Generations of Rain || Dazai Osamu/Reader

18. counselling.

Dazai drives you to the counsellor centre obsequiously, proudly being your chauffeur as he turns the steering wheel. In the past did he recklessly drive, with all the windows turned down and his hand waving out to high five Odasaku in an abandoned parking lot, driving in circles and laughing in glee at the shrieking of the tires.

He was no longer that type of person. He had someone to live for now. His oh-so-handy suicide tutorial book was now tucked away on the bookshelf. He glances at you and you're biting the inside of your cheek, pursing your lips and bouncing your thigh. He stops at a red light.

"Relax, (first name)," He says. "What're you so nervous about? Tell me."

You turn to him. You open your mouth and at first no word comes out, before you snap your jaw shut and turn to your lap.

"I don't know who I am beyond Odasaku," You confess. "I've forgotten how to live in a world without him. Do I know who I am? I'm so scared of the feeling, of the mask falling apart, of seeing how broken I am, of all the anger that pushes at me. Why me?" You look down at your hands. "How could this have happened to me? My life has been changed irrevocably, and I'm furious. But I'm still mourning. I feel nothing but rage and sadness all the time."

Dazai contemplates your words with furrowed brows, turning left. He remains quiet for a moment, before he nods.

"I know how it's like to live with a mask that hides everything. To find out that it had been pushed by some emotion you didn't want to experience in the first place. To feel isolated and alone in a world that doesn't accept you because you're someone who should belong in the past. But I've accepted it."

"How? How did you accept it?" You turn to him, and Dazai smiles peacefully, as though he was smiling to himself.

"Because I have you."

You fall silent at that.

He stops the car by a building. The lobby was painfully white, with dark grey couches by the glass. There were hallways that were flanked with rooms, rooms that you deducted were counselling rooms.

Dazai sits in the waiting room of the centre as your counsellor greets you with a friendly handshake, her face round and caring. She looked as though she herself had gone through terrible pain, but was proof that violence did not rot her core: There was a hidden understanding that she wielded like a crowbar, carving the secrets out of you like broken glass.

"I wonder if you can help me just the way I may be able to help you," She says, the moment she closes the door behind her. You're seated on the chair before her desk: there was a box of tissue, pens, papers, and post-it notes neatly arranged on the wooden surface.

"What?"

"I really want to know how you want to spend your time here with me. You're a young woman, clearly going through tough times. I'm just an old woman. Can you help me out?"

You start to speak, but then your throat closes up at the flashes of Odasaku's voice in your ears. You shake your head.

"I wonder if you could help me understand a little better how I could be useful to you. I'd like to be your sounding board. Would you please help me a little?"

Your eyes cinched up as if you were holding back tears. "My husband." You finally say.

"What about your husband? Tell me about the feeling. You can't heal what you can't feel."

What was behind your mask, the grief counsellor wondered. Definitely loss, but perhaps anger?

"It looks like you're sad about your husband."