Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dazai dreams of a compromise. He dreams of dying by his own volition in order to kill someone else. He dreams of himself being set ablaze side by side with someone just like him.

Dazai dreams that his death comes hand in hand with someone else’s, and that this only means the world gets rid of two demons.

Dazai dreams of a lovers’ suicide. He can’t wash the coppery taste off his mouth.

There’s nothing special about Dazai except for the brilliance of his mind. If asked, he would say he lives an empty, boring, uneventful life; he works at the local library and dreams of his own death and, sometimes, he gets what he would call visions of other people’s futures.

Except he’s a liar. He made a name for himself by selling lies, pretending to take a look into people’s futures when in reality he only tells them what they want to hear. It’s not a kind thing to do, but people pay a lot, he tends to be right only by guessing and, well, he’s bored. He’s been tired of life since childhood; he feels like an empty shell of a person, like something fundamental is missing inside of him. Playing pretend and deceiving people doesn’t help him to feel better, but nothing matters either way, so he can’t bring himself to care about what he’s doing wrong.

(He used to have a friend who knew about his lies. He would ask him why? and Dazai wouldn’t know what to answer.

Dazai one day told him you’re going to die and he asked does it matter?)

He made himself a small place to work. People go and sit at his table and he hears their stories. Then, he tells plausible lies. They pay and they leave and Dazai stays sitting at the table wondering how it must feel to have such a simple mind.

And so Dazai lives an uneventful life until the age of twenty. A few days before his twenty-one birthday, a woman walks into his shop dressed all in black and smiling sharply at him. He smiles back, showing his teeth like a feral animal.

She tells him tell me about my future and so he plays the part, he asks the questions that will give him the answers he needs, and when he starts talking about a future he can’t be sure will exist, she raises a hand to stop him and says I do not enjoy being lied to; she says I despise your kind: those who use magic’s name unfairly, and before she walks away she tells him Everything you touch will be destined to die under your fingers.

So Dazai walks out of the shop and presses a hand to a tree, and he watches the tree slowly, slowly wither, its leaves falling and the tree drying under his touch. He takes his hand away, but it’s too late: the tree had been touched by him, and so it had to die.

Dazai covers his hands with gloves, takes his cane and walks away from home. He’s not leaving much behind—he was born alone in this world, and alone he would die.

(He didn’t say goodbye to any of his friends, to those who gave him a place to rest after Oda died, Ango disappeared and he was left behind, alone and lost. He doesn’t think he will be missed by them, and he’s doing them a favor. What good would it do them if he stayed, cursed as he is?)

He throws some money to a coachman and he agrees to take him away, as long as Dazai doesn’t make him deviate from his path. Dazai sits behind in the carriage, avoiding to touch the commodity the man carries there. It would rot under his touch, and he’d rather avoid the trouble.

The truth is he doesn’t feel any certain way. The bandages covering his body used to hide old scars and new wounds; now, they serve the purpose of hiding his skin, protecting the outside world from him. He flees because he was always going to; he was always going to go away without an explanation, without a goodbye. It’s what he’s been trying to do since childhood.

He jumps off of the carriage, bidding the coachman farewell, and he starts walking until he’s not close to any town anymore. He has a cane to help him, but even then, it’s not so long before his leg starts giving up on him and he has to stop, sitting down on a big rock, watching the clean blue sky.

He’s starting to relax when suddenly Dazai hears in the distance the sound of a big machinery, smells the smoke in the air.

There was always rumors about a wizard that steals other people’s souls and lives in a moving castle. Dazai never really paid attention to those conversations, not at all intrigued by it, but when the earth starts to tremble rhythmically under him as if following the sound of giant steps, he thinks maybe it was worth some more interest.

The sky turns gray soon, filled with the smoke that comes from the castle, and it takes only a few seconds before Dazai decides to follow the sound of the steps, going close to it. He has nowhere else to go, so why wouldn’t he indulge himself a little? If he’s cursed either way, why wouldn’t he walk inside the lion’s den?

He sees the castle in the distance. Well, it can hardly be called a castle—it is like a big machine, like pieces of different buildings glued together awkwardly. The way it moves it’s like an imitation of a four-legged animal walking, and Dazai watches as it moves through the field, making the floor shake under his feet by the force of its steps.

He walks until it gets closer. The castle seems to be walking towards him, too, like following his call; Dazai gets close enough for him to have to bend over himself for the castle not to crash against his body.

He gets to hold the door and open it, jumping inside before the castle can walk away. He falls against the hardwood floor, letting out a small grunt of complaint. His cane falls uselessly by his side and he stares at it for a second, expressionless. His leg already hurt after all the walking he’s done in those irregular paths, but now he’s not sure he can stand up.

He forces his body to sit up, biting his tongue not to groan out loud, and he snatches his cane with barely concealed anger. He can deal with a lot of things, but he hates dealing with pain. Everyone told him he was lucky he was able to walk after he broke his leg the way he did, but he doesn’t feel lucky at all.

It takes him a few minutes, but he gets to stand up, leaning his weight against the cane. He breathes in, breathes out, and checks his surroundings. He ignores the stairs completely, unable to even imagine himself walking up those, and he walks towards a door instead.

The door leads him to a small living room. It has a single couch and the fireplace is lit with a small fire. The place smells of incense and feels a little too cozy. It shouldn’t feel this welcoming, Dazai thinks, if it’s the house of such a dangerous wizard. Then again, it could be only another trick.

As he sits down on the couch, he wonders if he just fell headfirst into a trap.

He lets his head fall back, staring at the ceiling. He sighs quietly, and just as he’s starting to relax—

“Fyodor doesn’t like visitors, y’know,” a voice says.

Dazai jumps in place, frowning slightly, and his hand goes instinctively to his glove as if to take it off. He looks around, trying to find the source of the voice.

“In front of you, smartass.”

Dazai blinks.

The small flame in the fireplace grew, and now it has eyes and a big mouth. It has small arms, too, that it uses to take a piece of firewood and hug it tightly.

The sight makes Dazai laugh.

“What’s so funny?” the fire asks, seemingly offended.

“Well,” Dazai says, smiling at it, “flames usually don’t speak to me.”

It scoffs. “You’ve been looking in the wrong places, then.”

Dazai hums, resting both hands in the hilt of his cane.

“Is Fyodor the wizard?”

“Yes.”

“Where is he, then? Stealing some souls to eat?”

“Dunno. It’s not like he has any interest in sharing his business with me. And I don’t care.”

The flame opens its mouth and takes a bite of the firewood. Or something similar to that. Dazai is not sure how that works; he stares at it curiously.

He takes off his right glove, leaning in, bringing a finger to the flame. He feels the heat and then it burns him lightly; the flame backs away, as if disgusted.

“Hey! No touching!”

“What are you?” Dazai asks quietly, eyes narrowing, a smile still tugging at his lips.

“I’m a fire demon! Calcifer!” the flame claims. “Put your hand away!”

“Are you Fyodor’s friend?” he asks. He brings his finger closer to the flame again. It burns brighter, successfully burning a bit of his hand as payment. Dazai hisses, taking his hand away and blowing on it.

“More like Fyodor’s servant. He got me moving this whole place,” the flame complains, but before Dazai can ask any question, it makes a sound of disgust. “Ew. You taste like shit. Have you been cursed?”

Dazai blinks a few times before putting his glove on again. “Something like that.”

The demon hums, resting against the firewood.

“Maybe I could help with that.”

Dazai leans back on the chair, resting his cane between his legs. He knows better than to get into deals with demons, but he decides to indulge it for a moment because he’s curious and terribly bored and he doesn’t think it could make his life worse, truly.

“Could you?” he asks, tilting his head.

“Yes. If you break my contract, I could break your curse in a second. Then you could go back to normal.”

Dazai looks at it blankly. What is normalcy, if not hiding inside itself, tearing itself apart and reassembling itself under the absurd hope of forming from its pieces something quasi-human, something that looks enough like the people around it to not draw attention to itself, to not have accusing fingers pointed in its direction? What is normalcy if not practicing its smiles in the mirror and reading the people around it until it finds an acceptable language, something that prevents anyone from getting close enough to notice the lack of its core?

The fact that things die under its touch is new, but Dazai has always known there is no place for it in the world. The story was always going to end this way. If the demon were to break its curse, would Dazai return to the place it has left? Would it make any sense? Perhaps its hands would cease to be weapons, but how would it be worthy to walk among its own kind if he had never been a part of the world around it?

“I’ll think about it,” he says, relaxing on the couch again, and ignores the further complaints the flame lets out.

Dazai falls asleep on the couch and wakes up to find a pair of big blue eyes staring at him.

“How did you get in?” asks a childish voice.

The person in front of him is a boy. He must be fourteen at most. His expression has not yet lost its childish air. He has an X-shaped scar on his cheek and his hair is a dark salmon color.

He doubts that this is Fyodor. He reciprocates the boy’s confused look with a similar expression of his own, his eyebrows furrowed.

“The demon let me in,” he says, which is just a little lie.

The boy turns to look at the flame in the fireplace with an expression of complaint.

“I didn’t do anything!” Calcifer shouts, glowing brighter for emphasis.

The boy huffs, ready to complain, but the sound of the door being knocked on is heard.

“Porthaven,” Calcifer announces. The boy sighs, grabbing a hat from a cluttered table in the corner.

“We’ll talk about this,” the boy mutters, heading for the door. To his right, there is a dial divided into four different colors. The boy turns the arrow in the center and points it to the blue color.

