-celled organism could figure out the connection between three members of the Port Mafia disappearing within a twenty-four hour period being correlated. ]
The Boss wasn't trying to push you out either, like it or not. That thought must help you sleep at night though, huh? Better than admitting that you just didn't give a damn about the place.
[ It's almost a hiss, the words positively dripping with venom, because that's the one thing that he really can't forgive. It might be loyalty, or it might be jealousy, or it might be hurt, or maybe it's just some combination of too many complex emotions - beautiful colors mixed together into a putrid green or brown.
He knows brute force isn't going to work here. ]
You'd leave that Agency of yours at the drop of a dime, too, if you thought you could find something better.
[ For whatever metric of better that Dazai uses. The other has his own asinine way of thinking and measuring what's around him, all with himself at the center, all the while paradoxically dismissing his entire self completely. It's one of the things that makes him so infuriating. ]
blanket cws for suicide ideation, grief, depression throughout but especially past here
No...I suspect Mori-san simply didn't think it would matter to me very much. What's the life of one low-ranked man against the acquisition of a Gifted Business Permit, after all? It's not an illogical calculation.
[Objectively speaking, it makes sense. He could see where he would do the same thing, in Mori's position. Dazai can't be objective, because it's Odasaku. Odasaku, who he'd burn down the world for, every world for, for the sake of one where he might be able to live. But while Dazai's still angry, while his resentment will burn inside his rotted heart as long as it has the audacity to keep beating, the blame doesn't lie on Mori alone.]
...I brought him into the Port Mafia to protect him. Nobody would dare to cross the very night of the city. But I might as well have put the gun to his ribs myself.
[The door creaks approvingly, though it does not give way. Dazai doesn't even spare it a glance.]
You're not wrong that the Agency doesn't hold any special significance.
[He likes them, genuinely respects a few of them, even. But there's nothing that binds him there, not really.]
Even so, it's not especially likely I would have occasion to leave. Because it's the place I can best fulfill the last thing he asked of me.
[If it weren't for those words, every bit as much chain as lifeline, the Port Mafia would likely have never seen him resurface. He might have finally released himself from this oxidizing dream of his.]
no subject
[ Chuuya joined to protect the Sheep; Dazai left to satisfy some unspoken will. Chuuya pushes off, planting his feet firmly on the ground. One hand moves up to the top of his head, gloved fingers finding purchase on the fedora that rests there. Its original has long since departed, and however long one waits he will never return. That man, who would have taken his life; who was living for a memory alone.
Can I ask you favor?
What is it?
Live.
He can't stand Dazai.
Chuuya can't stand him, but that sharp tone isn't something that he can just ignore. He fixes him with a flat expression, but not quite emotionless; something stern, something uncertain, something so pathetically human in its displeasure.
Something that knows what the right answer is, what's what, but denies it anyway.
Whatever question that might slip on his tongue has goes unspoken, though, lost in an exhale.
The same routine as always. Step one, step two, step three; repeat.
He clicks his tongue before finally acknowledging what had been said, almost begrudgingly, because this really isn't a conversation either of them want to have, ]
And what was that last request?
no subject
[Odasaku, in contrast...a man who refused to kill, had been of no practical value to their organization. Certainly more expendable than Chuuya, the host of the Arahabaki. Dazai's not unaware that his own position within the Mafia is likely the reason there was a place made for him at all. But there was the rub, wasn't it? Odasaku refused to kill. If he were to utilize his full abilities, he'd be the most dangerous person in the entire Mafia, second only to perhaps Mori himself.
The boss had been aware of that, too, Dazai thinks. It had been foolish of him not to realize sooner, the way it would have been easy to utilize Odasaku. He'd said it in his own words, once, even: if you were to anger him -- truly, deeply upset him -- all five people in this room would be dead before anyone could even draw their guns. Affection had left him a blindspot, in Odasaku's case and Ango's both, and the price for that oversight was paid in blood.]
