In Memory of a Dark Era

Drunk Talk

You can trust a suicidal maniac to push anyone to the threshold of hell.

Never in your life, considering the dangers of your job, had someone went through such lengths of torture to extract information out of you. Fortunately, you had no one's but your own life to be risked; thus little to no resistance came from you and Dazai was able to retrieve his answers in the past fleeting minutes.

"You should've said you were from the future~!" Dazai's chirp sounded from a distance not far from your haggard figure.

A soft sigh left your lips as you slowly wiped the sign of tears on the sofa's arm. "Don't try to make it sound easy. You were disappointed when I spilled the tea without much of a fight," you mumbled groggily keeping your eyes pressed to the sofa's hard material a moment longer before laying your head on it.

Dazai chuckled, "it's not like that~!" Yet, shortly after, he confessed as varying sounds followed suit, "... well, maybe a little. Nothing easy is fun."

Your puffy eyes stared judgingly at the coffee table as you muttered, "No... you're just a sadist."

However, your remark either lost its way to Dazai's ears with all the ruckus he was making or ignored. You had a feeling it was the former since he always had something to say whether it's clever or witless, both of which would mentally exhaust you.

The sounds increased in volume making you press your dry lips at the disturbance. By now you should have an ounce of curiosity to lift your head and check, yet you couldn't bother. Whatever Dazai is doing or willing to do became the least of your concerns.

You were simply in a state of surrender.

A glass descended into your field of vision and the gentle sound of the rocking ice cubes brought you back to reality. Your gaze travelled from the bandaged hand in possession of the glass to a charmingly sweet smile, "drink and forget?"

You sat up and took the glass of alcohol graciously. Though under different circumstances, a polite refusal would automatically leave your lips, but today proved to be a challenge.

Today you were in a condition that demanded the nearest exit out of reality and it wasn't caused by Dazai's previous session; it was you fumbling down to your true self and questioning everything you had built for inner peace and stability.

You were faced by decisions you chose not to make, people you had wished to forget and a past that had a blurred line between right and wrong.

Everything you've heard and seen so far paved way for the true purpose behind your arrival at this particular point in time. A gruesome point of your life. In addition to the new facts and characters you weren't aware existed to begin with, the bandaged suicidal detective being one of them.

As they weighed heavily on your mind to the point of suffocation, you sought desperately for an escape and Dazai's presence was your lifebelt currently, thus you grabbed hold of him by starting a conversation: "you didn't ask about your future."

"It's disappointing enough that I survived for future," Dazai responded almost instantly from his seated position beside you.

You chugged down the burning liquid in one shot, ignoring the fact that it was most definitely a bad idea. After giving your body a moment to adjust to the idea of alcohol, you had the audacity to grab the bottle on the table to fill up another one and another one. Exactly 2 minutes had passed when you were holding the fifth glass, making a gawking statue of the man with your pace.

"I've always envied you," you began addressing the man's willingness to commit suicide. Taking note to the change of your tone, Dazai regarded you seriously. "Whether you tried to understand the world or not, you had an option that you weren't hesitant to choose. On the other hand," you drank, unable to stare at your reflection on the liquid any longer, "I'm suffocated by sympathy and jealously to live or die."

Sighing, you finished the glass and stopped to contemplate on the melting ice, "I was so desperate to be one and the same with society that I threw away many things... including myself. Everything that defined (L/N) (F/N) was wiped clean just so she can be painted by the monochrome colours of society. The very society she didn't understand, yet envied for what they had of acceptance, peace of mind and happiness." A humourless laugh escaped your heavy chest as you roughly wiped the start of a steam of tears. Your voice hoarse with ache, you concluded, "pity. What's the point of it now. "

"Pity," Dazai repeated firmly. "That's it. I think it's natural to pity one's self. There's no other way to gain insight," he softly whispered keeping his eyes to the untouched glass. "Besides," he added with a clear voice, "it's only human."

"That's..." you trailed off in search of the right words, "That's somehow reassuring. To be human: complex in simplicity and an enemy of himself."

"... Right," his response took its time to come and so did his impulsive reaction.

Dazai's cold fingers reached your chin to make you turn to him. Auburn eyes gazed into the gateways of your soul as if attempting to touch it, to connect to it. You couldn't bear being vulnerable towards him, however, making your drunken self do something completely out of bounds.

You kissed him.