Time passes, people don't change

He was a good man now; he shouldn't kill people anymore. No matter who they were. Criminals who killed and who will get a death sentence anyway. Nor wicked and malevolent ones who are better off dead so they won't have a chance to hurt anyone else or do many bad things.

But what bad was, actually? Was it an opinion of the sheer amount or was that something that was simply said and perpetrated as a law of common sense and humanity?

Humanity... that beautiful and useless notion.

For a man like Dazai, it was an unreachable yet the most desired goal. Desired so much that he was willing to sensate and embrace the darkness of Yokohama to his already mutilated life in order to have his vision cleared and soul put at long-term peace.

But it didn't work. It never worked.

He was foolish to think it would in the end. He was stupid and naive that much, believing he would find a place to call home and life to call fulfilled, with a will to live every day like it's something special and unique.

So, so desperate had been his mind to fall into such a fallacy.

But all of a sudden, a ray of hope appeared. And then another. And then another one.

Three rays he held onto, his life depending on them, terrified they'll slip from his grasp.

Not knowing how to hold them properly, his grip was so intense sometimes that rays started splitting. Haggard, he would relent and hold them more cautiously and with time, the ray would recover and he could sigh in a silent, never expressed relief. 

But then, the third one was thorn from his grasp. Not by defective holding, but by his own hands. He himself thorned it and watched as it flew away. He felt emptiness and ire, but mostly disappointment. And he recovered in a short time, never grieving after the ray, but detesting it whenever he would spot it flying around him, wanting to get back into the warmth of his cold hands.

Not long after, the second one had flew out and disappeared. Dazai could recall running after it, shouting and trying to retrieve it, but all in vain. It was no more, only a memory and a sensation like it was still in his hand never fading. Pain never truly diminishing from his chest.

So there was the last one he had. He often stared at it, not understanding why it hadn't left. He would feel it slackening or he himself trying to make it go, but it never moved away from him. Ostensibly it wanted to stay, to Dazai's astonishment.

Though he couldn't deny he was endlessly thankful it was that way. Otherwise, he would be all alone, solitude darkening his already sombre thoughts.

And on one common day, a new ray appeared, nestling itself beside the oldest one. A small and weak one, but growing more durable with the time. It would wiggle playfully from time to time, making him smile on purpose. Such a strange kind that was.

And as time passed, Dazai walked and walked, under and above, through and around, never stopping, following those two rays of hope that he held still.

And one day, he stopped.

.

.

.

Eyes deprived of feelings stared down at a restrained man. He kicked and tried to free himself, but Kunikida held him tightly, knee between his shoulder blades from behind and an arm slightly twisted as a warning.

"Stay down!" he yelled a command and the man glared up at him with all the hatred he could muster up.

"Cowards! Bastards! You can't do this!"