all these reasons | BSD [odazai]

1

Author's notes: 

This fanfiction was written for CorruptedHeart on ao3. 

Some Japanese words I use in the fic:
-- Shinkansen = bullet train
-- Donburi = rice bowl meal
-- Otou-san = father, Onii-san = older brother, Otouto = younger brother, Okaa-san = mother
-- Kani Sukiyaki is a crab hot pot meal
-- Jinbei = men's sleep clothing

Note: For the purpose of this fic we are assuming Oda is his first name and Sakunosuke is his last name.

Chapter warnings:
- misgendering/mild transphobia from background characters
- mentions of gender dysphoria
- referenced past suicide attempt/self harm
- suicide attempt

A spectrum of deep greens to pale yellows whips past Dazai's vacant eyes, his forehead pressed into the cool glass of the train window. The countryside isn't anything special to look at, though he wouldn't be taking in the view even if it were. The immediate area surrounding the high-speed train is flat. Boring. Uneventful. Farther in the distance, a few small mountains, spaced out almost casually, can be seen. They glide by more slowly. Every once in a while, it all goes black when the train makes a brief dip underground.

He wishes he wasn't moving farther away from Yokohama by the second. Eighty-eight point nine meters per second, primarily in a northwest direction. Recalling the velocity of the shinkansen makes his stomach drop. Hurtling. He is hurtling away from the only home he's ever known. Dazai's not even there yet and he already hates this.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and frowns at the same unilluminated bars that greeted him several minutes before. He hadn't originally put much thought into the fact that the countryside would surely be lacking in cell service, and this fact does nothing to help his vicious apathy.

Sure , Dazai thinks bitterly. Why not?

He could fuck around on some offline game, but that just feels sad, so he pockets the device and rummages around in his backpack instead. He pulls out a leather-bound book a moment later and begins to flip through the pages, gathering the pen he always keeps tucked in the spine. Writing has always been one of the few places Dazai enjoys escaping to that's socially acceptable. In other words, it doesn't cause immediate alarm. The way a blank page has endless possibilities before he begins to fill them one letter at a time. The way the ball-point tip of a good pen delivers ink evenly on each stroke. The way it gives him space to formulate the darkness in his mind into words that are only for his eyes. There's a catharsis to it all that takes the edge off of his own existence.

Dazai skips over pages full of messy notes and scribbles, stopping on a central page and spending some time lost in thought, recording a line here and there. Occasionally, he scribbles out a few words and replaces them.

"Living itself is a source of sin?" A voice reads over his shoulder. "That's an awfully gloomy way to look at it."

Dazai hadn't really noticed that an older man had taken the seat next to him at some point. He looks at the man neutrally, taking him in for a moment. If he had to guess, Dazai would say he's in his early fifties, and he's dressed in a neat blue suit that almost feels mocking. Dazai keeps careful control of his facial expression even though the fact that this man just read a line out of his journal makes him want to throw himself out the nearest window.

"Are you going to try to have me locked up, too?" Dazai replies airly, his tone intended to confuse the man. He closes the journal before his privacy can be violated any further.

That's why he's here, after all. His mother had tearfully given him an ultimatum while he recovered in the hospital: an extended stay at the mental hospital or his father's place. Only one of those options allowed him to maintain some semblance of control over his life. Not to mention that he had to fight her every step of the way just to make this trip alone. And so, here he is. On some godforsaken train on his way to the middle of buttfuck nowhere.