Bloodied Dahlias | Miya Osamu

[VIII] The Republic

The first thing Osamu had noticed when he walked past the front door to enter his residence was the presence of another person in his living room. The intruder had made himself comfortable in the space, lounging in the arm chair closest to the windows with his back facing the streets, a leg propped up against the side. The man's attention had been wholly devoted to the book in his lap, having not even bothered to glance up as Osamu stepped closer — as if not even bothering to acknowledge Osamu's presence.

The second thing Osamu had noticed was the title of the book the intruder had been so engrossed in. The off white color of the cover tinted by whispers of yellow from time spent drinking up the summer's sun; the battered edges of the book, the page corners wrinkled from both having been folded down and from general wear and tear. The Republic of Plato, a book that Osamu himself had never bothered to read, but had heard plenty about, rather grudgingly, from both his father and his twin — a book that had seared its existence into both his childhood and adult memory. A dialogue on justice in society and its role in the pursuant journey towards utopia — that justice was the critical component towards the intangibility of happiness.

Which, to Osamu, was just a whole bunch of philosophical bullshit. His very career was the antithesis of everything that the book stood for: if humans were truly intrinsically capable of justice and in resisting the allure of greed, there wouldn't be any need for Inarizaki as a whole, now would there?

"Readin' 'bout justice won't getcha any closer to heaven," Osamu remarked to his guest, shrugging off his coat before hanging it up in his closet. "Haven't ya got yer own room to read in?"

The man flipped a page, making no movement to indicate he had heard what Osamu had said; no lowering of his book, no glancing up of his eyes. He simply slinked further back into the plush material of the armchair, a leg now raised to rest his ankle against the knee of its twin. The man tipped his head back, his dark, olive-green hair spilling like ink against the light grey of the back of the chair as he flatly said, "Your room gets better sunlight."

"No comeback 'bout goin' to hell, I see."

A huff, and the sound of a book snapping shut rang out in the apartment. The man readjusted himself in the seat, both feet planted firmly on the ground as his fingers danced along the fabric of the arm rest. "It's a commentary about society as a whole. Understanding human motivation is the very foundation of strategy."

"Hell suits ya well, Suguru." Osamu let out a small laugh as he took a seat in the armchair next to his friend, an elbow rested on its arm as he glanced out the window himself. The night sky had been but an abyssal sea of darkness when he had first knocked on your door hours earlier, the eerie quietness of the hours before dawn echoing between the silence. The starlight winking down from above had all but bled into the nightlight of the city, all its colors coalescing into a singular, bright blur as he shot through the highway roads with you strapped in his passenger seat, your playlist blasting from his speakers.

But that had all been hours before — now, what remained in the sky was the rising sun yawning awake from its slumber, not a single cloud within sight.

The sound of a page flip next to him had Osamu turning back over to his friend.

"And without my strategies," Daishou began with a scoff, eyes never leaving the page, "how far do you think you'd get?"

Far, Osamu thought in his mind. Very far. Because people were unpredictable, and their motivations even more so; volatile, mercurial, and temperamental. His brother's voice echoed in his mind at the thought, "The moment you act outside their expectations is the moment you can seize to turn the tide." Play into people's expectations, perhaps even a bit less than what they had concocted up in their heads, and wait to attack. Mindless drivel that Atsumu had lectured him one rainy afternoon on the rare occasion that the twins had been paired up on the same mission.