As he puts on the hat, his appearance is completely transformed. His height changes, his hair turns gray and he grows a long beard. A cloak appears to cover him entirely, giving him the appearance of an elderly sorcerer.

He goes to the door and opens it. He has a brief exchange with a girl and then walks across the room, heading towards another door and getting lost behind it. After a few seconds, he returns with a small bottle containing a suspicious-looking pink, shiny liquid, hands it to the girl and closes the door.

Dazai watches the exchange with some interest. The boy removes his hat and returns to his real appearance. His attention returns to Dazai.

“I assume you are not Fyodor,” Dazai says, keeping his tone soft.

“No,” the boy replies. He sets the hat down on the same table. “The master isn’t here right now, but he’ll be back soon. I don’t think he’ll be too happy to find you here.”

Dazai hums. “So, you are...?”

“I am an apprentice. My name is Karma. Now seriously, how did you...?”

The door is knocked again.

“Kingsbury,” says the flame.

The boy takes the hat, moves the selector next to the door to position it in the red color, puts on the hat, opens the door.

Dazai stands up. It listens absently to the conversation: they ask about Fyodor, to which Karma replies the same thing he has told Dazai, and then the man on the other side of the door mentions something about a big celebration, possibilities of a war, meeting with the kings, and so on.

The sound of its cane echoes through the place with every step it takes. It approaches the nearest window and looks out. They are on a fairly busy street. There are two soldiers standing in front of the castle with solemn expressions.

The place is small and quite tidy. The door through which Karma entered earlier leads to a small room filled with shelves of jars. Some hold liquids and other objects such as herbs or animal body parts. Spell materials, Dazai assumes.

Dazai doesn’t know where the staircase leads and won’t go to check. His leg still hurts too much. He’s hungry, too; he should have brought more things to eat with him. He has some money, but he doesn’t think it will do him much good.

“Maybe you should leave,” Karma says, approaching Dazai. His hat is tucked under his arm and his hair is tousled. “I don’t know where you came from, but Calcifer could take you back. Maybe.”

“Nope! I refuse!” shouts Calcifer from the fireplace. Karma lets out a tired sigh.

“Always so helpful,” he mutters to himself. Turning his attention back to Dazai, he says, “I don’t know how the master will react when he sees you.”

“Maybe he’ll eat my soul,” Dazai says neutrally.

“Master Fyodor doesn’t do that.” Karma scratches his neck, where he has an old scar, as if he had worn a necklace made exclusively to hurt him. “But he does..., other things. I don’t think it’s safe.”

Dazai lifts his shoulders. “I’ll take my chances. Do you have anything to eat?”

Karma tilts his head to the side. He seems to have a million questions running through his mind. For a moment, he says nothing, as if he’s trying to figure out what the right answer is.

“You’re not very smart, are you?” he asks. Dazai manages a confused smile and opens his mouth to answer, but Karma beats him to it. “I can only offer you bread and cheese. Calcifer doesn’t cook for anyone but the master.”

“Is that so...?”

Karma walks over to a cupboard and opens it to take out the bread and cheese. Dazai decides to check every nook and cranny until he finds a few pieces of bacon.

“Do you know how to cook, kid?” he asks.

The boy looks at him. “It’s Karma. And yes, I know how to cook, but—”

“Follow me.”

Dazai takes the frying pan, hands it to Karma, and walks over to where Calcifer is. The demon, tremendously expressive for a mere flame, watches him with what can only be defined as contempt.

“No,” says Calcifer.

“Please?” says Dazai, flashing it a toothy grin.

“No.”

“All right,” says Dazai, sighing dramatically. It leans back on his cane, pursing its lips. “I’m sure Fyodor would love to know what we talked about last night.”

“Hey, hey—”

A quick, steady sound starts suddenly. The dial next to the door spins, spins, spins, and then stops at the black section of the circle.

A stony silence settles over the room. The door opens. Karma, in a reaction that must be nothing more than a reflex to protect himself, approaches Dazai until he is partially hidden by his body.

Dazai begins to remove one of his gloves.

A young man enters the castle. His hair is long and straight, jet black; it falls to the sides of his face and over his forehead with a certain elegance. He is dressed entirely in white except for a few purple details. He’s pale and his appearance makes him look weak, sick.

Their eyes meet. Dazai does not allow any emotion to show in his expression, merely watching him with a blank face. The young man blinks and tilts his head slightly to the left, and seeing the emptiness in his gaze feels like staring at his own reflection.

The door closes behind him, but the air is permeated with the scent of smoke.

“I wasn’t expecting visitors,” the young man comments. “What are you doing with that frying pan, Karma?”

“Uhm.” Karma comes out of his hiding spot behind Dazai. He looks at the frying pan as if it’s the first time he’s ever seen it in his life. “This guy was trying to get Calcifer to cook. Master, you have a message from the King.”

He doesn’t seem interested in it at all. His eyes are still locked on Dazai’s, and Dazai feels that to look away would be to lose an unheralded battle, but there is something uncomfortable in that gaze. It feels like staring into a void. Dazai has always had it easy to read people, but he can’t even begin to imagine how he feels about the current circumstances, and the lack of certainty makes him uneasy.

“Calcifer,” Fyodor says, voice as soft as velvet. “You let the guest in, so you should let him eat.”

“I’m a demon,” Calcifer says, not at all happy with his words. "I’m not your kitchen."

Fyodor doesn’t respond. He approaches them. His gait is calm and graceful. Dazai considers backing away, but ends up taking off his glove instead. Slowly, slowly.

Despite his attempt to be careful, Fyodor notices the movement.

“I wouldn’t recommend it,” he says, unfazed, coated in calm as only those who know their place in the world can be. “I’m not an unreasonable man and I hold no intentions of harming you, but I don’t usually take threats kindly.”

Dazai clenches its jaw, but relents and puts on his glove. The least it needs is to start a battle it can’t win—not yet, at least. Just because it despises its life doesn’t mean it wants to die at the hands of a wizard like this.

It’s strange, actually, just to be in his presence. Ashes stick to his skin and clothes, blackening that which, if it were not for this, would be in a perfect condition. There is a smile on Fyodor’s face that doesn’t reach his eyes and does nothing but make him look like an animal about to attack, so Dazai doesn’t think it’s unreasonable for his defenses to rise.

Still, Fyodor has given him no real reason for him to act like a cornered animal, so he decides he can be lenient, relax his hands, act like he hasn’t noticed that just because Fyodor has no intention of hurting him doesn’t mean he’s incapable of it, doesn’t mean he couldn’t do it regardless.

“Sorry for the break in,” Dazai says, walking over to the couch to sit down. His leg feels like it’s on fire. It must be swollen, but he doesn’t want to look in the presence of the wizard or the boy. “The door was open.”

“It usually isn’t,” Fyodor comments, giving Calcifer a discreet sidelong glance.

Karma moves to give Calcifer some firewood, which it receives with the greatest of joy, hugging it and taking a good bite. Dazai crosses his legs one over the other, a small sigh escaping his parched lips.

“You seem to have fallen victim to a curious curse,” Fyodor says. “It’s the kind of spell Agatha would cast. You must have upset her quite a lot.”

“I have a certain tendency to do that,” Dazai replies calmly. Fyodor lets out a small laugh.

“Mh-hmm. Bothering witches, invading wizards’ homes.” Fyodor takes the frying pan from Karma’s hand and lets it over Calcifer, who complains loudly, but is mollified enough to allow him to cook without setting the food on fire. “You should be more careful. Not everyone out there is nice.”

“Are you?”

Fyodor doesn’t turn to look at him. His voice remains soft, almost gentle, as he says, “You’ve caught me in a good mood.”

Karma purses his lips, dropping to Dazai’s right. Dazai looks at him and points to Fyodor with his head, frowning lightly. Karma shrugs, his lips pressed into a thin line.

Fyodor begins to make the meal, humming under his breath. He lets a few seconds pass before he speaks again.

“You must know who I am.” He cracks an egg in the pan, two, three. “So I imagine you didn’t get here by chance. Did you have an interest in something specific, or what brought you here?”

The truth is, Dazai has no idea. He was drawn here as if by a magnetic force, impossible to avoid; he was lost in his path and this is what he has found. He has nowhere else he wants to go, he has nothing waiting for him in his future, his life as of now is nothing more than a blank sheet of paper he’s not sure he wants to fill.

He has no intention of letting Fyodor eat his soul, but if he were to do so, Dazai thinks it would only bother him in the same way it bothers him to lose a card game or be deceived. There must be worse fates out there—like simply continuing to live an empty life, doing nothing of value, nothing of use.

Instead of telling him all that, Dazai smiles.

“I thought perhaps the great wizard could teach me some magic.”

Fyodor pauses his movements, turning to look at him over his shoulder. A smile tugs at his lips.

“Was there no one else who could serve as your teacher?”

“I have heard wonders of you.” It’s not quite a lie, so it hopes it’s convincing enough. It hasn’t heard positive things, but something makes it think that it doesn’t make a difference. “I wanted to see for myself.”

Fyodor waves his hand and Karma jumps to his feet. He runs to another corner to grab three plates, returning to Fyodor’s side and helping him serve.

Once everything is served, Fyodor approaches Dazai. He crouches down on one knee in front of him, violet eyes full of curiosity. His expression could almost be mistaken for something friendly, were it not for the fact that there is something about him that makes him look like a predator about to devour his prey.

But Dazai is no prey, and Fyodor is about to find out.

