pearlpost

He was gone again.

The hollow sensation that lingered in her chest was nothing new, and yet, as with every time that he left, it cut into her with renewed vigor, drawing the air sharply out of her lungs. She couldn’t understand what was wrong with her, to let him use her the way he did and to continue falling for that sweet smile whenever he needed her body to make him forget.

It ended the same way every single time.

She was exhausted. Their dance never seemed to end, and each night was spent in his arms once again, feeding herself on the sweet poison of his pretty lies.

Her breath wisps past her lips and as she draws herself out between silken sheets, she catches sight of herself in the mirror. Her eyes are glassy, dark blooming in sleep-deprived bruises beneath her waterline, lips chapped from where he’d kissed her until she bled, until she’d begged. Even now, she can still taste him on her tongue, feel the ghost of his touch tracing his name into her flesh.

Dazai lingers, and she hates him for it.

She swallows hard, choking down the broken rage and the shadow of a scream that threatens what is left of her sanity. Her gaze drops lower, lower, snags on the purple-blue stains lining her throat, her collarbones, her hips.

The evidence of his power over her marks every inch of her skin, and she doesn’t know what she wants anymore.

All she knows is that this has to stop. Before she falls further in love with the one man who doesn’t want her.

“Come now belladonna,” his words drip into her ears like syrup and she turns in a daze, grey eyes catching onto his whiskey gaze. He grins, leans in, lets himself hover just above her, eyes fixated on the lips he knew better than anyone. “Let me make you feel good.”

She hates him.

“No,” it is a struggle to get the word out without crying and she turns hurriedly away, fingers curling into her palms. She can feel him behind her, empty eyes running all over and over again until she thinks she might just combust from the heat in his gaze. But she perseveres, biting down on her tongue as she remembers how this dance ends.

Her alone on silk sheets, as beautiful and broken as ever.

“Why?” his lips rasp gently over her neck, stop, press closer. Her breath hitches at the firmness of his body against her, long fingers coming up to her hand where they intertwine. “Don’t you love me?”

This bastard. She wants to scream at him, to rake her nails down his face and see something other than empty in those intoxicating eyes. But she doesn’t.

“I wish I didn’t.”

A heartbeat of silence. Behind her, Dazai has gone deathly still, and she thinks that maybe he understands, maybe, finally, he cares. But then he is leaning in close again, pressing the softest kiss to her ear as he hums, “Then let me love you.”

Lies. Tears prick at her eyes. It’s all lies. He never does, and she hates herself for hoping every single time that he would. This was Dazai Osamu they were talking about; the most ruthless executive in the mafia, the demon prodigy.

And she was in love with him.

“Ruin me then,” she says, turning to face him. His eyes are dark, his features cold. Still, she raises her hand to his face, skirts her fingers over his cheekbone and watches as his breath catches, hunger simmering in those bottomless eyes. “Ruin me, so I learn to hate you.”

He grins, sharp and feral and wicked. “With pleasure, darling.”

And as she lets him claim her in every way possible she find herself wondering whether she could really hate him. In the end, when he was gone again and she was alone again, what would she see?

Turns out, all that remains is simply her broken heart.

It is a mess as always, his apartment. Wooden slats buried beneath a pile of crinkled takeout wrappers, bottles of liquor, now very much empty, strewn around. Glass glitters in a tiny warning as you step carefully over them, your heels settling in quiet against the flooring, what little of it is visible anyways. You follow the blood trail to the bedroom. It is even worse in here; closed curtains that swallow it whole and Dazai is a familiar lump on twisted sheets, half-dragged on the ground.

Your exhale is a hollow breath of your lungs.

You move to the windows, hesitate for only a heartbeat before drawing them open. Sunlight, pale and watery as the thin droplets of whiskey on his lips, drifts in, swallows the darkness. Dust motes flicker in the stream of soft light, gentle as the flutter of a moth's wings.

Dazai's groan is a shot down to your stomach. Your heart climbs up into your throat.

He whispers your name, voice hoarse, hands shifting over the bed before he's reaching out an arm in your general direction. You let out another quiet sigh, stepping towards him.

