Until the Last Grain of Sand Falls (Osamu Dazai x OC)

Part 1: Claudia

I felt the hourglass between my fingers--so simple it was, without any intricate design but only old wood to support its entirety. The sand inside it had decreased so much--

"It's still more than an inch," the former Port Mafia member and future Armed Detective Agency employee, Osamu Dazai, put his hand over mine, sending warmth to my trembling fingers. I laughed bitterly. "It's not even half an inch." My voice trembled too. I was scared, so scared of losing that moment, so scared of losing him. His hand clutched mine tighter. I knew that he felt the same. "No," I heard him whispered, pleading. Pleading to whom? We had no chance to win against fate. How could we ever battle time?

His arms tried to enclose my whole body. Any minute, now. Any minute and the last grain of sand would fall.

⌛

The first time I saw Osamu Dazai's face was at a museum I've visited during a field trip during high school. He was not alone in the picture, but was smiling serenely with the rest of the respected pioneers of the Armed Detective Agency--the very pillar of peace of our country. A hundred years later, their office had grown and their branches each guarded the prefectures with utmost courage and integrity that some even call them the modern heroes. I remembered looking closely at his face then, and feeling a slight thump inside my chest. I disregarded the feeling and thought that I only felt such because he was obviously cute.

The second time I saw him was during a history lesson at the last year of my high school. By that time, it was common that those of my age had either found or were already searching for their "fated." In a world full of people with special abilities, it was customary to go to private agencies to make a request of baring one's red thread of fate--a thin string tied on one's pinky finger connected to her/his destined lover. A very romantic improvement for the society, I may say, and also very practical. Because of it, there were scarcely no divorce and no case of domestic violence. Actually, I have the ability to show mine, but that was irrelevant to me. I was born with a black thread--cut and leading to nowhere--signifying my lover's death. I had already resigned to the thought that I was not destined to love someone, at least in this lifetime. So when my classmates were all busy talking to each other about their fated, I was the only one paying attention to our poor teacher's lesson of how Osamu Dazai's intelligence had helped defeat the Guild members who wanted to set the whole city of Yokohama into fire.

The third time that I saw him was when my world turned upside down and many things I thought impossible for me proved to be possible: travelling through time, meeting someone from the past, and falling in love. It all happened when I took a simply made old wooden hourglass in an antique store I passed by on my way home after my first day at the university. On one of its pillars, the name DAZAI was engraved; no other designs rather than those five letters. With a little encouragement from the store's old owner and mostly because of my own curiosity, I held it in my hands--it was well-kept--and turned it upside down. I watched as the grains of sand trickled its way down to the other end of the hourglass, along with it, my body froze and everything around me was covered with darkness. I felt a very strong force harshly pull me back, then I panicked when I found myself suddenly in the middle of a place full of trees and ground covered with green grass. I almost lost my breath. I heard a loud thud as my body fell down and landed on something...soft.

"O-ouch." It was the first time I heard his voice. It was more childish than manly, always laced with a bit of a playful tone. "Here I was thinking that it was a nice day for a suicide."

I could not believe that he had just mentioned the word "suicide." "I-I-I am very sorry," I apologized as I backed away from him. My body still hurt because of the fall, so I could only manage to sit on the ground. He mimicked the way I sat, inching his face towards mine, examining me. "So, tell me young miss," he said as his brown hair was being carried by the cool breeze and his brown eyes looked into mine. "How did you manage to fall from the sky? Are you an assassin sent to kill me?"

"Oh, no!" He was oddly familiar. His face--it was like I had seen him before.

He smiled at me, but it did not reach his eyes. "Well you don't seem like the harmful type." He stretched his arms and laid on the grass. "Ah, and after all the trouble I've gone too just to die today."

Then, it hit me. The young man in front of me, clad in black suit and body covered with bandages, was the famous Osamu Dazai of the Armed Detective Agency! A rope was loosely tied around his neck. How could it be possible? "U-uhm," I tried to catch his attention. Frowning, he looked again at me. "Are you, perhaps, M-mr. Osamu Dazai?" I asked. Upon hearing that, he was startled and instantly held me by the shoulders using his strong hands. "How did you know?" His voice was deadly. My heartbeat quickened. I closed my eyes in fright. Then, to my surprise, his clutch loosened its grip and he uttered with much confusion the words, "What is this thread?"

I opened my eyes and saw my black thread already turned into red, connected to the pinky finger of this younger version of Osamu Dazai.

I passed out.