“We could try to do something with you,” Fyodor says, almost purring, and his hand goes to Dazai’s. He touches his knuckles and the only thing separating his skin from Dazai’s is the thin fabric of the black glove. Dazai has to hold back a shiver even so. “Who knows? Maybe you have some sort of hidden talent. Magic running through your veins with nowhere to go.”

Karma clears his throat. “I think we should eat.”

Fyodor hums, standing up. “You’re right, Karma. Excuse me, I don’t think you told me your name.”

“Dazai,” it replies, smiling, something dangerous lingering in its gaze. “Dazai Osamu.”

Living with Fyodor feels like playing a game without knowing the rules. He talks a lot, but rarely says anything of substance; lies roll off his tongue easily, barely clear enough for Dazai to notice. Sometimes, it doesn’t know what part of what he says is true and what is false. Dazai decides to return the same cordiality, to make things up with the ease of one who has spent a lifetime lying and deceiving.

He lies about his origins, about where he comes from and where he wants to go. In response, Fyodor makes up a story about how he gained his powers that Calcifer is quick to dismiss as false as soon as he and Dazai are alone again, but Calcifer can’t speak on the subject, so Dazai hasn’t insisted. He knows that contracts, like curses, have their secret parts. He wonders if, deep down, they aren’t really the same thing.

He lies about how he met Karma, too, and Karma confirms the story with practiced ease, automated words that he tries and fails to make sound genuine. Dazai indulges him only because Karma has enough to do with being the collateral damage in most of his interactions.

Dazai is not bothered by lies. Overly honest people are fascinating in themselves, but Dazai could never communicate with them in a meaningful way. Taking Fyodor’s lies and tearing them apart between his fingers is more suited to Dazai’s nature. Fyodor lies so calmly, says things with such conviction, that Dazai might as well fall into his trap, convince himself that he is telling the truth. There is something beautiful, even, in the way he expresses himself.

Fyodor sometimes disappears at night. Dazai doesn’t bother to ask what’s on the other side of the door when the arrow points to the black because it’s clear that Fyodor hasn’t told anyone. He returns smelling of smoke or covered in ashes, with a tired look or a self-satisfied smile. Then, he gets lost upstairs.

Dazai sleeps under the stairs and spends his time reading the books that fill the bookshelf (at least those in a language he can understand) or mixing liquids and objects in the cauldron like a child playing at cooking with water and mud. Karma has tried to stop him, telling him he will make them explode, but Dazai doesn’t pay much attention to him. So far, he has only almost exploded the cauldron once.

The days pass slow and fast at the same time, blurring together. Karma is the one in charge of the customers—he says Dazai doesn’t have the proper attitude to work in customer service—and Dazai has managed to appease Calcifer enough to let him cook. Fyodor has found it curious; “I’ve never seen you so well-behaved,” he has said, to which Calcifer responded with complaints that didn’t stop until Karma gave it some firewood to entertain itself.

Regarding the King’s invitation, Fyodor seems to have no further interest in heeding it. They haven’t knocked on the door again, despite Karma’s growing anxiety, who asserts that the King needs him for something serious and finds Fyodor’s calm stressful. He never says it to Fyodor’s face, but he does mention it in hushed tones when he is alone with Dazai. It turns out that Karma has found in Dazai an attentive ear, and Dazai, in his attempt to find out more about Fyodor from someone other than himself, has allowed him to do so.

There are few times when Fyodor teaches it anything about magic. Most of the time, he merely points it to particular books and names which pages it needs to focus on. It’s different with Karma, who he does stop to explain things to and with whom he does invest a bit more time. Dazai wonders if he avoids it because he feels the same uneasiness that Dazai feels in his presence or if he simply doesn’t like Dazai too much; he’s goaded it into trying spells that could kill it if it misses any of the steps, so Dazai leans toward the latter, but then it’d have to wonder why he lets it stay there.

Whatever it is, Dazai has made itself comfortable in the castle. More or less. Sleeping is difficult for it, as if Fyodor is going to dig its hands into its ribcage and devour its heart as soon as Dazai is distracted. Karma has some interesting stories to tell, so Dazai thinks he’d be able to.

“I know that master has a mission,” Karma says one afternoon, cutting a slice of bread and some cheese. “But I don’t know what it’s about. He’s faced other wizards before—one of them Agatha, the witch who cursed you. He never tells me the details, but I know some of those confrontations have ended..., well, poorly.”

“For him or for the rest?” Dazai asks, sitting on the couch. He’s slathering on a cream that’s supposed to help him with the pain of his leg, but it smells like rotten fish, so Dazai thinks he must have done something wrong. Well, as long as it doesn’t make his situation worse…

Karma hesitates for a second before answering. “He’s alive, isn’t he?”

Regardless, even with the latent threat that is Fyodor, even if he has the appearance of a bloodthirsty beast, he has been strangely kind. As kind as he can be, Dazai assumes, considering..., every detail of his existence. Obviating everything about trying to get Dazai to kill himself—that feels more like a challenge than an offense, really, so Dazai doesn’t mind.

He arrives one night, the door creaking open, and finds Dazai sitting at the table. It has been playing with the cauldron trying to make the cream again, which Karma is not going to be amused by when he wakes up, but to his bad luck Dazai has found a form of entertainment in annoying him, so he’ll have to learn to tolerate it. There are two mugs of steaming tea on the table in front of him, both giving off the same sweet, pleasant aroma.

Fyodor watches him curiously, wiping ash from his left cheek with a handkerchief, his hands covered with white gloves.

“I see you too often at this hour. Are you a nocturnal animal?” he asks, his voice a soft melody in the sepulchral silence. Even Calcifer, who always has something to say, is merely behaving like fire, crackling quietly.

“As much as you,” Dazai replies, pointing to the free chair next to the table.

Fyodor takes off his long white coat and hangs it on the back of the chair before sitting down. He moves carefully, delicately. Dazai follows his every movement with his eyes, as if mesmerized. There’s something about Fyodor’s presence that makes it hard to look away from him, and Dazai doesn’t think that has any relation to the growing urgency inside him.

“You look like you’ve had a long night,” Dazai comments.

Fyodor looks even paler than usual, vaguely illuminated by the fire. There is nothing to decipher in his expression; Dazai tries, still, because he has always appreciated a good challenge, and challenges are all he has left.

“As long as any other,” he retorts. He takes the teacup in his hands, sniffing its contents. “Smells good. What kind of tea is it? It’s not the kind Karma usually buys in Porthaven.”

“Jasmine tea,” Dazai says, and the lie slips off his tongue with ease. It’s not a complete lie; half-truth, he would say. It’s not the jasmine that bestows the smell. “I asked him to buy me some. It reminds me of home.”

Lying about its origin. About where it comes from and where it wants to go.

(Thinking of home reminds him of dark rooms and the strong smell of the alcohol his father drank at night to pretend he didn’t hate the life he had formed for himself. Thinking of home makes him think of a place that had everything anyone could need except for the peace that people often attribute to home. Home sweet home.)

Fyodor hums thoughtfully. He closes his eyes, the cup held close to his lips, and Dazai takes a sip of his own tea absentmindedly.

It’s not the first time they’ve shared tea in the evenings, at least not since Dazai gave up spending the entire night under the stairs staring into the void and since Calcifer obeys him, so the gesture itself shouldn’t be suspicious. Dazai was careful in the way he started the habit. He did not force his way through, but rather opened the door and let Fyodor believe he was walking through it of his own free will.

It’s not malice that drove him to put poison in Fyodor’s cup tonight, either. It’s not even a desire for self-protection. He’s simply bored. Fyodor has let Dazai do things that might well have killed him only to have Karma interrupt and correct him before it’s too late, so this is nothing more than returning the courtesy.

Despite his attempt at discretion, when Fyodor opens his eyes, Dazai realizes that he knows.

He knows, but drinks a bit anyway. Dazai blinks, watching him curiously, waiting for… anything.

“I admit you have your talents,” Fyodor says, standing up. “Magic is not one of them. This is a poor imitation of the kind of poisons I’ve worked with.”

Dazai sighs, pouting a little. “Oh. And here I thought I’d done a good job.”

Fyodor walks up to Dazai and grabs him by the chin, causing an electric current to run down his spine. Dazai tenses and tries to pull away from his grip, but only succeeds in getting Fyodor to dig his nails into his skin, not harming him only because of the thick fabric of his gloves. He pushes the cup against his lips; Dazai has, as his first thought, to take off his glove and rest his hand on him, but the taste of the tea distracts him. It doesn’t taste bad, but his tongue goes numb the second the liquid comes in contact with it. As he swallows, he feels something icy run through his entire body.

Fyodor pulls away before he can react, the side effects of his failed attempt at magic preventing him from moving or thinking as quickly as he usually would.

“Even if you had done everything perfectly, this wouldn’t have killed me,” Fyodor says, setting the cup down on the table. “You’ll have to work harder, Dazai-kun, if you really want to get rid of me.”

It’s an explicit challenge, and Dazai decides he’s in no position to step back now.

When Dazai sleeps, he dreams that he holds a loaded gun in his right hand and points it at the forehead of someone he should hate, but does not. Not unlike the hatred he feels for the person he sees in the mirror.

He dreams that someone stabs his heart and that, as he falls, he can do nothing but be grateful that at least he is not falling alone.

Calcifer takes the castle to an open field. Clear skies, a beautiful river. The mountains can be seen on the distance—

(There are black clouds hovering in the horizon, threatening. It’s a disaster waiting to happen; they hide the top of the mountains and Dazai thinks, for a second, of the cold air that always gets inside when Fyodor comes back from his late night escapades).