He wanted a quiet, peaceful life. [He wanted to write, in a cottage overlooking the ocean.] I pushed the Port Mafia on him because he wouldn't even kill his own enemies.
[He sighs. Chuuya reaches toward his fedora before asking his question, and almost reflexively, Dazai's own hand feels for the matchbox he always keeps on him, gently brushing his thumb against the cover before his fingers curl around it almost protectively.]
But the night consumes everything before dawn breaks. I thought if I could keep him on the fringes of twilight, it would be close enough to the real thing, but I was wrong. Even so...he wanted at least me to see the sunrise. That's why I had to go.
[He can't recite them out loud, Odasaku's last words, even though they're permanently engraved into every part of him. Not to Chuuya, who is loyal to Mori, to the Port Mafia. The thought burns in his throat like acid.
The door creaks, and yet remains stubbornly shut. It still wants more. And yet, Dazai is emptier than ever, the weight of that void so massive it's crushing all his organs, a supermassive black hole inside his own chest, from which nothing can escape.
He looks at Chuuya, as though the other could redirect the flow of gravity to release his larynx, but it's to no avail. Nothing further comes out.]
no subject
[ People change, but it's not some magical thing wherein one cataclysmic event instills morals and wisdom upon them; rather, they teach themselves how to behave and what views that they should hold. They train themselves to live a certain way. As it turns out, an old dog can learn new tricks.
Different, but the same.
Chuuya heaves an exasperated sigh, his mood souring further. It's not the words that irritate him, but this entire damn situation. They didn't have a relationship where they needed to confide secrets and feelings, they weren't controlled by sentiment, and that had allowed them to be honest and exist in each others space in a different way. Some undefinable way that others couldn't understand.
He hates Dazai. Plain and simple.
People aren't meant to have to tear their own guts out and hand them over to a person like this. Maybe he should have killed him. But Chuuya's hands have slipped back into his pockets by now, and they don't budge.
No, he thinks that letting a single man die had been a different kind of calculated choice. It was one that Chuuya couldn't make, and it's why he admires Mori as much as he does. If his men die, it's never because he pulled the trigger on them. But maybe it was a miscalculation too. He's not a genius like those two to know what the entire deal was, and he really doesn't want to; just like he doesn't need to know about this guy, who Chuuya only ever knew for their connection.
And rather than push on that, and perhaps in some effort to deflect from some deeper thing that the other isn't ready to speak, Chuuya asks: ]
But which one of us is happy?
no subject
Even so, there’s something so devastatingly, grimly hilarious about that bitterly asked question. Dazai doesn’t laugh, but his previously blank expression twists into a smile all the same. It’s not like his usual plastic ones, that almost uncanny valley cheerfulness that advertised its falsity like a neon sign. No, if his heart is a black hole, this smile is the x-rays that emerge from within, the ones that allow detection of something drawing all light and matter into its void. There’s a palpable weight to its emptiness.]
That’s a silly question, Chuuya. Someone like me … can never attain real happiness.
[No matter how hard he tries, how tightly he tries to grasp at things he wants, they're destined to slip out of his fingers like so much sand. It’s like he’d said in a certain bar, as a different man, and yet the same — there’s nothing worth wanting that would prolong this life of suffering. Certainly not something so abstract and unknowable as happiness.]
no subject
There's no grander purpose to it. There's no love in it. There's no happiness that can result from it. There's nothing at all. It's no different than the dog chasing the car, but now with some pretentious crap about being one of the good guys.
Chuuya wouldn't want him back, and he's glad that Dazai left, but it only serves to frustrate him further that it had such lackluster results.
He doesn't ask himself if either of them are really happy. ]
I bet if happiness slapped you in the face, you'd peel it off and throw it in the garbage.
[ There's no real bite to that though, because it's hard to hang onto anger at a person who doesn't fight back. The Sheep's policy was always to defend themselves against enemies and to retaliate, but never to initiate, and he's no different. He doesn't bully for the sake of it. He can't hate a person for trying to carry on a dying man's wishes either.
But that isn't enough to heal the wound, and that doesn't mean he knows what to do here.
