Cirque de Sentimentalité - YANDERE!DAZAI

CAN WE UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER?

"Joker and I share a professional relationship," You say. "We're not friends, nor are we lovers. But Mizu always tells me that Joker has a thing for me. It's something I go out of my way to ignore. But his affection is sticky. It clings onto something and doesn't let go, like an octopus looking for attention. And an octopus is intelligent, just like he is. Even though I'm the string master of the circus, he puppets everything. He's the leader of everything.

"Think of it like this: I'm his slave. I work under him and I earn my living from him. I can't escape him, nor am I able to. After all, where else does someone like me belong, other than a circus? I'm a joke. I'm something that the past left behind. The past forgot me. So I'm therefore a prostitute of the mind."

Dazai blinks. "What do you mean by 'prostitute of the mind'?"

"Illusions and magic are simply tricks of the mind. I sell my body through this way and earn my living. Prostitution is the selling of the flesh, is it not?"

"I suppose it is."

"Have you had any experience with prostitutes?"

"That's something I won't divulge in today," Dazai winks. You shrug.

"Whatever suits your boat," You say. "But yes, that's the brief summary of my relationship with Joker."

"What's his real name?"

You pause, genuinely mulling it over. "I don't think he has one. To have a real name means to have a label belonging to this world. Joker doesn't fit that. Because if he did, his entire circus would collapse. Cirque de Sentimentalité is something that doesn't belong to this world. It's considered other-worldly, because of Joker. He's the machine beneath the flesh."

He nods, seemingly absorbing all your words.

"You know, you told me Joker was from a war riddled country. The same as you," Dazai says. "Can you elaborate on that?"

"Joker thinks that if he tells his past, I will too," You say. "But that's the thing. I can't. It's too hard. People don't understand. We shared our experience by not talking about it–but curiosity must have gotten the best of him.

"But I digress. Joker came from the war somewhere out there. Both his parents, and I'm amazed he was born from a woman instead of being hatched out of some magical egg, served the warfront. His mother was a nurse and his father was a lieutenant. Both perished as a result. He doesn't talk about his parents much. I think he thinks it takes away the mystique of who he is. Takes away the magical aspect of his character. Isn't that crazy? How everyone we know has come out of a woman? Anyways, he served in the war before he wandered as an orphan, going from shelter to shelter before one day, the circus came into town. There he witnessed a bear, a sword-swallower, and a man who could breathe fire. Then he thought to himself: why not make my own circus? When he turned eighteen, he says that he met Mizu doing parkour on the rubbles and demolished buildings. And that was his first circus member. Mizu and Joker are both mysteries. I can't figure them out. Yet they are the only ones that I understand the most. And that's all I know."

Dazai nods silently, taking it all in. Even scouring the records in the Foreign Ministry's department wouldn't get him this sort of information. Your voice felt as though it was echoing in his cochleas, like you were living in his head, and speaking from inside out. He felt himself merging with you, just sitting next to you; he had to admit, you got him good. You get him high just by simply talking. You keep him from crashing away like sea foam sputtering against the Port walls, as if you were a glass container that kept him intact.

"That's something new," He finally says.

"All this talk about war is making me depressed again," You say, leaning back on your hands. "Tell me something about yourself."