Karma gets out of the castle barefoot, looking around with big, shining eyes. Dazai follows closely and takes a deep breath. It’s been so long since he walked a place like this one only for enjoyment. He used to take a boy’s hand and run away from town, sit on a tree, kiss their knuckles and say promises he couldn’t keep. He thinks they knew that it was never going to last, but they never held him accountable for it.

It was nice while it lasted, and sometimes that must be enough, even if Dazai’s heart—that thing inside his chest that keeps him alive and so he calls it heart—even if that is a greedy, hungry thing. Even if it desires it could devour the world whole.

Dazai was never meant to hold anything precious between his hands, and so every time he tried, every time he found something he wanted to keep, he knew from the start it was already lost. Ashes to ashes.

Fyodor hasn’t shown up at his own home for a few days now. Karma says it’s an uncommon occurrence. Calcifer seems worried, somehow, which comes as a surprise. Dazai can’t say it misses him; it just wonders.

(Fyodor has accepted every attempt Dazai has made at using magic to harm him without blinking. Dazai keeps failing and Fyodor keeps letting it and it is starting to think this is just a way for Fyodor to entertain himself, that it is not anything but another plaything.

It doesn’t like to dance to anyone’s rhythm but its own, but wouldn’t walking away mean it’s lost?)

“When I was a kid,” Karma says, “I dreamed of being the strongest wizard in the world.”

He’s sitting in the grass, head leaned back to look at the sky. Dazai is standing beside him, tapping the floor with his cane. Its leg is not bothering it today, but it won’t risk it. The cane is like a part of it by now, even if it still hates the thing sometimes, even if it feels it’s useless.

It’s not the cane that is useless; it’s him, him and his forever-broken leg, him and his always-obscured mind.

“It was a stupid dream,” Karma is quick to add, as if someone would judge him for having been a child once, a child with childish dreams, as if someone would blame him for being a child now and holding onto hope. Dazai never had one of those. As a child, he dreamed of himself covered in his dad’s blood, or maybe his own, or maybe both. “I would never get to master Fyodor’s level. Not even close.”

Fyodor is a skilled wizard. Dazai has seen him fix Karma’s missteps in a second, make things move in the air without paying attention, change his physical appearance at will, breathe life back into the things Dazai touches. I’m only reversing your curse, Fyodor said, answering Dazai’s unasked questions. Dazai wondered if there was a way to bring people back from the death. Fyodor is not going to indulge his curiosity.

Dazai shrugs. “You still have time.”

Karma laughs it off, but he is pleased. Dazai doesn’t know why it wants him to be pleased with himself. Doesn’t think it matters, either. Its wants. Its desires.

The clouds seem to be getting closer. The storm is approaching.

Fyodor watches as Dazai cuts his own hand and lets his blood pour on the cauldron. The smell of this potion is strong and acidic. The interest in his gaze is evident, and Dazai feels like it should be putting up a show. Then again, Dazai is always putting up a show—but not the kind of show Fyodor would fall for. It feels useless to try to hide anything from him.

Dazai still tries, both out of habit and because he won’t give Fyodor the pleasure of having this easy.

The blood falls inside the cauldron and its contents change color, smoke coming out of it. Dazai watches it quietly. The wound on his hand stings. He feels the urge to dig the blade deeper, to make it properly hurt. He presses his own fingers over the wound instead.

“That might work,” Fyodor says. Dazai hasn’t told him what he’s trying to do. “Not with me. But with anything else.”

“I wouldn’t prepare something to kill you in front of you,” he says quietly. “You do nothing but judge me, which is rude, by the way. You’re supposed to be teaching me, master.”

Fyodor huffs out a laugh. Dazai doesn’t smirk back. His blood slips from the open wound and he watches it happen.

Fyodor stands up and comes closer. He takes a cloth on the way. Dazai doesn’t look up until he’s standing beside him, and then Fyodor takes his hand using the cloth to avoid direct contact with his skin.

“You’re using too much blood,” he says, taking his hand away from the cauldron. He eyes its contents, humming thoughtfully. “This might be the first thing you prepare that does what you intend it to do. Good job.”

Dazai doesn’t really pay attention to his words. He frowns, looking at Fyodor’s calm expression, feeling as Fyodor presses his own fingers in his open wound, the cloth barely separating their skins. Something hot runs on Dazai’s veins starting from the point of contact and rushing everywhere else, filling his body with an uncomfortable sort of warmth, as if he had a fever.

He could press his hand against Fyodor’s face, stain his pale skin with his blood, watch it as he took his last breath. He’s watched things die under his touch before,

(he was there, holding his best friend in his arms as he died)

he knows the feeling. He wonders if Fyodor would fight back, if he would just accept his fate.

Fyodor presses on the wound harder and Dazai lets out a small gasp. He doesn’t pull his hand away.

“Do you enjoy pain?” Fyodor asks.

Dazai doesn’t.

“Do you enjoy destroying yourself?” he asks back.

When Fyodor looks at him, there is something dark in his gaze. Looking into his eyes feels like watching into a void. The blood coats the cloth, colors it red. When Fyodor pulls away his hand, there is blood on his fingertips, too. Dazai thinks he should be repulsed by this. He has every right to, not because he’s better than Dazai in any way, but because at least he’s honest with himself, he looks at his own darkest bits and embraces them. Dazai doesn’t. Dazai has spent a lifetime training himself to look the other way, to pretend he doesn’t see the shadows lingering on the corners, the darkness spilling out from his mouth, his eyes, his ears.

“Only for the right reasons,” Fyodor replies, rubbing his fingertips together. “I believe you would destroy yourself for nothing.”

Dazai clenches its jaw, holding the cloth to its skin, taking a step back like a caged animal. Something pulses on its head and on its throat. Its leg burns.

Its blood doesn’t seem to harm him in the slightest. Not while tainting his fingers crimson; not when Fyodor’s eyelashes flutter shut and he brings his fingers to his mouth, licking them.

Calcifer burns brighter on the fireplace. For a second, Dazai fears the whole castle is going to get set on fire. For a second, as Fyodor opens his eyes, they almost seem red.

(Like a demon.)

(He’s held a demon’s hand before, in his dreams, kissed its knuckles. He’s played its game and lost, played its game and won.)

Dazai feels like he should’ve gone away as soon as possible, but where else would he go? Where else would he rather be?

The next time he gets to walk outside of the castle, Dazai pours some of the potion he made with his blood over a rat. He watches as it writhes and dies immediately, rotting until there’s nothing left.

There’s a knock on the door.

“Porthaven,” Calcifer calls from the fireplace. It is in a rather bad mood today, which probably has to do with the fact that Karma almost dropped water all over it accidentally. Karma apologized, but it refuses to forgive and forget. Which is fair. People usually don’t take assassination’s attempts kindly.

Neither Fyodor nor Karma are home today, so Dazai takes its cane and a cape that is kept around randomly and no one ever uses. After putting it on its shoulders, it moves the dial to the blue spot and opens the door.

There are three people on the other side. One of them stands a little back, seemingly uninterested in whatever business the other two have, holding a frog between their hands. Dazai is inclined to think it’s a poisonous one, but they seem to be alright and it’s none of its business if someone wants to hold a poisonous frog anyway. It probably would do the same thing, if it weren’t for the curse.

The other two are standing side by side. The younger one is quick to jump in, looking up at Dazai, clearly excited.

“Is Karma here?” he asks. Dazai thinks it’s weird that he knows Karma’s name—he usually doesn’t show his real face when talking to customers.

“Not right now, no,” Dazai says, almost apologetically.

The boy’s mood falters a little, but he is still playing with his hands in anticipation.

“I told him I wanted to buy poison. He said it would be ready today.”

Dazai blinks. The girl at his side is staring at him, seemingly intrigued, her head slightly tilted to the side.

“Give me a second,” he says, closing the door briefly.

He looks around until he finds a small poison flask. The liquid is a dark blue and it’s labeled ODY with Karma’s handwriting. Dazai moves the liquid and sees it shine while he walks back to the door.

“Are you Ody?” he asks, looking at the boy.

“Uh-huh!” they say, nodding.

Dazai hands them the flask. The girl takes it before the boy gets a chance to.

“Hey!”

“I just want to see,” she says, looking at the flask’s contents with interest.

The boy sighs, taking a few coins and putting them in Dazai’s palm. Dazai counts them.

“What is that for?” he asks.

“Oh, that’s for my brother.”

Dazai blinks. “Well. Why are you buying poison for your brother?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, weather boy,” the girl says, giving the flask to the boy.

Dazai blinks. Again.

“Are you done?” the person with the frog asks, looking up at them. They look at Dazai and wrinkle their nose before turning their gaze back to their friends. “We still have to buy things for the dog.”

The girl stifles a laugh. The boy nods thoughtfully.

“Thank you,” he tells Dazai. “Tell Karma I said hi!”

He waves. Dazai waves back, his brows furrowed, and then he closes the door.

Karma returns home not long after, but rushes upstairs, so Dazai barely sees him. He tries to warn him not to touch the cauldron or “you’ll see what happens”, which is a bad way to get Dazai not to touch the cauldron.

He entertains himself by playing wizard, ignoring Calcifer’s complaints regarding the mess he’s making. Dazai combines elements to make a poison and, upon finishing, drinks the entire flask in one gulp and plops down on the couch.

A few minutes pass and Dazai shows no sign that this is going to kill him; he just feels dizzy, his body heavy, as if he has had too much alcohol. The world seems to spin around him and Dazai holds out a hand that does not look like his hand. The black glove is dirty and worn. It hugs Dazai’s hand perfectly.

