Goodbye.

“You’re acting like I don’t know the people I manipulate deserve better than to be pawns in my games,” he responds easily, this question non-effective. There’s always guilt present, but he’s sure of what he’s doing. He’s trying to manipulate things to be resolved positively, so even if the end result is the hatred he deserves, at least it will be hatred from people who are safe. “I’m keeping them safe, I’m good at moving my pawns correctly and, at this point, they move themselves correctly too. That’s the entire point.”

It must be a bad night if he’s being this haunted. Most nights are easy to shove aside thoughts he’s had since he was young, but ever time he shoves a thought away tonight, another replaces it. Who does he even hold dear? Who is he willing to admit to caring for so dearly? He hates that he can come up with a long list. He sickens himself.

The dark feelings in his chest really never will go away, will they?

I don’t deserve the kindness they’d show me if I allowed them to.

Persistent thoughts that he can’t shake, he’s familiar with this question. It’s impossible to not shove from his mind whenever it decides to show up, but he’s gotten better at ignoring it over the years. Every time it rears its ugly head now he demands to know:

                   Why? Why do you think I try so frequently to take my own life?                                       Do you think it’s just a game for me?                             Every method hurts so terribly but I keep trying.                 A creature like me brings nothing but sadness to those around me.                                             Of course I want to be gone.                                                    But I was told to try.                                                            So I’ll try.                                                          But it hurts.                  Oh, it hurts and I don’t deserve to force people to hurt with me.

                              I’m not chaos, I’m just shameful.

“Well, if the good doctor knows we’re both lost cases, maybe she can tell her least favorite patient what exactly there is to be done about that old damage. A prescription reason to drink away the damage then a nice swim in the river would take away so much drama for everyone else!” Suicide joke taken care of, Dazai moves to lean against his hand as he sits at his desk far too late in the night, the topic’s weight settling on even him because of the destructive power one singular man has on both of their minds, carving wounds even deeper and cutting out his own.

Even before then, the both of them had nails in their chests, of that, Dazai is certain. Bad things continuously to happen to certain people -- very few of those people are ever saved like the two of them were.

“If Odasaku could see me now...” Dazai occasionally wondered if Oda’s refusal to not be a guardian would cause him to be able to watch over him from whatever afterlife the world was cursed with, they were stupid thoughts, but they always led him to visiting his friend. The question of “Do you think he could stand to look at you?” barely registers, stupid as it is, but the first part does ring loudly in his mind as he ponders.

His manipulation certainly hasn’t stopped, dancing Akutagawa and Atsushi around each other to see how long it would take for them to stick in some form of a partnership, but it had actively good intentions for the most part. He’s always cared for Akutagawa deeply, he was his favorite subordinate and every step forward the boy took was something that made the heart in his chest swell up with pride, no matter how he was incapable of showing it properly. 

Certainly, haunting thoughts of being like the man who sculpted who he used to be crossed his mind, but, in the end, he doesn’t regret a moment of his partnership with Chuuya, as much as he loathes the evil that Mori is, so maybe being like him in the underhanded way of pairing of two strong, clashing personalities until they melded together into one, perfect unit... wouldn’t revile Odasaku if brought up, knowing that it was different now. It was for the betterment of the both of them. The injury he’d done to how one can get through to Akutagawa was done years ago and it was slowly being changed, so much so that Akutagawa and Atsushi had grown beyond where he could predict everything.

Above all else, Dazai is still alive and striving towards something that could mirror happiness every day. He owes his entire life to Odasaku and each of the members of the ADA. Dazai is somewhere he isn’t crushed by loneliness every waking moment. The void that eats at his chest every day is more manageable with a family around him and that, that’s something Odasaku wanted for him, he knows that.

                Plus! He’s helping orphans!

“He spoke into me in a way nobody else did, he’s seen how broken I’ve always been,” Dazai says easily. “I think he’d be proud, on some levels and unsurprised on all others. Funny thing to ask a person, what their dead friend would think of them.”

There’s a small crack in Dazai’s masks at one of his only true weaknesses, his guilt over being just late enough to hold Odasaku in his arms as he died. Two entire years underground, struggling to find the will to stay alive left him a great deal of time to think, to come up with alternate scenarios where he did save the only man who managed to save himself from the hell that is the darkness they tread through. 

Every scenario ended in Oda’s suffering, be it his death or Dazai’s or the both of them, so he knew very well that any scenario of Odasaku’s life that included him would end the same. With pain. No matter what he did, S. Oda would be written on a gravestone for Dazai to haunt, praying the he was the only one bound to that grave. Dazai was certain, Odasaku cared too deeply about people for something like a successful suicide or the death of Mori to be useful to keep the man alive. 

Still, for the first time in his life, those months had him wondering what it would be like if he were willing to kill for vengeance before taking his own life. People don’t deserve the sweet release of death, Mori least of all, but the world was a dark place with a man so good at control walking the streets.

“I don’t think there’s a scenario where he lives happily while I’m there,” they’re cold, Dazai’s words, easily mistaken as unfeeling with how calculated they are. “If I exist in the scenario for him, he’ll suffer. I’m the pawn that made him easily located, his children the pawns able to make him easily controlled, his kindness the driving force of his usefulness. No scenario where I connect him directly to Mori’s vision would let him live the life he wanted.”

" I'm always pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to kill you in my mind. "

Pouring a them both a glass of wine from a bottle stolen from Chuuya, his lips curl into a disgusting smile. If only he could be as easy to kill in reality as well. A death in another’s mind means nothing in the end, no matter how fervently and detailed they’ve imagined it. It’s never enough, he’s always still there.

A finger traces over the rim of his glass before reaching down to the neck, wrapping fingers around is before he raises it into the air, as if toasting the idea itself. Dazai would love to look down and see the other man’s hands wrapped around his throat, to feel the last struggling breath leave his lips. It feels like it should be obvious, what he’s imagining with those words echoing in his mind. The thoughts are almost enough for him to ask for it, to tell Chuuya to just do it already, even if it’ll mean his own death in the end.