Dazai smiles weakly up at you, fingers flexing. You stare down at his hand; long joints and delicate bones, skin rough and calloused and bloodstained from where he has gripped the bottle too hard. Glass glitters here, too, little pieces of stars embedded in the flesh of his open palm.

His smile falls when you do not take his hand.

"Get up," you say quietly, simply. The words, plain as they are, are not a request. And Dazai knows better than to argue. He shuffles for a few moments before pulling himself out. He tries to, anyways, instead ending up in a heap of limbs and bedsheets on the floor. Another hoarse groan, you let out another sigh.

Your heart, what little is left of it anyways, breaks a little more when his lower lip quivers, his eyes darting away from yours, unable to look you in the eyes.

You kneel down before him, reaching out carefully. Your fingers find the curves of his cheeks, his jaw, your touch as tender as though you were approaching some feral, wounded animal. A sound chokes in Dazai's throat, almost a whimper. You swipe a thumb along the line of his eye, catch the tear that has dried there. His skin is hot to the touch, and you wonder if he is flushed with fever or whiskey.

It is hard to tell with Dazai.

"Get up, Dazai," you repeat, softer this time. Less a demand, more a plea, almost. You rub his cheek softly, watch the skin flare bright red beneath your cold fingers. You straighten up, letting go of him as you do. "You need a shower."

He stares up at you with wide eyes, before smirking. His teeth glint beneath the curve of his lip. "Join me?"

You stare at him blankly. "Get up first."

Dazai grumbles, incoherent, playful but the circles that bruise his cheek give him away. His knuckles are white where they clutch at the edge of the bed. He pulls himself up, and your arm comes around his waist before he falls back down again. Dazai moans, you question if it is some twisted sort of pleasure or pain, and nuzzles into your neck, inhaling the scent of your skin deep as he can.

His lips form a word in quiet, a word that you do not want to hear, searing over your skin, the weight of his lips far too familiar.

"Come on." You don't respond to the whispered declaration, the apology leaves a bitter taste in the back of your mouth and you think you'd rather swallow down that cheap liquer Dazai seems to have taken a liking to. You hold him close, trudging through the mess of the room to the bathroom. You dump him ceremoniously in the shower, clothes and all as you push your own coat off, leave it in an expensive heap of carmine on the kitchen counter. Your sleeves are rolled up, gold glinting inches above the crescent-shaped scar that cuts into your upper right forearm, the skin there a darker bronze over blue-green veins. Dazai's gaze catches there, and so does his breath.

He hates that scar. Hates anything that he didn't cause.

His bathroom is bare, you expected no less. You pick out the soap you'd brought along, some off-brand that you would never have taken hadn't it been for such short notice. Dazai scowls.

"I want your soap," he mumbles, petulant. You give him a look and he slumps back in the tub. You think of a kicked puppy and your heart lurches once again.

You keep quiet, though. All the words you want to say linger like burned ash beneath your tongue.

You step into the tub with him, adjusting the controls. "Strip."

Dazai shuffles behind you, and you hear the clink of his clothes hitting the porcelain, zippers dragging and buttons popping as he shuffles and snaps them in annoyance. Then there's the quiet whisper of rough paper, and you know he's removing his bandages.

You know better than to look.

You pass him the shower head then, the water warm. You stare at the controls, steam rising up around you.

SUZUYA JŪZŌ is a madman.

That's what they all say.

From the moment he had been, supposedly, "rescued" from the underground pit hosted by the infamous Gourmet ghoul, he had done everything he could to prove his worth. But apparently, stitching small x's onto one's skin does not make one approachable. Being so quiet, so unpredictable, does not make one a friend.

SUZUYA JŪZŌ is a madman.

That's what they all whisper. And they still do, every single time he passes by. Every single time they drop him into a fight and he laughs his way through, scythe in hand and blood staining the manic smile that cuts into his cheekbones. Every single time he stands in one of their meetings, lips twisted into an eerie smile as he promises to wreak utter havoc on the red-eyed beasts that prowl the streets with just the order.

SUZUYA JŪZŌ is a madman.

