Idiosyncrasy (Bungou Stray Dogs)

Chapter 4

Kunikida

I squeeze my eyes shut, pausing. Reading these words ... the manner in which they're written ... I feel as though I am right there alongside Odasaku, witnessing his life as a fly on the wall. I cannot touch him or any of the others who pop up in his story, cannot influence the events in any manner. I am aware of myself and the present around me, but I'm torn in two, frozen, unable to fully exist in either place. The darkness behind my eyelids throbs in time with my pulse. I needed this darkness, this pause after reading that Odasaku had discovered five abandoned children and risked everything he had to rescue them. The esteem I hold for his character has jumped up several notches. I would record that in my notebook if I were able.


Instead, I'm left with only one option: continuing to bear witness to the lives flashing before my eyes until they fully play out. I hesitate a moment longer, recalling the title of this story. I pray that it does not mean what I fear, that the story will end with Dazai's death and me, unable to intervene.

Odasaku

When I next ran into Dazai at the tavern, several weeks had passed. I stepped over the threshold, my eyes instantly drawn to the dark figure he cut through the haze of cigarette smoke. His bearing, his presence had changed somewhat, become stronger and more mesmerizing than ever. The sight flooded my body with a rush of endorphins, the sort of sensation one has when coming home after an extended leave. It made little sense. I tamped down the urge to linger in that moment. Feelings like that are as dangerous as they are intoxicating. With five kids counting on me, I can't risk such an addiction.


"You've been working hard lately," Dazai said as I took the barstool beside him. "I was beginning to think you found my conversation boring."


"Nah." I nudged him in the side with my elbow, careful to not make eye contact with him by flagging down the bartender instead. "You're too weird for me to me to lose interest."


His mock-offended gasp in response tickled me more than it should have. I had to work hard to keep from smiling. "You wound me, Odasaku." He chuckled to himself while the bartender brought me a drink and refilled Dazai's glass. Then, his tone grew more solemn, the temperature in the bar seeming to drop as he spoke. "Real talk, Odasaku. I've done some digging around about you. Please understand that it's part of my job to do this as I recommended you."


I gave a short nod in reply, still not looking directly at him. I focused on the sensation of the glass in my hand, keeping my body still, not showing a hint of weakness. Dazai seemed to read right through me. Watching me posture for him. I waited.


"What I've heard is that you refuse to shoot to kill."


I didn't respond with words. I did turn my head to meet his eyes.


He continued, fixing me in his gaze, his intentions impossible to discern while wearing his poker face. "In a recent raid, we ended up with twice as many captives than we generally allow. That is risky behavior, you know. If the survivor count is high enough, the chance of the enemy redoubling their efforts in a boost of shared morale could turn the tides of a raid long after it should have ended. The Port Mafia pays back attacks on it two-fold. You were made aware of our code, yes?"


I gave a short nod and finished my drink. I had nothing to say in my own defense, nothing I thought he'd understand at any rate.


"On the other hand," Dazai continued, his demeanor softening. "You have proven to be a dedicated and focused worker. You've shown an increased motivation to volunteer for shifts and side jobs nobody else wants ..." He paused as if thinking over his last statement, and, not finding what he thought he might, going on. "I'm not saying that you're doing poorly, but you must realize that your performance undershoots your potential by a lot. You'll never rise in the ranks if you hang out on the fringes."


I breathed out softly through my nose, keeping my expression as neutral as I could manage. I'd been trying to fly under the radar, not get noticed and called out by Dazai so quickly. "I know," I told him, and then clarified when he contorted his face in exaggerated confusion. "I'm content where I am. At the bottom."


Dazai comically widened his eyes, his eyebrows rising, then quirked one, squinting the eye on the opposite side, his fingers thoughtfully stroking an imaginary beard on his chin. I could tell he was trying to get a rise out of me, to get something out of me. I almost smiled despite my best efforts. "You are gifted, Odasaku," he declared at last. "I can see that more clearly than most. Why do you not wish to rise to your potential?"


I shrugged. I wanted this line of questioning to end. It wasn't what I came in for, but I also struggled against the urge to open up and spill my secrets to Dazai. I'd never really felt attraction to a guy before ... or a girl if I really thought about it. There wasn't time for such thoughts when you spend your life trying to stay alive, but something about Dazai was different. Intriguing. And in his position, he was probably the worst person I could have picked to want to open up to. I had to keep my guards up.


Still ... A smidgen of honesty might not hurt ... just to test the waters. "I don't want to kill people." I left it at that. I didn't want to go into the details about my past. I'd chosen to chart my own future and to do that, I wanted to leave the past buried. I chased the ice cube in my empty glass around with my finger until I realized I was doing it and stopped. I could sense Dazai wanted to ask me to explain myself. I could feel his eyes on me like an X-ray, picking up far more from my attempts at hiding my body cues than I managed to conceal.


