Hide me in your poems - Soukoku

Prologue

Heyyyy

It’s a pleasure to welcome you to my first written and published work! I hope you enjoy it! <33

I just wanted to drop a quick note that English is not my native language, and I’m not fluent, but as I move forward with each chapter, I believe things will improve.

(So, if you find anything odd along the way, please bear with me! I’ll correct it as soon as I can.)

count: 5295 words

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If someone asked Dazai to list all the things that bothered him, he could fill a library. No kidding—he’s mentally filled over twelve books with things he hated—and it still wouldn’t be enough.

Not that he’s a dramatic guy.

Okay, maybe a little...

From his teacher’s tone of voice in class, to the level of spiciness in the school cafeteria’s curry, and even the lack of privacy in the bathrooms—there would always be dumb teenagers insisting on smoking cigarettes in secret and hogging all the stalls during breaks.

Whatever it is, people around him always find a way to make the simplest things worse. If only he could spend the rest of his mediocre life in his room, reading the literary recommendations of his friend Oda—one of the few non-mediocre things in his life—and limiting his diet to canned crab and lemon soda. And if he never had to set foot in school again, he wouldn’t object.

But he hadn’t always harbored all this resentment toward the school.

At first, going to school wasn’t so bad.

He’s an intelligent guy, never had to worry about giving his full attention in class, and during exam periods, some cute girl would always ask him for help with her studies—though they’d never keep in touch after exams ended. Strange, right? When teachers compared other students to him, he always puffed out his chest, hearing their speeches: “Why can’t you behave more like Dazai? Look at what a model student he is!”

Everything changed starting from the last semester of the previous year...

You see, Osamu Dazai, like anyone else, has his weaknesses.

Whether it’s something common like gluttony and envy, or something deeper like alcoholism and lust, all of these things don’t just affect the sinner but can also impact those around them. Selfish desires like these are entirely justifiable for their bad reputation among people.

But that’s not his case.

Seriously.

What’s so wrong about having a small—huge—and not at all—genuine fixation on ending one’s own life?

Dazai just doesn’t get it. He’s not hurting anyone—besides himself, of course—and he’s certainly not causing harm. In fact, if you look at it from a more practical angle, he’d be one less mouth for his Uncle Mori to feed and one less worry to keep Odasaku awake at night.

See?

Only advantages—

He had to learn the hard way that no one agreed with his perspective. Apparently, trying to jump from the school’s fourth-floor window is not an altruistic act and is not well regarded, as it was enough to ruin his social life to this day.

At some point, his existence became either a people repellent or simply invisible.

Osamu Dazai became a myth, a memory, a story that repeated for days until it was forgotten.