Calcifer crackles in its place in the fireplace. Night falls without Fyodor returning home.

“Calcifer,” Dazai calls from the couch. Its voice feels alien, distant, as if it belongs to someone else. Its head feels like it’s going to explode.

“What do you want?”

“Where does Fyodor go every night?”

“I don’t know. Fyodor doesn’t talk about his business with anyone, much less me.”

“You’re the one who runs the gates,” Dazai points out with airs of obviousness.

“I know where he goes,” Calcifer says. “But I think you know, too. You want to know what he’s doing there, and I don’t know that.”

It’s a pretty lame attempt at lying, but Dazai doesn’t know if pressuring Calcifer is the right thing to do. There’s a chance he can’t talk about it, that he’s been conditioned to keep quiet, so Dazai lets him. Whatever it is, he will find out without her help.

The air smells of flowers. Bells ring in its mind. Dazai wonders if this isn’t some kind of omen.

Later, lying on its bed about to fall fast asleep, its head still heavy from its failed attempt to end its life, Dazai will hear Calcifer say in the distance, “Haven’t you had enough? You’ll get stuck in that form, if you continue.”

But he was too confused, so all this might as well be a dream.

The King sends his soldiers with a message to Fyodor’s door again during a quiet morning.

The sun is shining brightly outside, so Dazai was sitting near a window, looking at the sky, when there was a knock at the door. Karma went to answer it, disguised as usual, and returned inside with a letter and an ultimatum: either Fyodor does as he is told, or an attempt will be made to hunt him down.

Stroking the hilt of his cane, Dazai thinks that it would be an interesting thing to see.

Karma runs up the stairs and throws his hat halfway up. He bangs on the door to Fyodor’s room with momentum; Dazai manages to hear him from his position downstairs by the window. Calcifer changes course and the view outside changes completely. It is fascinating to see how from facing a busy street they move to being in the middle of an open field, green grass and bright sunshine.

“Master Fyodor!” shouts Karma. “The King’s messengers have returned!”

Apparently Fyodor doesn’t open the door, because Karma knocks again.

“Master Fyodor!”

Dazai hears the creaking sound of the door being opened. Fyodor’s voice sounds soft and calm as he says, “What have they told you?”

“The King has sent you two invitations,” Karma explains urgently. “They say you must appear before him soon.”

There is a moment where Dazai hears nothing. Then, he hears Fyodor let out a small laugh.

“I see,” he says. “Well, I’ll have to read these invitations. If you’ll excuse me.”

Then, the door lets out another creak as it closes.

Dazai hears Karma’s footsteps as he descends the stairs and then manages to hear him sigh. It sees him moving on the periphery.

“What’s wrong?” Dazai asks without turning to look at him. It lets its head rest on one hand, the other clutching its cane.

Karma stops and then approaches it. He crouches down to be at his level and Dazai leans in his direction as if he is going to tell it a secret.

“The King wants all wizards to go to war on his behalf,” Karma whispers. His breath brushes Dazai’s ear as he speaks. “But master Fyodor has no intention of picking anyone’s side in this battle. For as long as I’ve known him he’s been avoiding the King, even more so since the war was officially declared.”

Dazai hums thoughtfully. He thinks of the darkness that looms on the horizon, on the edge of the Wasteland; of the nights Fyodor passes without coming home to sleep and the smoke and blood that cover him upon his return. He thinks of his words, how he has admitted that he would destroy himself for the right reasons.

He doesn’t think Fyodor is against war. Fyodor is simply against fighting on behalf of anyone but himself.

Fyodor is dressed completely in white, from shirt to cloak including his shoes and gloves. He looks like a ghost. A soul in pain.

Dazai wears one of his suits, too, though his colors are blue and black. Fyodor lent him a new pair of black gloves to replace the ones he always wears.

A few days earlier, Fyodor asked him, “Will you go with me to the King’s masquerade?”, and Dazai considered refusing because he has no reason to publicly show that he has any kind of relationship with him, he has no plans to get in trouble because of him, but curiosity killed the cat and Fyodor would not invite him for no reason.

Fyodor offers him a black mask with gold accents and Dazai takes it. He’s also gotten him a new cane, black with a gold hilt, to match. It doesn’t look like the kind of thing Fyodor cares about—the kind of thing he should care about. It’s even a little funny.

Fyodor’s mask is unremarkable. Maybe that’s the point. It feels as if the mask is designed exclusively for no one to look at him, for no one to pay attention to him. Even Dazai feels the urge to look away.

Karma wishes them good luck before they leave, but he says it in a way as if he’s giving them up for dead before it happens, which probably isn’t a good sign. They’re walking right into a trap, walking right into the lion’s den, but Fyodor is confident and Dazai just doesn’t care enough to avoid it.

Fyodor runs a hand across Dazai’s shoulders and says, “Don’t look down,” and then the two begin to float in the air. Dazai has to restrain the urge to cling to Fyodor, and instead of looking down he looks around. The sun is setting in the distance, and the royal castle is approaching at an almost overwhelming speed. Fyodor’s hand clings firmly to his shoulder, granting him some level of security even if the movement is so fast that Dazai’s stomach churns.

They begin to descend into the entrance, avoiding the stairs. The soldiers at the entrance check that Fyodor’s invitation is genuine, and when they want to check on Dazai, he stops them by declaring that it is his companion for the night. His eyes light up a little, glowing from behind the mask, and the soldier lets them pass without further questioning.

“Do you make a habit of arbitrarily hypnotizing people?” asks Dazai as they walk inside. Fyodor’s hand has not left his shoulder. The contact makes it uncomfortable, it feels its skin tingle under the soft fabric of its shirt, but it doesn’t try to shake it off, simply accepting the contact.

Fyodor smiles. His teeth look sharper lately. Dazai wonders how it would feel if he were to sink them into its skin. If he were to drink the blood straight from its source.

“Not arbitrarily,” he replies quietly, taking the cane from his hand. It vanishes into thin air. Dazai is slightly taller than Fyodor, but that doesn’t seem to bother him too much. He holds him close to his body as if to protect him from something, but Dazai suspects that he is just passing the same spell from his mask, the one that makes eyes turn away from him.

No one turns to look at them as they enter the room. Dazai feels his heartbeat in his ears, but manages to calm it at will. He doesn’t know if Fyodor would notice the difference, but he prefers not to risk it.

“Only when it becomes necessary,” he adds. “I think you should relax, Dazai-kun.”

Dazai snorts. “Do I look like I’m not relaxed to you?”

“You’re never relaxed in my presence,” Fyodor says calmly.

Fyodor has the fangs and bloodlust of a hunter. Is it irrational for Dazai to prefer to keep his guard up against a beast of this caliber, with enough skill to devour him whole and the full intent to do so? The only thing holding Fyodor back is that he hasn’t yet felt the burning need to consume it to its bones, but Dazai knows that could change at any moment. Isn’t it smart to try to make sure that, if he can’t prevent that from happening at some point, at least the situation doesn’t catch him off guard?

“Fyodor, you make it sound like I’m afraid of you,” Dazai says with a grin.

“Aren’t you?”

“Should I?”

Fyodor grants him a sidelong look and huffs out a soft laugh.

They stop in the center of the room. A good portion of the guests are eating and drinking at tables set on either side, but most are in the center, chatting and laughing. Fyodor lets go of its shoulder only to position himself in front of it just at the exact moment when it is announced that the dance will begin.

As if he has been waiting for that moment, Fyodor extends a gloved hand in its direction, the smile on his face nothing but a threat.

“May I have this dance?” he asks, tilting his head to one side, and the emptiness in his eyes is such that Dazai fears to lose himself in it.

Bells ring in his mind, a distant warning, far away from him. Its hand wraps around Fyodor’s and it puts a hand on his shoulder, letting him lead.

“Can you dance?” Fyodor asks. He takes a step forward; Dazai steps back out of pure instinct.

It shrugs. “A little. You must know how to dance, right?” it mutters. It can barely hear its own voice over the sound of the music. Fyodor takes another step, Dazai steps back, lets him turn them and lead them down the salon. This is real: the touch of his hands, the way he clings to its waist, the violet color of his eyes, the way he looks at it. Anything outside of this doesn’t exist. “Haven’t you been trained by the King?”

Fyodor laughs. The sound reverberates inside Dazai, shakes him to the bone.

“In magic,” he concedes, because he is vengeful, but he knows how to accept his defeat. “Not in dance.”

“Also in dance,” he insists, tilting his head, a smile tugging at the left corner of his mouth.

Fyodor doesn’t reply. His fingers tighten firmly at his hip. It burns. Dazai feels on edge, as if the slightest flame is going to set him off.

“It’s not magic you were looking for from me,” he declares. It is not a question, but Dazai feels he must propose an answer.

“What do you think I was looking for from you, then, if not magic?” he asks, staring at him. It feels as if they are floating. Paths open up for them as Fyodor guides them back and forth.

Then, the music stops suddenly, and Fyodor’s steps come to a pause. The chandeliers begin to burst. People scream around them.

Everyone starts running around in the hall uselessly, and in the center of the chaos, them. Them, still in position. Them, as if in their own bubble.

“Answers,” Fyodor says in a voice so quiet it’s a surprise he gets to be heard above the sounds of things breaking and people crying.

Dazai doesn’t have any specific questions, so

(someone shouts behind them, the sound of glass being exploded is heard)

there’s no point in thinking to look for any answers. Still,

(a sharp sound, like something cutting through the air, and more shouting, mixed with the sound of something falling to the ground)

Fyodor looks convinced. What does he see that Dazai can’t see?

