Generations of Rain || Dazai Osamu/Reader

11. subway.

"You're a weird young man."

That was a thing that you had said when Dazai had come over for the third consecutive night to your bar, always striking up a conversation about how he failed to kill himself again. He had gotten close to you, as a host and hostess relationship, and found comfort in the iron framework of this symbiotic relationship.

"Yeah?" He smiles at you, tilting his head to the side. "You think so?"

"Yeah," You're polishing a glass and placing it on its rim onto the counter, before moving onto another glass. There was a mean-edged coolness about Dazai that you liked; he carried himself around with the scruffiness of a beggar, yet held his head up high as though he was someone important. As if he could see everyone's intentions above their heads. It was a strange phenomena to see. "I've never met anyone else like you."

"Really?"

"Really. I've met suicidal people before. They get all sentimental when they've had a few drinks here and there. But none of them compare to you."

"Well now I'm intrigued," He pushes his drink away and cradles his face in his palms. "Tell me more."

"You long to be healed before you've even been cut," You say, pausing your polishing. "The desire to show you want to die, the desire to be sicker, is indicative of sickness. Why you want to be cut is a mystery, and none of my business. But I will say I'm curious."

He puts a finger over his lips and smiles. But that conceals the shock he's feeling. Never before had the truth of this struck him so forcefully, like a blow to the chest; and the perfumed walls made him feel seasick and all the horrors he'd caused to families and himself at once came to life, turned piercing yellow eyes on him and grinned, with shark's teeth: Snap snap. "That's another thing to talk about another day."

The music in the bar ends and a new song comes on. You turn your head to the speaker on the corner on the left side of the bar.

A sudden kiss in the morning, a tender gaze in the evening
Beyond my range of comprehension, until you brought to attention
Greetings always followed by sweet goodbyes, yes, all must meet its end
Baby, can't you just relax? Don't look back, don't hurry!

Dazai opens his mouth and says something, but alongside the rumbling of the subway and the music blasting from your earphones, you have to take them out of your ears to hear him talk.

"What did you say?"

"I said, what are you listening to?" Dazai asks. You offer him one of your earphones and he slots it into his ear. "Ah, Plastic Love. Who made that song again?"

"Let me check," You turn your phone on. "Mariya Takeuchi."

You stare at the empty seat in front of you as the subway arrives at the next station, halting to a stop as more people stepped into the train. You speak up, breaking the music filled silence. "Reminds me of my old workplace. Reminds me of the old you."

You don't mention how it, by proxy, reminded you of Odasaku. But you know Dazai knows.

"You were right about what you said about me," Dazai sighs. You turn to look at him, the wires to your earphones straining. "That maybe I wasn't a horrible person. Maybe I was just fifteen. Fifteen and doing questionable things in the wrong circumstances."

"I dunno," You say. Your voice is detached and filled with loss. "I've said things before that I've forgotten. A lot of things happened in between those spaces. You know that."

The subway doors close shut and the announcer on the speakers announce the next station. You close your eyes and rest your head back, letting the lyrics of the song sink into the curled shell of your cochlea. Dazai watches your profile intently: the curve of your nose, the fluttering eyelashes, the dark hue of your lips where you've nibbled on; there was a sense of renovation in your face, as if you were patched together from fragments of your memories or the grotesque imaginations of your running mind only thought of in darkened bedrooms. He places a hand on his thigh and taps a finger against it in deep contemplation: You, or what was remembered of you, was in a locked box tucked away in the darkest parts of his brain, where memories threw their rich-dyed shadows across it.