That's what they all promise her. But she sees beyond the mania, the ruthlessness, the bloodlust. She sees the broken child who'd been starved for affection and yet all people would do was stare at him with cold eyes and promise that he was too damaged for anything of the sort. She sees the boy who'd been made into a pet for a deranged ghoul and had the very essence of who he could have been stripped away from him. She sees the man who has been through too much, lost too much, and yet has something left in him; just enough for him to fight back for the man who had taken him under his wing.

SUZUYA JŪZŌ is a madman.

He loves like one as well, she has come to realise.

His touches bruise her hips, but his kisses are soft, like the brush of a butterfly's wings against her cheek, her lips, the arch of her throat, the dip of her collarbones. There is delirium in his touch, a sense of urgency as though she could, she would, disappear at one point from where she lies beneath him.

And so she lets him press harder into her flesh, watches as he stares down at her; the skin indenting and flushing as blood rises to the surface, another pattern of black and blue that is utterly his. She lets him sink his teeth into her shoulder and cries out when he pushes even harder against her as he catches the choked sob that escapes her lips, her flesh tearing, scarring, another mark of his to bear. The taste of iron that fills her mouth when he tilts her head to his for a kiss is almost heady, because, in a way, it is all Jūzō.

She lets him ruin her, and she thanks him when he does.

SUZUYA JŪZŌ is a madman.

She is beginning to understand that there is a dark truth to what they say. She sees it now as he stands before her, a glint in his gaze she has never had directed at her before. The knife he holds in his hands twists, twists, twists through his fingers and then into her skin and once again, she is crying out but this time, he isn't letting up. No, this time he wants her to hurt, to hurt and hurt and hurt until he lets go, until he grants her mercy.

SUZUYA JŪZŌ is a madman.

"Who is he to you?"

He is screaming, and she cannot breath. There are fingers on her throat, around her wrists, in her mouth, death is staring her right in the eyes and she cannot breathe.

"Tell me the truth," the fingers tighten and death comes closer, so close that she can see the insanity in those eyes, the anguish that carves into the hollows of his face. They look like they're filled with blood, and she realises that Jūzō is crying.

"Who is he to you?"

She promises him that it is nobody, nobody that matters, nobody that would ever matter. She screams it between his fingers, into his skin, whispers her oath against his heart.

Jūzō has stopped listening.

SUZUYA JŪZŌ is a madman.

"Beg for me," he tells her, and she does. She begs until her throat is raw, until all she can taste is salt and blood and Jūzō. Until all she knows is him and her and that is how it should be.

That is how he wants it to be.

SUZUYA JŪZŌ is a madman.

She knows now that this is how he will remain as such until the end, until even she is broken and begging to get away. Because this is how he keeps her safe, this is how he shows his love. What a dangerous thing it is, to be loved by someone like Jūzō. Someone who has known nothing quite so beautiful before her, and refuses to let go.

SUZUYA JŪZŌ is a madman.

She has stopped begging for him to let her go. She understands now, that this is how it should be. That is is him and her, always, forever. They are eternal, and she is Jūzō's. All his, only his. Nothing else matters beyond him.

SUZUYA JŪZŌ is a madman.

His, their, wedding plans are far beyond grandiose. It is not something she expects from someone like him but she likes it. She goes through the ceremony with a grin like sunlight, their fingers laced tightly together. His fingers are warm around hers, his pulse jumping beneath his fingertips. There is something about the entire thing that reminds her of the moth she had seen just this morning, tangled in the silken strands of a spider's web.

She ignores the pity in some of their eyes.

She ignores the darkness beneath her own.

And when Jūzō makes his mark on her, she ignores the scream that locks itself in her throat, and instead swallows his declaration of love for her.

She ignores how it tastes like venom crawling beneath her skin.

SUZUYA JŪZŌ is a madman.

She is fast, but he is faster still.

Teeth bared and hair wild, he is a beautiful nightmare beneath the moonlight. This scene is all too familiar, and she wonders how long she has been running. Minutes, hours, days even?

Wonders if this is even just a dream anymore.

He has her now, fingers clenching around her wrists like iron. There is a stillness in the air, a moment of ragged peace before he twists and she screams. The crunch of her bones is a terrible sound, but his voice, quite though he keeps it, carries over it in a death knell.

