Chapter Text
“Yo, Odasaku. It’s been a while.”
And it has. Sunlight filters down through the leaves of the tree overhead. A gentle breeze works through the surrounding space and blows three and a half years of time away with it. Dazai’s coat flutters in the wind, then settles behind the backs of his legs again.
“I know you’re probably disappointed I haven’t come by in a while. After all, you’re probably bored here.” Dazai rubs the back of his head, then sighs. This is a harder conversation than he had thought.
“Maybe you were afraid I really did kill myself. Sorry for that. I haven’t yet. I mean… I’ve tried plenty of times. I just haven’t managed to succeed.” Sighing, Dazai lowers himself to his knees. Then, he turns his back to the stone marked S. Oda and leans against it. He tips his head back to look at the bright green leaves overhead. “It’s lonely here without you. But I’ve endured it because of what you said to me back then.” A laugh slips out of Dazai, and dull ache floods his senses, the deep-rooted kind that always cropped up again from time to time. He suspects it always will. “It’s so funny how the world works, that a man looking to live because of chance, yet a man looking to die painlessly has to live with all this sadness and suffering. All because of words.” He swallows. “There’s… so much wrong with a world like that, don’t you think?”
The leaves rustle softly as the wind picks up again. Dazai slings a bandaged wrist across his eyes and sighs. “You’re probably wondering what I’ve been up to all this time, and why I haven’t done it yet. It’s not because I found a reason to live. Hell, no… that was you. And I think my life is the kind where you only get one reason.” He pauses, lowers his arm, and glances at the slab behind his back. “You remember what I said the last time I was here? About getting away from Yokohama for a while? Well, a few weeks after… you know…”
Dazai won’t think it. He won’t even say it. He smiles, though, because he knows Odasaku will know exactly what he’s talking about.
“I got my entrance exam scores back, and you know what? You were right. I didn’t do half as bad as I thought. I can still remember the look on Kunikida’s face when I told him. I even beat his math score.” Dazai grins as he remembers the way Kunikida’s jaw hung open. “Anyway, with everything…” He again avoids saying it, or even thinking it. He knows he’ll go back to his apartment wanting to take himself out of this world if he does. “I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to go through with leaving. I didn’t want to desert you, but I didn’t want to let you down, either. So… I just kind of threw myself at an opportunity.” He smiles. “Waseda University in Tokyo. I know it’s not far, but I still wanted to feel like I could come visit if the spirit moved me, you know?”
A pale white cloud drifts over the sun, and the shade swallows Dazai up.
“I was so… shattered after you left. I couldn’t go right away. That would feel too much like betrayal. Like me leaving you. And I can’t.” Dazai peers at the clear blue sky “I almost put it off for a year. And moving away from here was the hardest thing I’ve done. Not because of my so-called family. Because I was leaving you. I was admitting to myself that part of me could move on to something that wasn’t high school. Time never stops for anything, I guess.”
Dazai inhales, sighs, inhales again. “The dorms were as shitty as you said they were. Luckily, money talks, and I got a studio apartment. My family…” His voice trailed off, and he shrugged. “Actually, now, I’m glad you never met them after everything that happened when the found out about me. Us.” He chews on that word as it leaves his mouth. “They don’t want me to be part of the family, but they’re happy to provide for me financially given that I stay away.” He leans forward and lets his head hang, staring at the grass between his shoes. “I studied business management. Classes were alright, I guess. Going out with my classmates was a total chore. None of them ever could make me laugh the way you could.”
The shade recedes, and Dazai sits in the warm sun again. The breeze sighs. Dazai sighs with it.
“I always told myself I’d try it for a week. Then a month. Then a semester. Then a year. Next thing I knew, I was graduating. But, you know… I’m not very good at mourning. I threw myself at things so I wouldn’t have to think about it.” He shrugs. “Right when I started Waseda, I did something else for myself. Just on a whim. I completed barista training on weekends. I just… needed something to do. When I was done, I got a part-time job at a coffee shop a few train stops away from the school. That… maybe that was the nicest part, actually. Customers could be a pain, but you know… there’s just something satisfying about making pour over coffee. And the smell… somehow, it reminds me of you. Earthy. Pleasant.” His smile grows, and with it, so does the pain.