God, he hates this. This isn't right. ]
You just don't want to be happy. You never have. That's what I can't stand about you.
no subject
He shakes his head after a moment of internal debate. This has gone on too long; they weren’t meant to speak this openly or honestly with each other, not like this. He ought to get it over with as soon as possible. If he comes to a point where Chuuya of all people comes to look at him with sympathy, life in Etraya truly will become unbearable.]
Have you ever tried to pick up loose sand with just your hands? No matter what you do, most of it leaks out through the gaps in your fingers, right? It’s a little like that. By the time I have something in my hands that might be recognizable as something like happiness, it’s already slipped through the cracks, leaving behind only the rough residue of having once been there.
[He rolls a shoulder, casual even as he feels his organs crushing into dust. This part isn’t as hard to talk about, but it’s a little like trying to explain the experience of being blind to a person with 20-20 full-color vision.]
At a certain point, you’d give up and use a bucket instead, right? But imagine the bucket had a hole in the bottom. No matter what you use to plug it, the grains will leak out until nothing is left.
[He’ll never fill the bucket. Odasaku had warned him as much when he died, and he had been right. Even now, four years later, he still can’t even find all the holes to plug.]
But even if I can’t fill it, I can still choose how the bucket looks and feels. I can paint it with blood or in beautiful colors, you know? It doesn’t change anything, not really, but even so … it’s a more pleasant experience, scooping sand endlessly into a more beautiful bucket. Makes waiting for death to come for me a little more bearable.
[Ugh. He makes a face. That truly feels revolting to tell Chuuya in full earnestness. He can’t help but add:]
It’s for the best, though, right? Imagine how insufferable I would be if I wanted to harass you over a long and fruitful life.
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What the Hell is he supposed to say to that? What honest remark is there to give to make the door creak open fully? There's precious little, and that makes his frown deepen, because Chuuya isn't one to keep secrets; if his emotions are dishonest, it's because he does process them in such a simple and straightforward way - he hates Dazai. He hates Dazai. He won't let him die. As much as he bragged in his face about seeing him executed, if it had come about he wouldn't have been able to accept it; but he doesn't think of that to say it.
But he thinks that if there were a hole at the bottom of some bucket he picked up, then he'd find a way to plug it up. There's ways how to. But no matter how he looks at it, the Agency is no more beautiful or ugly than the Port Mafia. They're precisely the same, just a different veneer and different colors, and it's almost insulting.
It's like saying the moon and the stars that shine brightly in the sky so pale in comparison to the sun.
He's not Mori. He's not Dazai. He's not that anemic bastard the two of them were scheming against. Chuuya is just a person, so he can't understand the planning and scheming, but he does take a few moments to muddle over it all. ]
Yeah, well. I celebrated when I found out you left. I popped open my finest bottle of wine and threw a goddamn party for knowing you were gone. My life has been a Hell of a lot better since you left. Until we all had to, no one gave a shit where you've been.
[ Chuuya breathes in softly, lifting one hand to rub the back of his neck, not quite finished, but unsure of what it is that he wants to say next.
But finally, without acknowledging what he'd said, but not quite ignoring it either - ]
If you were still with the Port Mafia, the Guild wouldn't have stood a chance. It has nothing to do with loving Yokohama or whatever.
[ Though Mori does, because he protects stability, but that's not all it is. That's not all it is, and this isn't anything he wants to say, because it's between them and not Dazai - now an outsider, but whatever. ]
The Boss kept your seat open. The Boss still wants you back.
[ And that's frustrating, so endlessly frustrating, and he hates it, and he wants him to forget it, but - ]
He still thinks we work well together, and he thought that you needed bailing out. Great to hear knowing how unpleasant and ugly we are for you.
[ He scoffs. And as for Chuuya.... ]
Whatever. If it's that important to you, then you should at least find a way to patch up the damn hole in your bucket instead of saying that you can just paint it. I dunno your friend, but I doubt he wanted you to stop there. I wouldn't. I'd punch you if you seriously thought that was the best you could do.
