Letters from the Underground // fyozai

i. letter

The slums of St. Petersburg spared no man. They had no concept of discrimination; cold, starvation, and the industrial nature of post-soviet depression did not care for your face, the pains of your childhood, nor if you've killed three hundred and six men with your bare hands. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky could never imagine another home, let alone want one.

He would like to pretend to only have a vague concept of his early years, and yet, there isn't a conversation he's ever had that was not left memorised down to the tone. His nose has gone completely numb when he snaps out of his reverie. He counts people in the street for the entire walk back home.

In the apartment, there is an electric heater, a cello, and a blank, black envelope under the door. One that all but cries its sender's name—not leaving any room for Fyodor to even speculate. So he proceeds to the kitchen, and puts the kettle on as he ponders the one person on the face of this earth who could ever reach him.

Fyodor's awareness of his surroundings is unmatched. His perimeter checks are religious, second nature. And despite all that, he does not even attempt to discern how the letter found its way to his front door, where not even the Devil could reach.

And there lies his answer. He reconsiders that last thought.

January 14th, 2012

Fyodor Dostoevsky,

It's cold there, isn't it? I remember my first time in St. Petersburg; it hammered in the concept of not appreciating things while you have them, because I had never before wished so bad for the bench I was sitting on to melt into molten lava. Such a funny idea.

You have a decent perception of fact and lie, don't you? Yours is a life of verdict and penalty. Tell me this then, Fyodor Dostoevsky: can one truly see beauty in life by doing something as simple as helping orphans and saving lives?

Fyodor Dostoevsky, the blood on your hands is unrivalled. An executioner of your stratum must have an answer for me, no? Then tell me this: are the words of a dying man anything to go by? Is the weight they hold simply fabricated by the intensity of the Grim Reaper's presence? Does a man ever lie on his last breath? A reaper such as yourself must know.

A reaper such as yourself gains nothing from indulging me, for he has no debt to pay, and yet, I do not expect him to hesitate. After all, the only questions a reaper is asked are men's dying babbles. A change is nice, don't you think?

Dazai Osamu.

A reaper, huh? Fyodor traces thin fingers on the neat lettering, they subtly twitch against it.

Dazai Osamu—a face he had not seen for two years. He vividly remembers the summer night when he leaned over the railing of the Bankoku bridge, until he more so felt a presence shuffle beside him before he heard or saw it. "Enjoying the warmth?" He had said while ever so rudely lighting a cigarette so close to Fyodor's face.

It had been three in the morning when one of them finally left the spot they eventually settled in; the slightly warm ground with backs against the railing, the blue beyond it long forgotten in favour of talks of sin and God and righteousness. Fyodor has thought of that night a myriad ever since—musing over each word uttered and every ideal presented. Over how none of them disgusted him.

He counts the times he has read the letter—twelve. He's been aware of what happened for the past three days; his rats in Yokohama never failing to report back the slightest scratch on the demon prodigy every week. He knew of their friendship, but he admits: he never thought the situation was so dire that he of all people would be... reached out to? Is that what this is?

His tea goes cold before he even begins to sufficiently analyse the words. "Appreciating things," hmm. He knows Dazai enough to safely assume he had never even called Sakunosuke his friend more than a few, hesitant times.

The lettering is so exquisite—propriety through which anyone might easily miss Dazai's utterly distraught state. The almost warmth of the words resides disgustingly against Fyodor's achy bones. That soft, composed tone of his is terrifying.

He can't say Dazai was exactly wrong. Fyodor would actually fancy to indulge him. He has always liked their talks, and everything there is to gain from them. Whether it is intellectual substance, a chance to organise his thoughts, or if he dare admit, the fact that it simply felt good to converse with such an equal as Dazai.

He mulls it all over as he washes his mug, his hands, and then walks into the bathroom. Apart from the letter itself, there was nothing else in the envelope. Not even a stray scratch against the smooth black paper. Nevertheless, Fyodor knows how to get his response through, when did he even decide to respond? The shower water takes two minutes to actually heat up.

Ah, so Dazai really wasn't wrong, huh. He's always been the one to predict him so accurately. Not only his sheer deduction genius at work but also their agonising parallelisms that makes them so easily see right into and through one another. The water burns his face, this goddamn building and its goddamn pipes. By the time he is done drying his hair, he knows what to write. He doesn't use a draft, he's never needed to.

January 14th, 2012

Dazai Osamu,

Some things are simply meant to be lost to be appreciated. The inherent concept of appreciation wouldn't have existed otherwise, no?

You and I both know how vague the words "beauty in life" are, how useless it is to pay them half a mind, but knowing why they suddenly matter to you, I shall indulge you with my tenet as my condolence.

If something as simple as "switching sides" could fill the hole in anyone's chest, do you think there will be evil left in the world? And out of every chest that I've seen and known in my years, yours is the one it applies to the least. Yours is a chest devoid of bias; whether you save orphans or kill them will not bring you the salvation you look for.

Dying men love to talk, do they not? They revel in the knowledge that whatever empty words they spout will haunt your waning soul for as long as you'd let them.

Let me correct one thing, a reaper such as myself never has to deal with dying men's babbles. They, to put it plainly, never have the chance to babble, with the way I do things. But then again, you know that, don't you? You're begrudgingly aware of the clemency that is my method, brutal as it seems. You only choose to believe otherwise, to consciously disregard the painless, instant, lukewarm nature of the deaths I inflict to soothe the pain of your immunity to them.

You're a walking tragedy, Dazai Osamu. I do not wish you well. Do not write to me again.

Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Fyodor knows the last request is empty, that Dazai Osamu does not care whether or not one invites him to write if he wants to. He speaks the words a mere formality—a meaningless reminder that Fyodor is only doing him this favour as an offering of condolence.

That very night, with the same black envelope he was given in his hand, this time, the contents replaced with his own letter, he steps out into the freezing air. He adjusts his ushanka as he waits for his messenger in the back alley of the usual factory, the God-awful smell of burnt tires that he's gotten used to by now keeping him company.

A girl of no more than sixteen, wrapped up in what seems to be her entire closet-worth of clothes, makes her way to him. Her steps are confident, one might dare to say fierce. He hands her the envelope, nods once, and walks away. She is merely one stop between Fyodor and whichever one of his rats is headed to Japan the soonest.

A single, folded note rests against the letter in the envelope, meant not for Dazai but for Fyodor's messenger:

B1F, 5 CHOME 5 11, GINZA, CHŪŌ-KU, TOKYO — BAR LUPIN
STICK THE ENVELOPE UNDER THE THIRD BARSTOOL FROM THE RIGHT.
BURN THIS NOTE.

His ears ring the entire walk back home.