"You'll regret this."

SUZUYA JŪZŌ is a madman.

She loves him. She loves him so much that something in her hurts at the very sight of him. She wishes she could leave. She wishes that she could be kinder to him. She wishes she was enough for him to let her go.

He thinks differently, however. He loves her too much to let her go.

SUZUYA JŪZŌ is a madman.

"Till death do us part."

Dazai finds himself here less often, these days.

The bridge is rotting wood over slow water, dappled with the canopy of trees above it and the glitter of the stream below it. It is a beautiful place, made to appreciate nature. He does not remember how he found this place in the beginning.

Dazai finds he does not remember a lot of things these days.

He leans over the edge of the wooden structure, stares down at the face he sees in the clear water. He sees nothing remarkable, nothing memorable.

He is struggling to remember what is so important in his eyes.

Dazai closes his eyes halfway. The sunlight fractures, sparkles in pieces of stained light over the sweep of his lashes. They are almost blinding in their beauty.

"Will you come home?" You ask him. Your voice carries quiet. He closes his eyes, thinks of you with your pretty eyes and pretty smile and the way your hands are veined green and delicate.

You are blinding in your beauty.

"To you? Always."

Sukuna, who knows that nobody could ever possibly measure up to the likes of him. He is powerful, invincible; a living, breathing god. He wields death like a sword and

Sukuna, who does not believe in mercy. But he thinks he might grant you mercy; you with insanity in your eyes and power that bleeds gold through your very marrow. You, who dares to look him straight in his eyes even as you kneel before his throne, wearing a smile as you promise to wear his bones as your crown and have him kneeling before you. Surely such a soul would do better beneath his tutelage, and so he so graciously offers to take you under his wing.

Sukuna, who immediately grows to regret his decision your first night in his castle of nightmares as he rises to a red moon and the blood of thousands upon thousands of curses sparkling across the expanse of porcelain floors. And you, staring down at him from your perch above him, a wicked dagger glinting between your fingers aimed straight for his heart.

It has been dark for a while.

Getō does not remember how he got here. He does not know where he is.

Something drips somewhere ahead of him, a steady plip-plip-plip that syncs in tune with a dead heart that he fists far too tight, clutched desperate like something precious and terrible to the gaping maw of his chest. His ribcage is open and flowers bloom from the hollow within, wreathes over bone and roots into his blood. He can taste the petals sometimes, bittersweet at the back of his throat, beneath his tongue.

It has been dark for a while, now.

It has become quiet, too.

Getō tries to remember when the dripping stopped. His ears are ringing with the silence.

The heart is gone now. In its place is a heavy sphere, dark-glossed and shimmering like the edges of a night sky. He stares down at it, watches it seep into the black of his yukata, melting down between his fingers. They twist with it, skin dripping down off bone. Voices raised through his ears, a cacophony resounding through his skull, his bones.

There is a scream lodged somewhere in his throat. A voice behind his temples, calling, calling, calling. A name his, and yet not.

Suguru. Suguru. Suguru.

It burns.

It has been dark for a while now.

Too long. Getō struggles to remember how much time has passed since ... he cannot remember.

He raises his hands. They are not his hands, too wide and smooth. He thinks his hands were rougher, thinks that they were not quite so sin-marked. Blood lies thick beneath his nails, a violent smear against the pale of his skin.

He flexes his fingers. There is a second's delay before the limbs follow along.

Something laughs in his skull. Another whisper of his name, venom-sweet and hideous.

Suguru.

It has been dark for a while now. Geto remembers only the shape of his not-body now.

Getō is holding the heart again. It is alive this time, fresh and red and pulsing desperately in his hands, almost glowing with life. Something twists inside him, a hunger not his, a want that belongs to something that lives beneath his skin.

He raises the heart up to his face. Bites down into it, blood vessels breaking, iron sliding down his tongue, his throat.

It burns.

He swallows, bites another piece off. More, and more, and more. The voices have gone quiet in his head. His hands are covered in red.

He closes his eyes, takes the final bite.

He tastes salt at the edge of his mouth.