[ . . . ]
Sounds to me like wanted you to live.
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[Again, he meets the challenge of trying to explain a lack of something so fundamental to most as to be taken for granted. He wouldn't change the life he's lived up to now; when he says his world is more beautiful now, it's not that it was previously the inverse.
Rather, there was nothing. There's still nothing; he won't ever find something that fills that hole inside of him. There's no great meaning he's found, in saving lives rather than taking them, nothing that makes him want to get up each morning. It's just that he could draw his attention away from that oxidizing world, just a little. A reason to live wasn't necessary to save someone else's, after all.]
You know why I joined to begin with? I had believed that surrounding myself with death, with violence and bloodshed and destruction might reveal to me the reason why people cling so desperately to life. ...I can't forgive Mori-san, but I don't regret that he brought me into the Port Mafia, or the time I spent there. It didn't help me find a reason to live, but before that, I had given up on even looking.
[Sounds to me like he wanted you to live.
Dazai knows that Chuuya isn't wrong, and yet those words might be the most painful ones yet, like that sealed vacuum inside has suddenly imploded, pulverizing what remains of the shreds of his insides. Odasaku did want him to live, for all he always humored his endless suicide talk, and yet went ahead and died without him.
How do you know? Dazai had asked him, back then.
I know. I know better than anybody.
Odasaku had wanted to live, too. He wanted to be a writer.]
...For all your claims of celebration, though, I think it makes you angriest that I could come back, but I won't. It'd be easier for you if Mori-san would want me hunted down, wouldn't it?
[It's cruel of him to turn the tables like this, to set his attention on Chuuya's door first. But he's realized, suddenly, what it wants from him. And he's not prepared to say it.]
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Chuuya wears his heart on his sleeve. There are things hidden, but those things which are crawling beneath the skin, like maggots hidden ones blood, creasing ones skin and making it crawl and dance and writhe in some sickening manner. ]
Yeah. That's right. It pisses me off that the boss would take you back in a second. You want an award for guessing that?
[ No hesitation. No denial. It's the same as ever. That's ever the problem. Chuuya is too honest, and so all those things that should be hidden protrude and bloat beneath the skin, creating tents with it before moving on.
His eyelids lower halfway, looking lazily now, as though Dazai had told him that the grass was green and that the sky is blue.
Only a diamond can polish a diamond. They're a pair of diamonds, scraping against and refining each other, and that's ever the problem.
With a tired sigh, he adds: ]
Let me guess: You knew that the Boss wouldn't execute you. You had your "contingency measures," [ He gestures vaguely because who cares now, ] But that really wasn't the point. You knew damn well that Mori-san didn't want to harm you. And you figured that even if for some reason all of that failed, I'd bail your ass out, just like always. Am I wrong?
[ His initial plan was flawless, of course; without fail, it would succeed, but even if it didn't, there wasn't even the faintest possibility of failure.
And that's the trouble of it all.
Because neither Mori or Chuuya could ever truly want to see him dead. Niether of them could see him dead, now, because - ]
If Mroi-san wanted you dead, you would be dead by now. I got all excited, but that was just my hubris, [ He clicks his tongue and shakes his head, ] Not even you can escape the terrors of the night. If Mori-san wanted you dead, you would be dead.
[ And if Chuuya really wanted him dead, well... Who knows. They'll never know. They'll never know, because Chuuya never really thought about it that hard. ]
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ii } throws haunted auntie @ tamakun
At least, that would usually by the case.
At the moment, it might seem rather clear that she doesn't belong out here—a pale shade of a woman wearing a light nightgown that is draped loosely in a black-lace robe. Her dark hair is loose and tangled, and she remains barefoot without any worry for the snow scattered about.
Sleepwalking?
Whatever the cause, the bump is enough to promptly startle her from her daze, and she turns her unblinking stare on the man with his pram. The true tragedy, beyond any risk of frostbite, is that she is not in the right mind to appreciate his little pun...if she even heard it.
He seems...familiar. ]