The truth is that Dazai doesn’t like to play games where he doesn’t know the rules, but since their paths crossed Dazai feels as if he, in a voluntary action, has inserted himself into the board. He feels like a piece where he should be an opponent; he is not used to being the one dancing to someone else’s rhythm, but now that they are here, he feels as if his steps have been guided to this moment.

Fyodor takes a step to the side, taking Dazai with him, just as a piece of ceiling falls on the place where they were standing. There is no more music, but Fyodor continues to dance in the midst of the disaster, Dazai continues to follow in his footsteps.

“It was a trap,” Dazai says, as if it wasn’t obvious.

“Of course.”

“What did you bring me here for?”

Fyodor hums, as if thinking his answer. He turns Dazai in place and then flips their positions; a ball of fire that was meant to fall on him stops just above Fyodor’s head and bursts into a hundred colors. The illumination reflects off his skin, makes him look paler, marks the dark circles under his eyes.

“You need to get out more,” Fyodor says, shrugging, and he says it so matter-of-factly that he might as well be telling the truth. If Dazai was easy to fool, maybe he would’ve fallen for it.

“Being in a burning castle is my greatest pastime,” Dazai replies, nodding solemnly.

Fyodor rests a hand on his lower back and pushes him back until Dazai is only held upright by the way he supports his weight. He smiles. Dazai feels the caress of his breath on his cheeks.

“That must be why you continue to bother Calcifer,” Fyodor muses calmly.

“It’s funny.” Dazai smiles, trying to think of anything other than the way he touches him.

A golden, fire-red bird flies to a stop next to them. Fyodor maneuvers Dazai back to his feet just as the bird transforms into a woman.

The sorceress who cursed Dazai. She wears her blonde hair tied elegantly and a long red dress, a feathered mask covering her face just enough so that it’s not too obvious who she is. Fyodor looks at her with a clearly bored expression.

“Agatha,” he says, bowing his head by way of greeting.

“Your desire to remain neutral has led to disaster, hasn’t it?” she comments. Her eyes find Dazai’s and she raises an eyebrow with interest, but soon turns her focus back to Fyodor. “Now there will be many people trying to get your head.”

“Are you among them?”

Agatha blinks, pressing a long red-painted fingernail against Fyodor’s cheek.

“I’m not interested in you,” she says. “The King has barely managed to come to an agreement to make me fight for him in the war. He won’t make me play cat and mouse.”

“So?”

“So,” she says, her fingernail sliding down until her finger is under his chin. Fyodor doesn’t escape her touch, but he doesn’t disguise his contempt. “I thought you might need help.”

Fyodor tilts his head to the side. He has released Dazai’s hand, but his other hand is still pressed against his lower back. His fingers clutch at his clothes gently, holding him in place.

“If I were to seek help,” he says, “I wouldn’t seek yours. I don’t want to deal with the prices you’d make me pay.”

Agatha sighs, pulling her hand away from Fyodor’s face. She crosses her arms over her chest and looks to the left just as a ball of light streams toward them. She reaches up a hand and catches it without it hurting her in the slightest.

“That’s a shame,” she mutters. The ball of light goes out, leaving only its charred core between her fingers. “There are battles even you can’t win.”

Fyodor hums, but he doesn’t reply.

“Hold onto me,” he tells Dazai without looking at him.

He barely manages to react in time before the ground disintegrates beneath his feet, leaving nothing but emptiness.

Dazai has seen monsters before.

It has seen them in dreams so vivid that it has woken up with its body aching, with bleeding wounds it didn’t remember. It has seen them in the gaze of the people around it, looking for something from it that it was unwilling to offer. It has seen them inside itself. Hungry beasts that devour everything within their reach, that leave nothing behind. One settles in its chest, feeding on everything that could have granted him any kind of peace or sustenance.

It remembers times past where it felt as if it was the monster. There were times, too, where he was sure everyone around him was. Dazai moved through life as if everyone was out to hunt him.

Still, he never saw such a beast before him, a beast that he can feel between his fingers.

Dazai sees Fyodor change before his eyes, and he thinks he has never seen anything as terrifying as it is fascinating.

His body fills with feathers, his hands transform into claws. His teeth sharpen even more and something wild settles in his gaze. His jaw opens and an inhuman sound leaves his lips. Dazai feels his stomach flip, an inexplicable feeling of urgency settling on his chest, liquid fire coursing through his veins.

“I’ll send you back to the castle,” Fyodor says, his gaze flashing. His claws dig into its shoulder, tearing its clothes, breaking skin. Dazai’s mouth feels dry. “When you arrive, tell Karma to activate the charms.”

Dazai doesn’t know what that means. It wants to question him, but some of Fyodor’s feathers fly away from his body to position themselves under Dazai’s feet.

“I’ll let you go now,” Fyodor says. Dazai is bleeding where Fyodor was holding him when he lets go.

The magic takes him away at full speed, churning his stomach. When Dazai looks over his shoulder, he sees something explode. Fyodor’s figure is lost in the smoke it leaves behind.

Dazai arrives at the castle early and opens the door. Fyodor didn’t give him the cane and his leg feels like it’s on fire; he leans back against a wall, gritting his teeth, trying not to groan under his breath.

“Dazai?” Karma says as soon as he reaches him, brows furrowing in worry. “Are you okay? Where is Master Fyodor?”

“He told me to tell you to activate the charms,” he says.

Karma blinks and nods, but instead of doing what he was assigned to do, he wraps an arm around its waist and takes one of Dazai’s arms to drape it over his own shoulder.

“Let’s get you seated first. Where’s your cane?”

Dazai feels the urge to pull away and pretend it can handle this alone, but the truth is it can’t handle this alone, and there would be too little dignity in trying to pretend everything is fine and end up on the floor, so it decides it can afford to take his help. Just this once.

He doesn’t know why Karma is helping him. Up until this point, Dazai had assumed the boy didn’t like him too much.

“I warned him,” Karma says, almost sadly. He helps Dazai sit on the couch. Calcifer’s flame in the fireplace is too weak, and Dazai feels that’s a bad omen. “I told him it was going to end like this.”

“He already knew,” Dazai murmurs, catching his breath to hold in a grumble that threatens to leave his lips. “He went all that way on purpose."

Karma sighs, throwing wood at Calcifer. It hardly makes a difference. Karma’s gaze is subdued, too, as if anticipating a tragedy. Dazai has nothing to say that might be of any comfort to him. He doesn’t think Fyodor went into this situation believing he was going to die, but it’s a latent possibility, and the boy wouldn’t believe him if he were to tell him there’s nothing to worry about.

“I guess it doesn’t matter anymore,” Karma says.

The truth is that if Fyodor were to die there the castle might not be able to stand, and then Karma would have no place to go. Dazai is there, but he is not a powerful sorcerer who can take care of him and his teaching. He doesn’t even think he can take care of keeping him alive for too long or give him a place to live.

“Fyodor saved you,” Dazai says. Karma tenses a little in place, blinking slowly. “Didn’t he?”

Karma doesn’t answer right away. It takes him a moment to find his words, as if he’s debating whether it’s worth it to keep lying.

“You could say that,” Karma says softly, in the voice he uses to share his secrets. “He got me out of the place I was in and gave me a chance to live with a little more freedom, but I think he just wanted a legacy.”

“Do you think he planned to die?”

“I think he doesn’t intend to live too long,” Karma replies, turning away from Dazai to go fulfill the mission he was given.

Three days pass without Fyodor’s return.

Dazai sits in front of the fireplace, watching Calcifer, weakened and strangely silent.

Karma barely leaves his room, and when he does, he focuses on finding a solution to the situation that Dazai doubts he will ever find.

On the fourth night with no news, Calcifer suddenly flares up with greater fervor and the castle door opens.

Dazai turns just in time to see Fyodor enter the place. He is still partially turned into a bird; feathers drag on the ground as he walks.

“Welcome back,” Dazai says calmly.

Fyodor blinks and looks at him. There is something strange in his gaze, his eyes darkened. Fyodor is not good, not kind, but his gaze is usually full of light. It’s unsettling to see him like this.

“Karma?” Fyodor asks

“In his room. You should let him know you’re okay,” he replies. “It’s rude of you, you know. To worry your student.”

It doesn’t look as if Fyodor is hearing him at all. He walks over to the couch and gets down on one knee on the floor. Dazai frowns, leaning back slightly out of pure instinct.

“Fyodor,” it murmurs.

Fyodor hums, wrapping a claw around its wrist. Dazai doesn’t try to pull away, but tenses up noticeably.

Fyodor brings his other hand to the hem of Dazai’s glove and strokes its wrist over the bandages. Dazai feels its breath catch in its throat and it takes a conscious effort for its heart not to start beating wildly. Fyodor could dig the tip of his fingernails into its pulse point and tear its skin, and Dazai could do nothing but allow it.

Then Fyodor’s fingers slip under the glove, barely grazing his skin.

“Hey, hey—” Dazai says, now really trying to pull away, but the glove slips and Fyodor touches him.

For a second, Dazai’s vision turns white.

Dazai sees himself pointing a gun at the center of Fyodor’s forehead. There is blood running down his chin, coming from between his lips.

He says something in a language Dazai doesn’t understand and he pulls the trigger.

Dazai feels Fyodor’s hands wrap around his throat and he hears him cooing him like someone trying to soothe a crying child. “This will all be over soon,” he tells him as the edges of Dazai’s vision blur, drifting further and further away from consciousness.