It has grown darker. Geto remembers his name. He remembers death and bile and burning flame. He does not know where he is.

Getō can hear the water again. This time, it is a steady rush. Salt is filling his mouth, his nose, his eyes.

Everything burns, aches.

His skin is tearing itself apart.

Suguru.

Someone is calling him again. He closes his eyes, terrified, alone. He thinks of cigarettes and candies. He thinks of blue skies and a bright smile and a bullet.

There is blood in his mouth, metal heavy along his teeth. He moves and it feels like his spine carves out of his body, bone fragmenting along the edges of his flesh.

Getō cannot breathe.

Suguru.

Something crawls out of his skin. Smiles down at him. It looks like him, same teeth, same eyes, same smile, same hair. Same everything.

Suguru.

Getō closes his eyes. The fear gives away to the hollow in his chest. There are no more flowers blooming there, only poison. Poison in his skin and his eyes and his heart.

Teeth close into him.

Suguru.

Finally, it is quiet again.

Dazai frequents your bar.

He sits at polished wood, drinks bitter sake from crystal, stares at his reflection in glass panes that overlook Yokohama. He stays until the sky bruises, peach-tender. He forgets his name but remembers too well the curve of your lips and the crease of your eyes when he touches you. His brain numbs and Odasaku whispers but your perfume is soft and sweet where it lingers on the tips of his fingers, along the hollows of his cheeks.

Dazai stays until the sun spills across the horizon and he remembers that you are no longer his.

TAKE ONE : THE DORAYAKI STALL | 28.02

It is at a tiny dorayaki stall behind your school and you do not know his name.

You think he is annoying, your first sense of him being entirely his voice. High-pitched and whiny, you see him clinging to a boy almost two entire heads taller than him, a dragon tattoo curling across his scalp and a rather exasperated look on his face.

You think you share the same exasperation when the shorter boy, blonde and bright-eyed and full-cheeked whines again. "Ken-chin, let me buy them!"

The taller boy catches your rather annoyed gaze. You blink back at him, caught off-guard. The shorter boy huffs at his friend's distracted manner and turns to face you and you think, Oh.

Because he is cute. Really, really cute. His eyes are bright and his smile is bright and there is something entirely blinding about him, like a piece of sunshine personified, the glow of it spilling out of his skin and warming everything around him.

You blink at him, a little stunned. He flushes red, all the way to the tips of his ears and promptly falls quiet, scuffs his feet against the sun-baked asphalt and looks away pointedly.

The taller boy smirks, and you watch, a little amused, a little horrified, as the younger boy shoves rather violently at him, as though trying to shut him up. It clearly does not work, as the half-shaven boy opens his mouth and says, very casually, "You are that girl in Econ, right? Middle row, window seat?"

You blink again. You are feeling awfully stupid right about now, a little embarrassed for gods know what reason, seeing the way the shorter boy is now attempting to climb up the taller boy and strangle him. "...Yes?"

The taller boy's grin is absolutely wicked. He calls out over the new bout of whining from the shorter boy, words ringing clear. "So you're Mikey's crush."

The shorter boy whines and plops himself down on the sidewalk, rather dramatically. You stare blankly at the both of them, cheeks warm. "Sorry, who?"

The shorter boy looks up at you then, looks so ridiculously offended you are not sure whether to laugh or backtrack and start apologising. The taller of the two grins, something smug in the look as he claps a hand to the shorter boy's head. "This is Mikey."

You stare down at the boy on the pavement. He stares back up at you, wide-eyed and red-cheeked and a part of you wants to take his face in your hands, nip at the apples of his cheeks and see if they are as soft as they look.

You manage to bite back the urge.

"Ah," you say, quietly, and promptly walk away.

TAKE TWO : THE SCHOOL PHOTO ROOM | 13.07

The photo room of your school is a dark, lonely place. Few people come here, more interested in digital cameras and instant polaroids. You? You enjoyed the processing of film, the wait for the pictures to develop, to see a moment captured in time and hope that it has come out well.

Naturally, you are not expecting for a very warm body to suddenly sidle to your side and an excited gush of your name.