“Now I know what you’re wondering. ‘But wasn’t graduation four of months ago? It’s almost midway through August, isn’t it?’” Dazai says the words, but in his mind, he hears them in Odasaku’s voice. “Well, I moved back here after, took a few odd jobs here and there. Convinced a local place to let me offer a class on coffee tasting. But honestly, I’ve finally been sitting alone with this…” Grief was the word. Trauma was the other. But he said neither. “A couple weeks after I got back, I just happened to pass a vacant shop. It’s close to Chinatown, and it’s pretty close to Ishikawacho Station. It’s a pretty touristy area. A lot of people go down there. And I… decided I had to have it. I don’t think I’ve wanted anything that badly since I’ve wanted you.”
He feels comfortable saying that here, alone on a grassy knoll beneath a tree. It would be different if Odasaku were buried somewhere less private.
“So,” Dazai continues, “I made some calls.” To the real estate agent. To his so-called family. But he didn’t need to explain that. “I bought it. Signed the papers, got the keys. I’ve spent the last four or five weeks getting the place ready. God, I wish it was just painting the place. I had to order equipment, supplies. I really had to crunch numbers to figure out whether this was even feasible.”
There’s something sweet in the wind that blows by this time. He recognizes the scent as the same flowers he passed while walking up the hill, the ones that have passed the cusp and are starting to dry up. “The grand opening is tomorrow, and I wish you could see it. It’s such a peaceful little place. I think you’d really—” Dazai’s voice cracks, and he clenches his jaw shut while he composes himself. He has to wipe his eyes once he has. “If you were still here, I’d have loved to call you my first customer. And it’s a damn shame that instead, it’ll be some housewife or office worker.”
There are times Dazai can deny the pain and times he can live with it. But now that he’s steeped in a future that could have been, a future that is now impossible, it’s unbearable. He wants to die. “I was hoping,” he continues in a shaky voice, “the café would be a good enough reason for me to live. But I already know it’s not.” He swallows and adds, “I want to give up so badly.”
The air goes still, and the trees fall silent. It’s stifling. Alone with all the old grief he hasn’t had time to face and the empty hope of tomorrow being better… Dazai can barely stand himself.
“I’m running out of steam, Odasaku,” he says. “I’m so tired of looking. So tired of living.” His hands brush against the date engraved in the gravestone, and he sighs. “I know we talked about this before you left, when I put the first scar in my wrist. I know you made me promise not to do it. But I’m… not sure how much longer I can keep that promise. So… why don’t we make a bet? Like back when I bet you you’d be dating someone by the time you graduated?” It was a bet Dazai knew he was going to win back then. After all, he saw the way Odasaku looked at him, and despite the years between them, Dazai always was the kind of person to take what he wanted. “It’s almost the middle of August now. We’ll call it eleven weeks. I’ll wait until October 26,” he says. “But if I haven’t found anything, I’m done.”
Dazai rises and turns to look at the grave he’s been leaning against, knowing full well the man it memorializes wouldn’t approve, but it’s been long enough since Odasaku’s death now that he’s immune to any possible disapproval he would have if he was still alive.
“I’ll be back to let you know how opening day goes. Now that I’m in Yokohama, I should be able to come by more often.” He tucks his hands in his pockets and regards Odasaku’s grave for a moment. “Until then,” he murmurs as he turns, “I guess I’ll be off.”
As Dazai descends the stairs leading to Odasaku’s grave, the wind picks up again, and the sweet smell of blossoms races up to meet him. He regards the bright blue flowers that have started to wilt, pauses to smell them. He opens his phone and searches online for what they are. They turn out to be morning glories. He should have known.
Something about them… and that Ethiopian… together, those thoughts distract him from the pain. He takes a photo of the flowers before tucking his phone in his pocket and turning his steps back towards the train station. Dazai knows he’s going to be up half the night, though this time, instead of thinking about suicide, he’ll be wavering between pre-opening jitters and trying to recreate those blooms in latte art.