Fyodor’s eyes meet his own in mid-fall. The wind rings in Dazai’s ears, deafens him, but he still hears himself laughing. Fyodor looks up at the clear sky above them and smiles.

Fyodor is some kind of creature, half-man half-fish, and Dazai sees his blood color the water around him crimson, an arrow piercing his shoulder. When he looks down at his hands, he, standing on the shore, holds the bow.

Fyodor’s blood coating his fingers.

Fyodor’s blood in his mouth.

Fyodor digs his fangs,

his claws,

a sword,

his bare hands.

Every time Dazai takes its last breath, Fyodor is there.

Fyodor takes its sorry heart between his fingers and devours it before its eyes.

Dazai claws at his chest to plunge its hands in, seeking to return the courtesy, and finds—

It opens its eyes.

It is in an open field. At its back, a small hut; in front of it, grass stretches all the way across the road. Small bodies of water can be seen, the mountains bordering the place. The temperature is not too high; there is a gentle breeze that ruffles Dazai’s hair. It is as if the wind is pushing him, and Dazai turns on its heels just as the star shower begins.

The stars light up the night sky, streaking across it until they are lost on the horizon—except for the one that falls in the open field, bursting into hundreds of colors.

The wind caresses him, nudges him, urges him to walk in that direction, so Dazai lets his feet move on their own as the stars continue to fall, caressing the earth briefly before disappearing.

The scene is familiar; something tugs at his chest, squeezes around his heart like a fist, obstructs his air intake. He reaches out a bare hand toward the sky as if he intends to touch one of the stars even though he knows it is not possible, not without wagering more than he could ever bestow. His fingers move slowly, one by one, and he thinks he could caress the firmament, let it stain his fingertips blue.

His gaze returns to the front and he sees two figures. Children who couldn’t be more than eleven years old, running barefoot across the field. There is no one but them there, just them and the moon, the flowers, the stars.

Dazai’s stomach turns. One of the children drops to the grass, rolling down a small hill. The other watches him solemnly, his head slightly bowed.

Dazai forces his feet to stop before he comes to disturb the scene. The boy who rolled laughs; Dazai can’t hear him, but he sees him. The other boy smiles back at him, striding quietly down the hill.

Then he takes off running. It takes the other boy a second to react, two seconds to get enough energy to stand up, but by the time he does it’s too late.

Dazai can hear his own voice in his mind, sharper, more childlike, exclaiming, “Fyodor!”

A star falls. Fyodor, little Fedya, receives it in his hands, holding it close to himself as it glows brightly, illuminating his skin red, orange, yellow, like a burning flame.

The other child runs. Dazai’s feet are nailed to the ground, it couldn’t move even if he wanted to; it watches Fyodor’s lips move, leaning over the star he holds between his small childish hands. It can’t make out a single word he says to the star, but the star must have accepted whatever he said because he smiles broadly, opens his mouth and brings the lit star to his lips.

The boy falls to the ground. Fyodor swallows the star.

Dazai steps back a step, two, and Fyodor writhes in pain until something leaves his chest and he holds it between his fingers.

Calcifer.

It opens its lips to scream, but then a phantom touch brushes its cheek and a voice whispers deep in the recesses of its mind,

“Do you remember now?”

Dazai opens his eyes to find Fyodor still kneeling in front of him, his hand holding Dazai’s bare hand. He has regained his human appearance, his white robes stained with blood.

It feels as if old scars have opened up, as if his body is nothing more than a collection of wounds festering with never-healed infections. His breathing is rapid and irregular, as if he has run a long distance or carried more weight than he can bear.

“You usually remember on your own,” Fyodor says calmly. He pulls off his other glove and rests his palms against Dazai’s, interlacing their fingers. His skin is icy cold. A shiver runs through Dazai from head to toe. “I guess some things do change, as much as everything else remains the same.”

Dazai bites its tongue to keep from saying anything without first getting its thoughts in order a bit. Its mind works slowly, as if it’s just woken up from a blackout. It must have been in some sort of trance induced by, what, Fyodor’s magic?

Fyodor could be trying to trick it, playing with its mind. He has the ability to do it, and Dazai doesn’t think he lacks the will, but the truth is that Fyodor never does anything without a reason, and what could he possibly gain from this? What could he be trying to wring out of Dazai that would motivate him to get inside its head and plant nonexistent memories right now?

It presses its hands against Fyodor’s, fire coursing through its veins. Fyodor could be lying, but Dazai knows better.

Dazai has dreamed of its death and tasting its blood from other people’s lips and pulling the trigger for as long as it can remember. It may pretend that this is nothing more than a well-crafted deception, but the truth is that it has always known that this life of its is nothing more than an instant in an eternity from which it cannot escape no matter how hard it tries.

He was the boy on the hill, running to try to stop Fyodor, but he has not been in that place in this life.

“What do you want from me?” it asks.

Fyodor lets go of his hands, slowly getting to his feet. “This is but a countdown,” he says. “The end, and then, new beginnings. I think we are close to a change.”

Instead of walking away, Fyodor rests a hand on the back of the couch and leans over Dazai. Dazai, this time, does not back down.

“Death is metamorphosis,” he says softly, almost sweetly, tilting his head to one side. The universe might as well be limited to this one point, might as well hover around the two of them. Dazai looks down at his neck, bare and pale, remembers the feel of his pulse under his fingers. “I will die at your hands or not at all.”

“You want me to kill you,” Dazai says calmly.

Fyodor smiles, sharp, lethal. Dazai wants him to sink his teeth into his chest and tear his skin off.

“I want you to try.”

Dazai looks up into his eyes, and then its hands find the back of his neck, pushing him down, its lips meeting his in a desperate, hungry kiss, following its primal urges. There is a hunger in the depths of its stomach that it never knew how to satiate and that now finds relief in this: in touching a body as if it wanted to disarm it completely.

Fyodor does not respond with the same desperation, pushing it to lean its back against the back of the couch, trying to maintain a minimal semblance of control, but it does not take too long for him to give in and let himself be swept away by the current.

Fyodor guides him to his room and lets Dazai lie on his sheets, a foreign body occupying a space that does not belong to him. He touches him with precision and gently undresses him; Dazai makes it his new challenge to make him lose his calm, to take away from him that image of tranquility and control that has always characterized him.

Old wounds open under Fyodor’s soft touch. Dazai swings over the edge of the cliff knowing that there is no other way but down, that the fall is inevitable, that all he can do is wait for the ocean to open its arms to receive him.

When Dazai later holds Fyodor beneath him with his weight, knees on either side of his naked body and one hand firmly positioned on his neck, his fingers clutching tightly at his throat, he thinks it was always clear that this was going to end in blood.

It’s an afternoon like any other when it happens.

Karma is sitting in front of Calcifer, hands outstretched to warm them with the heat it emanates. Dazai is standing near the window, peering out at the new location to which the demon has moved the castle in an attempt to delay the inevitable.

Both he and Fyodor are fully aware that it is only a matter of time before this artificial calm they achieved for a few days is over. The hunt is not over; sooner rather than later, they are going to meet again those whom the King sends in search of Fyodor, and then…

Dazai is not too worried about what might happen to them. Karma worries him a little, but something tells him that Fyodor wouldn’t let him drift away so easily if he really has a mission for him after his death. Even if Karma doesn’t know it, Fyodor has put all the pieces on the board, knowing which way everything would go. He’s put together the play that will continue long after he’s gone.

Dazai watches Calcifer—the fire demon, the one who possesses Fyodor’s heart. His flame is more intense lately. Does it mean something?

Dazai takes one of the books from the shelf and opens it. He reads through one, two, three pages, and then he hears the hiss of something falling. It doesn’t take him half a second to realize what that sound is, but even that is too slow. By the time Dazai manages to turn away, the ball of magic falling on the building explodes.

His first reaction is to check that he can still move and walk; a piece of heavy wood fell on his injured leg and he has some trouble getting it off him. When he manages to do so, the pain in his leg is so deep that he does not know if he will be able to stand up.

He barely makes it, twings of pain stabbing into the muscle. He has to hold onto the wall until he reaches his cane, and even then, he walks with a clear limp, biting his tongue to keep from groaning.

His next action is to run towards Calcifer. He meets Karma on the way, who apparently had the same idea. He presses a hand against his injured arm, a piece of glass stuck in it, a bead of sweat sliding from his temple down his cheek.

“Are you okay?” they both ask at the same time.

Neither of them reply. They hear a sound like something cracking on the ceiling and Karma reacts first, lunging at Dazai to push them both out of the way. They fall to the floor with a loud crash; Dazai’s back hits the floor and he lets out a groan. Karma’s weight on his body doesn’t help much, but it’s better than the ceiling.

“Calcifer!” Karma shouts.

“I can’t hold the castle whole!” Calcifer yells back from his position on the fireplace.

The boy helps Dazai to his feet and passes him his cane, but he doesn’t think it’s going to be much help; they have to walk dodging debris, walk across the space separating them from Calcifer. Dazai clenches his jaw and forces himself to keep moving forward, even if he can barely stand.

Where is Fyodor? This is his fault, he is the one they are hunting; where is he now?

They manage to get to Calcifer and Karma looks for something to hold it so the flame doesn’t go out. He throws firewood into a pot and then uses a tongs to move Calcifer, dropping it inside. Calcifer whines, but neither of them pay much attention to it.

Another wall falls. The castle floor splits in half and shakes; Karma barely manages to hold onto the edge of the fireplace. Dazai falls to the ground again, its leg giving out completely, its heart beating desperately in its chest. Karma’s blood stains the floor. His leg feels like it’s going to break into pieces.