You jump, almost drop your camera, almost break his nose. You manage to shy away at the last moment when you catch sight of that bright eyes, even brighter smile. "Manjirō?"

Mikey beams back at you, entirely unbothered by your reaction. He looks like he has just finished classes, shirt untucked and his hair loose, flowing about his ears. His tie has gone missing, and the way the bag hangs off his shoulder implies it holds absolutely nothing.

You have to make a rather conscious effort to not stare at his cheeks.

He breathes your name, entirely delighted to have found you here. And then he is leaning in curiously, peering over your shoulder. "What are you doing here all alone?"

The sarcasm metes out of you before you can stop it. "A satanic ritual."

He blinks at you, surprised, and then blushes as red as a tomato.

Oh god, you really want to bite his cheeks.

You tuck the urge away, soften with a smile at him. You speak more to Manjirō, these days. He waits for you outside of school, wide-eyed and red-cheeked and often with a bag of sweets in one hand, the other always twitching nervously at his side.

You think he wants to hold your hand, sometimes.

Sometimes, you think you want to hold his hand, too.

You turn back to your photo board. "Just waiting for these to process. What are you doing here?"

"I was waiting for you," he mutters, something painfully shy in the words. He goes quiet for a moments, scuffs his foot against the cement floor. His gaze darts to the photos, then to your hands, back up to your face. "Thought you might be here." Another beat of quiet. "Your pictures are super good. You like photography, huh?"

Some part of you tightens at those words, melts down the marrow of you like spools of candied cotton. "Yeah."

"I like it, too," he tacks on, eager and shy and you look at him, find his wide-eyed gaze on you. Your lips turn up even wider.

"Yeah?"

He nods, all warm sunshine and puppy-dog energy, leans in excitedly. He smells of burnt sugar and baby powder. You can see the flutter of his lashes at this distance, all soft over the full of his cheeks. You think he does not realise how he is invading your personal space. You find that you do not quite mind.

"I like everything you like." His eyes widen even more, honest and raw and open and so so so bright. Your heart climbs into your throat. "I like you."

Another beat of quiet. This time, it is you that moves.

His lips are soft and warm. You conclude that he tastes like fresh red bean paste.

TAKE THREE : MUSASHI JINJA | 16.12

The shrine is empty and cold and Sano Manjirō, at the center of it all, looks like something fallen from the heavens, the marrow of him dug bloody off his bones.

Sano Manjirō looks dead.

There are circles sunken beneath the hollows of dark, empty eyes. His skin is pale, stretched taut over his bones. Bone-white hair hangs limp over his face.

Your heart wrenches. He does not at all look like the boy you know. The boy you love.

'Loved', something twisted and dark whispers in you. You swallow it down, sink it bitter into the maw of you.

"Manijrō," you whisper, and there is something so very raw in your voice. You want to reach out to him, to cradle him in your hands and let the broken pieces of him cut into you, carve out a shape from you so that you can fit him in. Let him rest there, leech the weariness off his bones and onto yours.

He does not respond. His eyes are blank as he stares at you.

Your throat tightens, the air in your lungs sharp. "Manjirō, please." You do not know what you are begging for. You do not know if he can hear you.

Manjirō blinks, as though he is awakening from a trance. He stares at you for a heartbeat, two, three.

The space stretches long, the silence thin.

"Go home," he tells you. Quiet. Defeated. So very unlike the loud, boisterous boy you know. Knew. "Go home and forget this."

Your heart climbs into your throat, chokes there. "Manjirō—"

Metal presses cold to your temple. The oxygen in your lungs strains, cracks its way past your teeth. You swallow, loss bitter at the back of your tongue, heavier than the sight of the blood on his knuckles as they graze the corner of your eye. Your lashes flutter against the frantic pulse in his wrist. He presses softly against your skin, a hiss of a warning.

An ending.

"Go home."

You think of a boy with a smile angel-bright and full, baby cheeks. You think of a boy who likes dorayaki and settles on you with clumsy fingers. You think of a boy who pouts and whines and would give you such soft, soft kisses, feather-light and always so careful.

You think of a boy they called Mikey so fondly.

