twisted devotion || Yandere!DAZAI/READER

[18] The DNA

When the morning sun rises over the horizon into a new day, there grew in it, or grew into, a fantastical beauty, the beauty of the hopeful, a beauty which caught the heart and made tears come. One would have never believed Yokohama, despite its rotting core with sex and prostitution behind its neon veneer, to be this beautiful, with the port glimmering like a pool of molten sapphire and the urban jungle glistering with a pristine grey. At certain times, especially in the early hours of morning, as shadowed shortened, the ripe sunlight of the day rose with a peculiar, suggestive lightness, like that of a bride's lace gloved hand, trapping the swooning buildings in a sweet, solid calm, as if preserving them in amber. Aurified by the Midas rays of the rising sun, the sky took on the appearance of a thin sheet of fresh gold like the grounds of certain ancient paintings depicting affluence and Gatsbyesque opulence, so the monolithically misshapen, depthless forms of the city took on the enchanted glamour of the totally artificial. There was a sense of fragility in this beauty, like one teetering on the edge of a magic precipice, and Dazai breaks this thin veneer by simply closing the silk curtains to protect you from overheating.

"What time is it?" You grumble, rolling out of the futon and shaking the sleep out of your spine. Dazai checks the clock on the wall: it reads 10AM. You had overslept, much to Kunikida's predicted chagrin, but what was one to do? Panic and waste more time?

You're rinsing your face with cold water while Dazai boils water for morning coffee in the kitchen. There's an air of tranquillity that permeates the dorm; a transcendental radiance bathing and lightening the walls that emanated from the man in the kitchen as he prepared two mugs, steaming with hot coffee whose scent so poignantly spiked the air. He sets them aside on the table where the two of you had shared meals with, and smiles upon seeing you enter with a towel around your neck.

"Did you make one for me too?"

"Of course, belladonna," He sings, his voice tinkling with diminutive laughter, "How could I forget yours?"

"Just making sure." You turn on the television and take out your notebook from your bag, clicking a pen and turning to the nearest news station.

"You can just ask me for information about the new body." Dazai whines, watching intently as you switch channel to channel.

"I don't want to bother you. Oh, there it is," The news reporter pops up as you click on channel 36, her face pale and serious as she tightly grips her mic in her hand.

You jot down: Corpse, decapitated, head in stomach filled with rats, missing jaw. X/XX/XXXX

"Is the body going to have an autopsy?" You ask.

"Yes, I believe so—"

There's a knock at the door. Rapid knocking. Angry knocking. The two of you stare at each other, before Dazai sighs and gets onto his feet.

"Kunikida, we know we're la—"

"(last name) (first name), you're under arrest for the murder of four people."

They make a grab for you and push you into cuffs, the shock still settling in when the metal makes a clicking noise around your wrists. When Dazai sees this, indignant rage explodes in his head.

"She has nothing to do with anything. What is the meaning of this?"

One of them drags you out, with the other barricading the doorway so that Dazai was cut off from you, "Sorry sir, but it's out of our hands. We're just here to make an arrest."

You're shaking even though the other officer holds you around the shoulders, guiding you downstairs with cameras flashing in your eyes. You're stunned beyond words, blindly looking through the window as though Dazai could rescue you, the police car door slamming shut, echoing in your ears. Your hands are shaking violently and your eyes wide, unblinking. You can hear the journalists screaming outside, banging on the windows, their cameras flashing through your closed eyelids: Will this be the story of your life, being wrongly arrested for crimes you were, ironically, set out to investigate? A story of what you did wrong? What you didn't do wrong? How you didn't do it? You were no criminal, you were just a normal person. When you look back, what gave away that you could have been the killer? You swallow the rising bile in your throat and rest your head against the headrest, the skin stretched across the column of your throat straining.