PIED PIPER | dazai osamu

EPILOGUE: mending, the music ceases.

EPILOGUE

How do you end this dreadful, cold-blooded love story? And love story it is, is it not? The erasure of the self from the passionate love of another; how hard it is to tell a tale of love when the separation is akin to splitting horse beans and peas; the vulnerability required for one to be able to skin the other alive to become the other.

A cold love story. But a love story, nonetheless.

The two lovers end up entangled in the fisherman's net, ensnared like two squirming copulating snakes on a trap, with their arms tangled and hair sticking to their face. The Agency, though morbid, had hoped that at least Dazai would wake up—not because of his use in the workplace but more so they were expecting him to wake up and proclaim his anguish at the prospect of another failed suicide.

And yet, he remained quiet on the net.

It was horrific to see the peace on the lovers' face. As if the lives that the others lived had been insufferable that the only comfort they saw was in the chase of death. What malicious gods had they seen in their desolate, numbing loneliness, roaming and mingling with the humans until their own horrors were reduced to that but a desperate, plangent scream, mingling with hysteria and desire?

Perhaps it would be wise to see where it all started: The Port Mafia. Of course, Chuuya had been nothing short of feeling conflicted when he had heard of the suicide—on one hand, he was elated that finally, Dazai was dead, but on the other hand, he was worried about the possibility of his ability spiralling out of control; and not to forget, his childhood love, the nymph of his youth, stolen away like a starving bear to a beehive—Dazai had taken you into himself, swallowed the words from your throat and let him carve into you.

The male is reluctant to even think of this, but he wonders: "Had she had fallen in love with another, would things be different?" But like the sting from a vicious wasp, the answer came to him like a pain to the puncture: The entire concept of 'her' wouldn't exist if she had fallen in love with another.

How cursed he was, with not only the God within his marrows but with the destiny in which he fell in love with a woman bound to tragedy.

The Agency operates as usual. The Port Mafia operates as usual. The Guild falls apart, but within the debris rises those who resist Fitzgerald. Life goes on despite the two extra corpses in the cemetery.

Love is not merciful.

This is what is glossed over in romance stories. Love is vicious, fanged, clawed. A demoniac destructiveness, clearly shown through the manifestation of Dazai Osamu and (first name) (last name) in their last moments together.

Love is not merciful.

It had cost Dazai both himself and yourself to love you.

This year both Dazai and (first name) perish under the rippling water. Their grip on each other is so tight that you might as well mistaken them as alive.

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AUTHOR'S NOTE:

First off, I'd like to clarify the error in the title; I had originally planned this story to be a tad darker, with more...non-con aspects and straight-up more gore. You could see this in when I first introduce the deaths of the unfortunate men in the reader's room, but I decided to tone it down in the final drafts. This story was basically going in a more 'yandere' direction but decided to point to a more consensual relationship. In fact, this story was originally going to end with the reader shooting Dazai and then killing herself. So this story isn't a Dark! character sort of thing.

And second, this story has been a journey for me. It was a project that I decided to finally write (originally just an idea in my notebook), and I can't say I regret it. I started this book somewhere mid-January. Thank you to those who voted, commented, or just simply read. It was very enjoyable to explore what I am capable of in terms of writing, as well as connecting parallels to other pieces of literature (eg. Frankenstein.)

And thirdly, I have started another book by the name of GLUTTONY. It is a dazai x reader (x chuuya but it's a bit one-sided on his part), and it focuses on a cannibal! reader. If you've read The Picture Of Dorian Gray, perhaps you'd be interested in it; the reader's ability in that book will be centred around that.

Anyways, thank you for sticking to the end. I hope you'll read my future projects and literary endeavours.