@flawlesscrane
When Dazai had first arrived, he had been confused. He’d nearly vomited on his shoes, his head spinning and unable to catch up to the rest of him. He had never experienced something quite so disorienting in his life, and he had experienced a fair number of unpleasant things. After a short briefing on his situation, Dazai hadn’t known how to feel.
That was before he’d remembered. Temporal anomalies, they’d said- Dazai was familiar with the concept, at least on the surface. It was easy to infer what had happened after he knew that much, and it confirmed his suspicions.
The Odasaku of “his” time was still dead. That was an undeniable truth that Dazai could not bend or find a way around no matter how hard he tried. The Oda Sakunosuke he had spoken to the other night (night? two nights? weeks? he had no way of knowing how much time had passed since then) had not been the one he was personally acquainted with. At the same time, he wondered how different Oda’s alternate selves could be; the one he had met had not felt any different at all.
Regardless, none of it mattered now- it had been nothing but a cruel trick of fate, giving Dazai the illusion of obtaining the one thing he could never have before ripping it from his grasp once again. Still, the knowledge that somewhere Odasaku was able to live the life he had longed for helped lessen the sting, and Dazai was able to find some semblance of peace in that.
Even if Odasaku had found his peace without him.
It was with these thoughts in mind that Dazai had ventured outside of his lodgings and started walking, simply going wherever his feet would take him, eventually arriving at a little ramen shop, fairly unassuming and easy to miss. It was blessedly quiet when he ducked inside, and he found himself a table on the far end, tucked into a corner, where he would hopefully be left alone for a while to sort himself out. Maybe with a bottle of sake.