It’s as if the castle has split in two. They are no longer in the small village where Fyodor had hidden them for those few days, but are in the middle of the Wasteland, the sky darkened, fire in the distance, smoke and the strong scent of sulfur.

“Get down,” Dazai says.

Karma obeys. Dazai crawls to get closer to him, the ground still swaying beneath them as what’s left of the castle struggles for balance, and rests one hand on the glass, the other on Karma’s arm.

“This is going to hurt.” As soon as he says that, he pulls, ripping the glass out of Karma’s arm. The sound of blood and flesh is obscured by Karma’s loud cry. His blood is a strong shade of crimson, it begins to drip with increasing force.

Dazai drops the glass and rips off a large piece of his coat to bandage it. Karma clenches his jaw, closing his eyes tightly.

“Well done,” Dazai murmurs in an attempt to comfort him.

Karma takes a deep breath and opens his eyes, giving it a weak, shaky smile.

“Where’s Fyodor?” he asks, looking toward the horizon, as if expecting to see him arrive out of nowhere.

Dazai looks at Calcifer, who is holding tightly to a log, and takes off his gloves.

“Don’t touch my hands,” he warns Karma, and then extends both hands, sticking them directly into the flame.

“Hey!” exclaims Calcifer.

It burns. It burns. Dazai wrinkles his expression, the pain spreading through his hands, intolerable, but he plunges his hands into the flame.

“What are you doing!?” Karma screams, trying to pull its arm to stop it, but Dazai struggles against his hold, hearing his voice as if far, far away, its mind completely focused on its current target.

His fingers brush against something firm and Calcifer screams, bursting with force. Karma is forced to back up on the ground, away from them so as not to be engulfed in the flames.

Dazai tightens his hands around Calcifer’s core—he holds Fyodor’s heart between his fingers. He feels it beating, a source of life away from its owner, existing outside the one to whom it is supposed to breathe life. Everything burns and Dazai can’t breathe, he is forced to close his eyes tightly to avoid damaging his eyeballs, and then—

In one of many lives, Dazai and Fyodor find themselves in a place that Dazai would not recognize right now because he has never seen anything like it in this world.

An airport.

In that life, Dazai aims at Fyodor’s head and shoots. Fyodor is smiling when the bullet pierces his skull.

They don’t die together, then. Fyodor falls as if in slow motion, and Dazai waits silently for his time to come. He waits for his own fall, too, because he feels that this would be the right thing to do, because things could never end any other way. If this is where his life ends, then shouldn’t Dazai’s end as well? Aren’t they one and the same? Aren’t their fates intimately interconnected so that Fyodor lived and lived and lived until he found him, and it was only in Dazai’s hands that he could find an end? Dazai feels that every step he has taken, every decision he has made, has brought him this far, to the moment when it finally happens. If this was his life’s mission, what is there for him after?

Fyodor falls, dies at Dazai’s feet, and as the people around him relax because the battle at last seems to be over, Dazai thinks, it should have been me. It should have been both of us.

When Dazai opens its eyes, it is lying on the grass. The sun is shining in the sky; in the distance, it hears birds singing, the sound of the wind rustling the leaves on the trees.

It sits on the ground, closing its eyes tightly as the movement gives it a twinge of pain in its head. Opening its eyes again, it finds Fyodor standing on the riverbank. The water is crystal clear and reflects the sunlight. The movement of the water is calm.

He remembers everything that happened: the castle shattering, Karma’s wound, his own leg, Calcifer screaming as Dazai wrapped his fingers around Fyodor’s heart. He tries to stand up, but he can’t feel his leg. The small whimper that escapes him is what makes Fyodor turn to look at him. He has one hand raised, Calcifer in his palm glowing with a small blue flame, as if weakened.

“You woke up,” he says without moving from his spot.

“Where are we?” Dazai asks. There are colorful flowers all over the field, some small animals running around.

“Sometimes, the smartest thing you can do is to step aside,” Fyodor says. He doesn’t answer the question itself, but he makes it clear what he’s saying: they’ve fled to escape alive.

“And Karma?”

“There is absolutely no need to worry about him,” he replies, stepping closer.

This time it’s not Fyodor who crouches down to get to his level. Dazai makes a second attempt to get up and succeeds, standing face to face with him.

The sun is shining in the firmament and Dazai hears church bells.

“What’s next?” asks Dazai, his hand reaching out almost absently.

His fingers brush the faint blue flame. Fyodor blows and it flares again; orange, red, yellow. The flame caresses Dazai’s skin. It burns, but Dazai has felt worse things.

In one of so many lives, Dazai throws himself off a building in front of the wide-eyed expression of the one who put him on a pedestal after managing to save the only person whose life mattered to him.

Knowing what he knows, Dazai wonders if Fyodor expected to die with him, too, or if he spent every instant after his departure questioning what he was supposed to do with this, oh, so much life. The Dazai of that universe wouldn’t have cared—so tired of history repeating itself, all he did was position the pieces on the board, arrange everything, watch the game unfold. That Dazai didn’t stop to think about Fyodor at all as long as he didn’t interrupt his plans, didn’t get in the way of how everything should unfold to reach the expected goal.

But Dazai knows, now, that where his blood is spilled is where Fyodor must die; that they follow each other, their souls intertwined in a dance that no force in the universe can stop. What has brought them to this point? How did it all begin? They have done this over and over again. Are they the playthings of a capricious God who found Himself too bored in the universe He Himself has created? Have they ever been cursed, hundreds of lifetimes ago, forced to meet in every life and die in each other’s arms?

Dazai thinks of all the people it has ever loved. It thinks of the red-haired boy who sat next to it in the tree, of the white lies and the promises it never expected to keep.

It thinks of the friend who died in its arms and the one who disappeared from its life without looking back, because Dazai doesn’t know how to forgive and let go, doesn’t know how to forget his mistakes.

He thinks of the one who always asked him: have you eaten today? or could you walk with me around the city? or do you think I will let you go out without doing your job?

He thinks of the starving child he took off the streets to give him a chance at something better and thinks of the one person who could see through him as if he were made of glass and thinks of the one who entwined her arm with his own, dragging him around every bar in town, pretending not to notice the darkness in his gaze, the black creeping into his eyes, his ears, his lips.

It thinks of those who saw it as a beast and decided that even beasts deserved to be appreciated, that even it deserved to be loved and treated with care. Dazai never knew how to appreciate it, never thought it deserved this, always shunned their love and affection.

Will they wonder about his whereabouts? Will they miss him, if he were to die here?

Dazai knows his fate (he would never admit his longing for that affection he once knew and now lacks). Now that all is said and done, this is probably for the best. He never wanted to be an inconvenience. If he was going to die, he wanted to inconvenience as few people as possible.

If Fyodor’s must be the hand that takes his life, then so be it.

A wheelchair. A migraine that does not leave him alone. Blood on his fingers impossible to wash off.

Atsushi offers him a weak smile because he doesn’t know what else to offer. Dazai reciprocates because he is used to it, because there is not much else he can do, because it is not in front of Atsushi that he will expose the horrors that rest in his mind, those that crawl in his chest, that make a home in his lungs and corrupt him from the inside out.

He thinks of the blood on the floor and the weight of the gun in his hand. If he were any other kind of man, he would have done what had to be done: rested the barrel of the gun against his own temple, and then...

Dazai should’ve said goodbye. He never formally resigned from the bookstore. He never told anyone of his plan not to return home.

Will Karma wonder what became of them?

Is Karma even still alive?

In one of many lives, Fyodor pointed to the sky with a small childish hand covered with blood and asked him have you heard about the rabbits on the moon?

There are no rabbits in that sky, Dazai said in reply. I have seen it myself.

Fyodor did not question it. Dazai tasted the end on the tip of his tongue.

Dazai wraps its fingers around Fyodor and squeezes, snatching his breath; Fyodor sinks his fingers inside it, opening it up, ignoring the whimpers that leave its lips.

Do trees make noise as they fall if no one is there to hear them?

Will this world continue to exist even after Dazai has taken his last breath directly from the half-opened lips of the man on whose shoulders rests the same weight as on his own?

The lights go out.

The curtain falls.

Dazai hears, in the distance, the lullaby its mother used to hum to put it to sleep when it still fit in her arms, when they still believed it could be fixed.

Then, a ray of light.

Then...

Dazai is twenty years old and has been working as a barista at the coffee shop for only two months because it’s the only job she can get considering she’s just a girl with zero verifiable work experience.

(She’s done jobs she can’t put on a resume. She’s told her coworkers, but everyone but Ranpo thinks she’s joking).

He hates serving customers. He hates making coffee. He hates having to put on his sweetest voice and flash his best smile. This job has been created solely to torture poor souls in misfortune like Dazai’s, who need a part-time job that will give them some money and a chance to continue studying.

He doesn’t get enough money to justify everything he goes through.

He hears the bell at the entrance and lets out a big tired sigh. Only twenty minutes until the end of his shift. He looks at the clock sadly and turns around, smiling broadly to greet whoever approaches the counter.

He is a thin, pale boy, almost sickly looking. He wears a gold and black cane and dresses like a typical pretentious student, the kind of guy Dazai would hate to share a lecture with.

He approaches the counter to place an order, and the sound of his voice is strangely familiar, but Dazai has no time to waste, so he doesn’t even pause to watch his back as the stranger walks away.

(That night, Dazai dreams that everything his hands touch dies between his fingers, and he dreams of a boy swallowing a star).