𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐄𝐕𝐎𝐋𝐔𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 𝐎𝐅 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘𝐋𝐀𝐌𝐁 | dazai osamu

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE REVOLUTION OF MARYLAMB

You send off Atsushi with a wave as he is escorted to the exit, the doors slamming shut behind him. He seemed excited to leave this place, as if the occasional screaming from other rooms seemed to suck the life out of him, with yellowing walls trapping him in; urine yellow. They say you've got the "blues" when you're depressed, but after a visit to the psychiatric ward does Atsushi feel different about that: depression was piss yellow, yellow to the core, stinking and rotting.

You have a lot of thoughts. But it can't be helped, just like your last words before your suicide: You can't live without him. Knowing that Dazai has dismantled you, how can you love him?

And his response makes sense: Easily. Give up to it. Don't turn back.

It was easy to love someone like Dazai when there were remnants of you already in him, like flecks of glass reflecting your face back at you. Initially, when you had kissed Dazai in that art museum, you had believed love followed some sort of triumphant story line: Everything falls according to plan. But love is two imperfect people, feeling their way in the dark together, hand in hand; he can't help but love you through this darkness. And the darkness is within him, he can't run away from it, but he can accept it, because there are parts of you in that darkness.

"She said yes?!" Dazai springs up from the couch as Atsushi delivers the news to him, a smile curving his lips. Atsushi nods.

"She called you stupid for thinking you can't visit her," He says, and that makes Dazai laugh. His belladonna, his darling, his sweet, his little lamb, alive and willing to see him again. He could kiss your knuckles and weep wistfully against the bone, your touch blessing him. His heart feels lighter now, knowing you didn't blame him, and he feels ecstatic at the thought of you enclasping him back into your arms.

He vows to visit you tomorrow.

XX

Dazai climbs out of the cab and slams the door shut. He enters the hospital and looks at the receptionist, a charming, boyish smile on his face. A charming smile that doesn't win over the receptionist, with all her professionalism like a shield around her.

"I introduced myself as (last name)'s boyfriend. Tell them you're the boyfriend." Atsushi had said to him, to which Dazai had responded with,

"Now why did you do that? Not that I'm complaining," He pocketed his hands, his bolo tie gleaming like light playing with water. Atsushi pauses.

"It was the closest thing I could think of at that time," He admits. "It just came out of me."

"I'm here for (First name). (Last name) (First name)," Dazai says, tracing his fingertip over the marble of the counter. Your name rolls off his tongue like a choreographed, contemporary dance. The receptionist types in your name, manicured nails clicking and clacking against the keys.

"Who are you to her?" She asks, fingers hovering over the keyboard. Dazai's smile grows, blossoms like unfurling petals to a rose, his eyes cinching.

"I'm her boyfriend."

You sit on your bed and feel not quite there. Other people have faces, their world is their real world; the things they lift in their heart. But now that you've seen death and what lies on the other side, razor embedded and twisted in your throat, you feel like you're shifting and changing and seen through in a second, your name defined by your botched suicide. You could feel the warmth of your own blood staining your clothes and neck, completely washing over you like you had been plunged into a pool front side down. And that in itself feels satisfactory; there is a clinical satisfaction in seeing how worse things can get. Religious, even, to be completely covered in blood.