To conduct the singing misfortune [Dazai and Reader]

A Promise in a Cemetery IV

A sickly warmth radiated from the oil drum, blazing with flames likely from hell. It gives us a taste of our due punishment. According to the books in the orphan's old room, such is what would await me – Someone who was raised in the shadows of a slum and brought into a salvage by a supposed murderer before being taught what was morally correct. I don't believe them, though, as I have no reason to. If I could get away with my actions, there is no god, not for the corpses I lit on fire for warmth and picked the meat from for food. I've seen lifetimes in which no matter whether you crawl in the sewers for anything to gnaw on or can afford masterful delicacies and candle-lit dinners, we've no god. No mercy.

I don't believe so when my father figure of five years was ripped from my life senselessly. My first taste of humanity burned up.

A black shadow in the field blocks the only light we sit in, sleeves hanging loose, and the leather dimly reflected deathly reds. My brother, or so I've labelled him, lifts the coat to catch a full glimpse of the silhouette it produces, then weakly hurls it into the rusting metal oil drum. The flame engulfs it hungrily, then recedes into its warmth as if preserving itself before being taken from our earth.

The shadows return to lurk on our shoulders, and then we work on destroying other unnecessary things that may serve as trackers of our whereabouts. I am only along for the ride in this equation. I'm likely not even on record as a person or citizen of Yokohama. The most I could be was a rumour, a ghost.

But Dazai is in a different situation, and the new clothes he adorns are an entirely different personality he aims to take on. Someone light, willing to work in danger not only for his lack of will to live but also for the sake of a job, to protect the weak. His motivations swamp the facades he masquerades with, and people will be left clueless about what to make of him other than a useless human being. I've seen firsthand how he can change from his dark personality to a chipper, childish, lost self.

Perhaps I'd been lucky enough to see a much rawer version of my brother. And it's chilling how adapted he is to this lifestyle, how used to the fact that he doesn't understand or fit within social boundaries. Or maybe not 'chilling' per se, but anxiety-inducing, as I realise the person I now will be influenced by can hardly be called a person at all. It was like being raised by the voices in my head.

Still, it's nothing I shouldn't be used to, and knowing my luck so far with guardians, it won't be long until he's sitting in a graveyard, too.

The ashes dance upward with the heat, the moonlight above us contrasting the smoke. I cough, choking on the soot before swallowing the urge down as I shift my sight to the box I'd gathered of items that belonged to the orphans. Their bodies weren't recovered from the van – not even scraps of cloth. The bomb had demolished even the van they were forced into, so I had to gather what I could from their room. Sakunosuke would want this.

"Where are you going to scatter their ashes?" The question is quiet, almost lost with the nightly wind. I feel Dazai's eyes on me as I pick up the box filled with their favourite clothes and trinkets, then place the cardboard box in the flame. "They liked to play with me along the Tsurumi River. Sakunosuke would take us on his vacation days. Sakura liked the frogs – I would grab them from the water and take them home. I never liked the orphans much, but that was alright."

The memory of Sakunosuke sitting by the river with a toy boat as the boys cheered the electric toy on amused me, and a small smile rose to my lips. I realise the feeling is foreign after the last two weeks, and I close in on the daunting grief once more.

Dazai clears where the coat had failed to burn, the sleeves that hang out detaching from the thread they onto by, and I drop the cardboard in and snatch my hands back. Fire rises past my head, skimming my skin and drying my welling eyes.