There is a quiet click. You can smell the lingering notes of his skin, burnt sugar and the faintest edge of petrol. Somewhere, someplace, you hope he is happy. Hope that his eyes are not quite so hollow, and his smile is not quite so sad.

Hope that somewhere, someplace, your Manjirō has a happy ending.

Dazai lingers.

He is there in the bruises that trace over the column of your throat, the swells of your breasts, a line of blue-black that stains an almost pretty crimson trail down to between your thighs and a little beyond.

He is there in your bed, the ghost of him a seeping warmth that leeches your own off your bones, leaves you hollowed and aching on nights when the sky was just a little too starless and the pounding at your temples a little too loud.

He is there when you look at your hands and wonder if the lines he would smooth a calloused thumb over spells his name. When it is somewhere in the am and yet the sky is still dark as his eyes, and he marks your fate with something that rots over time, sickly sweet and poisonous, burning down your throat like fine wine.

He is there when you reach the point of the highest skyscraper in the city, neon lights carving out your features and throwing a spark into your eyes. A touch of calloused fingers that trace rough down the dips of your spine as your legs dangle in the air, teeth biting at the lobe of your ear and a hand pressed onto your stomach to still you when you shiver. Spread out miles above, over the city that fears even the whisper of his name, where he takes you apart and shapes your lips raw around the weight of his name.

He is everywhere that matters, everywhere that you think to be and all everywhere you have been. A memory that will not fade, a stain of blood that refuses to wash out, even as time passes and all the other things around it grows muted, monochrome. Even after he is long, long gone. A ghostly presence in all the hollow parts of you, carving out a space for himself.

Dazai lingers.

The sky is dark over Yokohama tonight, all shadowed blue and the faintest flecks of stars. Dazai reaches for you, slips a hand over the curve of your waist and tucks his nose into your neck. You smell of blood and smoke and rain. All the things he does not particularly like.

But Dazai likes your laugh. Especially when you laugh because of him. The staccato of it is a tender, melancholy thing, he feels it more than he hears it, at the moment, the sound vibrating soft in your throat. He nuzzles deeper into you.

"Hi," you murmur, lace a gentle hand into his hair. The touch makes his cheeks warm, makes him raise his head to catch a glimpse of you. The knife-sharp bright of your eyes, your pretty smile, the way your hands are all delicate veins and soft skin as they settle so carefully over the dip of his neck.

He buries back into you, breathes you in like a drowning man.

He is drowning, sometimes, it is almost all he knows.

Sometimes, he drowns a little less when he can touch you, like this.

Feels less like being pulled under when all he can smell and taste and hear is you you you and Dazai thinks he can sink into your bones, ball himself so small and so tight that he fits into the spaces of your ribcage.

He wishes you would, sometimes. Wishes you would break all his bones and fold him up, tuck him away entirely for yourself.

You sigh at his silence, smooth a thumb over his temple. The touch precedes a kiss, a faint, lingering note of warmth that blooms beneath his skin and coils down into his chest, thorns into his heart. He gasps, something almost raw in the sound, and tilts his head towards you for more.

You laugh again, quieter, more sad this time. Indulge him, the next kiss barely grazing the curve of his eye, your half-smile ghosting his lashes. He thinks of how sorrow rims your eyes too often and presses you tighter against him, holds you there until he is sure that, even after you are long gone, the imprint of you can be found on his bones.

I love you he wants to tell you. Wants to say those words so badly they hurt to keep on his tongue, sears into the back of his throat like acid.

I love you.

Stay with me.

Please.

He hopes you know. Prays to gods he has no belief in that you always know the words he cannot say, always know that he is entirely for you, even if you never want him back. Even if you never get the chance to hear the words from his lips.

He raises his head. Looks at you and aches when you look back, all broken-star beauty and that pretty smile. The night shadows you, draws you back out into something little more than a dream, your edges softened between the hours of dusk and dawn. You are wispy like this, all faded and yet too much for him.

"Hi," he whispers back. You smile at him, soft and sweet and all the things he hates unless it is in you, from you. He knows you know, feels the ache of it burn through him and hates himself a little less, here against your skin.

He does not mind all these things he hates, if he gets you with them.

I love you.