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Dazai didn’t understand why he was still trying. Perhaps he just needed some maternal love and figure. He has seen how Kouyou acts towards Chuuya and a few other lucky members like Kyouka.
So why not him?
Why couldn’t he be liked just like anyone else?
What do they have that he doesn’t?
Why is he so unlovable? Is it even humanely possible? To not be loved?
Unlovable to the point where his own very mother has never been for him. She’s never wanted him in the first place.
She just abandoned him alone at Mori’s place, a picture of her with that man being the only thing Dazai will ever get from the woman who gave birth to him. Not even a certain clothing or even a plush. Nothing. Just a picture with the man he despised the most.
Almost innocently, like he was a child he has never been able to be, every time a plane would fly through the sky, he would look up and silently hoped it was her.
Mori had told him she was up in the sky but he always refused to believe it. It was impossible. She was alive, somewhere.
He tried to draw her. During his sleepless nights, when his insomnia wouldn’t leave him alone in peace or quietness.
And so. On the floor of his bedroom. With a piece of chalk. He drew her face.
He would lay there, on the wooden floor, dreaming sometimes peacefully in her mother’s ‘arms’, drawn with a piece of chalk. Every night in secret.
This drawing, he’s making it.
Traits by traits.
From a portrait.
He was lost when his teachers would come to teach him. He was in his spiral thoughts, fighting against his own enemy.
The plural.
He had tried to explain to his professors why ‘parent’ didn’t take an ‘s’.
And when the moon rose, he was back at it. With a piece of chalk, on the wooden floor. He would draw his mother’s face again and fall asleep with her.
Every night in secret.
This drawing, he’s making it.
Traits by traits.
From a portrait.
When he was introduced into the Port Mafia, he had immediately noticed the woman who appeared to be close to Mori. He soon learned her name. Kouyou Ozaki. She had long ginger hair and deep red eyes..
Maybe that’s why he immediately noticed her. Because she looked so much like the woman in his picture and portraits.
He wasted no time to think of her as a maternal figure. Even if she definitely didn’t look at him the same.
And God knows how much did he try to get her attention. To get her to notice him. To acknowledge him. He craved it more than he could ever admit to himself. A simple praise would have been enough. But was it too hard? To even hear a “Good job!”. A pat on the head would have been more than enough.
Some cuddles, he wanted them so much. He craved them and was desperate. Even coming from a single ‘parent’.
But he had never gotten them or least not from a parental figure. Not from his father whom he had quickly learned to hate and never let his emotions or thoughts be exposed or easy to read.
Neither did he get affection from the redhead woman. She had never even dared to build a relationship with him. Not a single word exchanged except for those needed for work. She never took pity on him, letting him rot in this place without giving him any support. He just wanted to feel a mother’s love for once in his life.
When he gave up, he decided to hate her instead, hating her ginger hair. It’s always the gingers.
He was told that he looked like his father. He hated to be told that. But maybe that’s why he’s so unlovable. It was only Mori’s fault for having a child acting too much like him.
But that doesn’t mean that he had stopped his nocturnal activities. Not at all. He continued.
Laying on the wooden floor, a face made with a piece of chalk drawn on the same floor, bringing him comfort and peace while the brunette would sleep. Every night in secret.
This drawing, he’s making it.
Traits by traits.
From a portrait.
When that other teenager entered the Port Mafia, his hatred only grew. Or perhaps it was jealousy? He would never try to know.
But seeing him with the woman he had made so much efforts to build a relationship with definitely added salt to the wound and made the shared hatred between Chuuya Nakahara an Osamu Dazai to grow even greater.
How dared he to act so friendly with her? To get invited to drink tea with her? To be able to call her Ane-san? Did that vulgar redhead deserved love and affection more than he did? Was he that unlovable? To the point where a short boy with anger issues coming from nowhere is able to get the attention he seeked for a year like it was the easiest thing in the world?
It made everything worse. He craved affection more than anything in the world but he wasn’t allowed to show it. He didn’t even have a wooden floor to draw on anymore. He had the floor of his shipping container even if it wasn’t the best.
And he was back at it, laying on the floor with the face drawn, sleeping peacefully. Every night in secret.
But all it took was one evening. One attempt. One message sent to Chuuya for the redhead to discover it. He was anxious when he reached Dazai’s container and entered without bothering to knock. And there it saw it: the face drawn on the floor and Dazai laying next to it, the bottle of pills still open.
Chuuya didn’t say anything, taking the brunette in his arms and giving him his very first act of affection even if he was unconscious.
Dazai Osamu was finally given affection but he wasn’t conscious to enjoy it or push away Chuuya.
That day, something changed in the way the redhead look at him, the ‘Demon Prodigy’ as he was called.