𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐀, d.osamu | ✓

𝟬𝟬𝟱

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( 005. AN UNSOLVED MYSTERY )

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✧ﾟ･:┊'YOU LOSE.'

The words dominated the screen in red, and Maya stared at the words, trying to process her loss. After playing the final level for— if she counted correctly— eleven times, she was rather sure she had a way to beat the boss, but still, she lost? She sighed, and threw the controller on the sofa, pushing herself off the sofa and trudging upstairs.

Upstairs, resided the kitchen and living room, the moon that hung in the sky threw down shafts of light through the windows of the living room, coating everything in a silver silhouette. She dragged her feet as she walked, stopping right in front of of the freezer. She opened it, letting the cool air out, basking in it for a second. Her tired eyes scanned the shelves of the freezer, staring at a tub of mint chocolate chip ice-cream with scrutinity for a brief second before grabbing it.

"Do you ever sleep?"

His voice was very recognizable, though, it still made her jump at the sudden intrusion into the loud silence. She turned around to glaring at Dazai who, as far as she could see, had a stupid smile on his stupid face. She turned back around and closed the freezer only to open the fridge door and then close it after taking out a small block of cheese. "Well, do you?" she asked, looking at him.

"Yes," he paused for a second to catch the cheese block she threw at him, but unbeknownst to him, it was meant to hit his face, "a lot. Just not sleeping today,"

"What, can't sleep?" she threw the question nonchalantly over her shoulder, already descending the stairs towards the basement. Dazai followed, eventually sitting on the beside her.

"Oh, crap," the voice in his head said, making him automatically turn his head to look at her. "I forgot the spoon," she gave him a look, "wait here. I'll go get it,"

She got up, leaving and disappearing above the stairs, leaving Dazai with himself and the room.

The basement was messily decorated to look like a room; there were posters on the walls of famous, very much dead people and of movies from the '70s and after. There was a framed picture on the desk in the corner of two people, a girl and a boy.

The girl looked— was Maya, probably when she was younger because she had braces, her teeth looking like a metal factory and she was smiling wider than he had ever seen her smile in the span of four days he had known her. Her arm was hooked around the neck of the boy mirroring her actions. The boy had jet black hair, his two front teeth turning towards each other and faint acne on his cheeks that matched with his black hair and green eyes. His glasses were red in contrast to the blue funky hat he was wearing. Dazai's gaze lingered on the photograph for a second more before looking in the direction of the stairs.

Her feet thundered against the stairs and she went down two steps at a time, jumping at the bottom of the stairs.

"Now," she said, plopping down on the couch next to him as she held the spoon up in the air like it was some sort of prize she aquired. "Let us start,"

"Who's that?" he asked, pointing at the boy in the picture standing alongside Maya.

"That's... nobody."

The answer was distant, like she didn't want to answer him but did it anyway and the answer wasn't informative at that. Maya looked back to the T.V. screen, pressing a single button on the remote and shuffling through her collection of movies. He was no one, he was a nobody, he wasn't here, so why should he be given an identity? People die when they want to even when they're not supposed to.

"Saying less is saying more, Maya-chan," he said, a pop in his voice and bit into his block of cheese. "You're friend's dead, isn't he?"

Maya froze, her finger against the button of the remote but not pressing. Knucklehead Dazai just poured gallons of salt in the raw, open wound, ripping it open it just as it was on the pathway of healing. "You don't know that,"

"I think I do," he scanned her face, "I know what seeing death feels like,"

"Is that why you want to die? Because people you care about have died?"

"Partly, yes."

It seemed wise to not pry open anything. It wasn't like she had dug anything deep; she had barely scratched the surface. She didn't know much about Dazai— she didn't know all the twists and turns of his mind, she didn't know the reason behind his antics. But she knew that his mind was a vast labyrinth, lost secrets and truths crawling on the walls of his mind, exiled from the centre and wandering the halls like the long forgotten ghosts they were. His mind was full of twists and turns and dead ends, but if you were lucky enough to reach the centre, there would probably be a box. The box whose bottom was getting soggy from everything it held, moss growing on the edges and getting burnt and charred. The bottom of the box was going to give away soon.

Dazai was going to give away soon. Maybe he was hoping that he would end before someone found out any sensible truth about him. He was an unsolved mystery, hoping and waiting to be solved— to be read by someone like a book and waiting to be told that his existence, that he made sense.

Maya wanted to know more. It was probably out of self interest, but she wanted to uncover more about his delicate self. She was just hoping he doesn't kill himself before she could. Maybe it was just infatuation. The thrill of digging into someone's mind and body and soul like it was a puzzle out of pure infatuation and passion, slowly uncovering the hows and the whys like some long-buried fossil intrigued her.

Dazai infruriatingly infatuated her.

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So, um, yeah. I puplished a freakishly short chapter but its my favorite.

Anyways, thank you for putting up with my trash writing and reading 'BELA'!

— CXESHIRE.