Generations of Rain || Dazai Osamu/Reader

15. cemetery.

The trip to the cemetery is quiet; silent, even. There isn't much to say other than the rustling paper bag in your hands. In it was the wine Odasaku had bought for your so-called honeymoon. You say "so-called" because there wasn't a formal wedding to be in the first place, and your "honeymoon" was just another sex vacation.

What a strange relationship.

In the backseat are a collection of flowers: Lilies, tulips, carnations. They would be eaten by wandering deers anyways, but it was the thought that counted. They were dutifully bound together with a pink silk ribbon, the paper rustling with every bump and turn of the car.

Dazai turns right, before the car completely comes to a stop. He clicks his seat belt loose, before turning to you. "We're here. Are you sure you're ready for this?"

Your grip on the wine bottle tightens. "Yes."

"Alright." He opens his side of the door and you follow, slamming it shut with the wine bottle tucked underneath your armpit. It's a cool summer day today, as if the sun had decided to relieve you of its scorching torture, hiding peacefully behind the clouds. The sky was so vast and blue that it never seemed to end; it was as if you were looking at an ocean upside down.

The trail to Odasaku's tombstone Dazai seemed to know by heart, as if he's been here more than you have. You follow him slowly, looking at the other marble tombstones, saying their names in your head, before bumping into the back of Dazai.

"He's here." Dazai says. He is here. Not 'he was here'. As if he was still alive. "Why don't we sit down and share a drink.?"

You wordlessly sit down on the patch of grass and pull out three wine glasses, their reverberating cries ringing in your ears when they collide with each other. You first pour Dazai a drink, then Odasaku's, then yours. You swirl the drink in your hand and finally, finally, turn your gaze to the writing on the tombstone.

Odasakunosuke.

"It's been a while since I visited," Dazai admits. You nod.

"Same for me."

You pet the grass the same way you used to pet Odasaku's hair when he rested his head on your chest. It was the only way you could breathe comfortably: To have the love of your life entwining his legs with yours, feeling at peace despite his rough life as a mafioso to rest his head against your breast.

Dazai places the flowers down. You, strange enough, don't find the urge to cry. Instead you're filled with a melancholic, ineffable longing, as if you didn't really expect him to leave you, but he did; and it was the shock of it that numbed you.

The earth is quickly turning over, time passes, the processes of nature marches on, reminding you of what you and Odasaku carry deep in your bones: The inextribicability of life and death, and the ability to cope, to find meaning despite this, because of this. After Odasaku's death did you battle with the meaning of life: Was the meaning of life happiness? No, it couldn't be; Huxley's Brave New World debunked that theory: Then what was it?

Now, as you're sipping on the familiar wine do you come to an answer: The meaning of life was to experience the full spectrum of what it meant to be human. Tragedy, inconveniences, sadness—to happiness, joy, glee.

What happened to Odasaku was tragic, but he was not a tragedy. He was the love of your life. The man that you called home.

Dazai watches you as you serenely tilt your head back and face the skies, admiring the column of your bare neck as it undulates with the wine going down. He swirls his own wine before taking a small sip: He was more of a sake person.

It was the things he loved that destroyed him every time.

He loved Odasaku as a friend. But he...what can he say about his feelings towards you? His crutch, his lens, his closest friend. Sometimes he wished to hold you the way Odasaku used to and tell you that everything would be alright, but then he would be lying, and he would be smearing his friend's name by replacing him. Just like how a scar remembers the wound, the wound remembers the pain—and once more he can see you crying, sobbing on the floor on the rainy day he had announced Odasaku's death. He carries a yearning that he cannot bear alone in the dark, and so he needs you, (first name) (last name), to help him, just as he helps you with your own burdens.