"Okay," he said, a pregnant pause looming in the space between us. And that's all it took. My pulse quickened; my palms started sweating. My heart ached. I had the urge to correct his understanding of my position, to prove to him that my intentions were not only justified, but wise, that they were worthy of his praise or at least, his attention. He'd turned away from looking at me and was playing mindlessly with his hands on the bar top, lacing his fingers together, tapping them, toying with the end of the bandage at his wrist.


I looked away, staring blankly ahead at the line of bottles behind the bar. My stomach curled inward like I'd swallowed a pit when I realized that if I was ever going to be comfortable talking to Dazai the way I wanted to, that the only way he'd ever see me as an equal who chooses not to chase power, was to be honest with him. It was a huge risk. A stupid one. And yet, as I glanced sideways at his profile, taking in the curve of his lips, the secrets and the sadness hiding behind that silly smirk, I was enraptured. The risk was worth it.


"Dazai, I ... Can I ..." I steeled my resolve, clenching my fists in the jacket fabric on top of my thighs. I flattened my palms and looked directly at him. "Look ..." He stared back at me with the same comic confusion he'd worn earlier. He was baiting me. I knew it and I didn't care. I'd made my decision. "I have a confession to make. It's hard to explain, but ..."


He held up his hand to silence me at the sound of confession. The rest of my sentence lodged itself in my throat.


"I am already aware of your unusually keen interest in my body, Odasaku. It is best that that remain unspoken and undeveloped. Safer. Understood?"


I gaped at him. My face grew hot. Fuck! "No! I mean, yes, understood ... but that wasn't what I was going to confess."


Dazai's eyebrows disappeared behind his bangs as he stared at me. He was giving me a double-take, a repeat examination for clues, I suppose. "You are full of surprises. Something other than ..." His eyes roved over the state of my hair, my face, my posture. "Oh dear. I did not see that coming." His smirk was back, twitching at one corner and confusing the fuck out of me.


I'd never come across another person quite like Dazai. The delight he took in trying to deduce what I was going to say before I said it, I found equally endearing and annoying. I sighed and made a mental note to myself. How Dazai ticks: It's best to allow him to play out his flamboyant dramatics without interruption. It makes him happy and is also interesting to see where exactly his mind will jump.


He continued without pause. "The extra shifts you've been picking up at work, the bags under your eyes. You have the look of a man caught between a rock and a hard place and yet, underneath it all, there's a deep sense of satisfaction. A hope or a joy? You're going to be a father."


I stared at him, unblinking. What the hell was this guy smoking?


"Did you get one of the locals pregnant?" he asked, leering creepily at me. I furrowed my eyebrows, pursing my lips. "No? Don't tell me it's one of Our people! Oh, dear lord ... One of your superiors?" His eyes sparkled, shining with entirely too much delight.


"No," I snapped, wanting to smack the delight off his face. His face fell. Then he gave me a suspicious glance like he didn't believe my denial for an instant. My mind spun over my predicament, piecing together how Dazai could have possibly come up with a pregnancy. I realized that by taking in five kids, I had sort have taken on a father-figure role. I conceded that much. "Well, you're not entirely off the mark, but there are no pregnant women involved. I want to make that clear."


Dazai grinned, clasping his hands together under his chin and resting his elbows on the bar. The look he sent me was smugly satisfied, his message clear. He was teasing me for crushing on him. He'd assumed I made the point about there being no women to underline my attraction to him. I ran my fingers through my hair, scrubbing at my scalp. If I stopped to think it over too closely, I'd probably find he'd gotten it right about me, reading more from my body language than even I was aware. I took a deep breath and released it. I hadn't finished.


"I've taken in five kids. Five orphans." I stared at the bar top rather than looking at Dazai. "They aren't living with me in my quarters so they're not preventing me from performing my job. A guy I know and trust agreed to board them for me until I figure out a better arrangement. But you see, they're innocent. They're quite young and ... and ..." I sensed Dazai beside me, no longer smiling, his presence going as still as a statue. I suppressed a shiver. I was failing to convince him. I realized it, but I kept going anyway, determined to get it out, to demand that he examine all the facets I'd taken into consideration. "If I hadn't taken them in, they'd be dead. That is what I'm telling you. The reason that matters to me is that had I chosen to leave them, it was the same thing in my mind as killing them myself. I don't want to kill people. Also, it may be cliché as fuck, but I had a crappy childhood too. Miserable fucking hell. And I just ... want to make a difference. Make some small amends for my past or something. I know that it probably sounds pointless to you, but see, this need, this desire to protect them, to see them make it and to grow up ... it's a new sensation for me. It's fascinating and I feel it as a truth that goes down so deep, it reaches my bones. I'd rather die than go back to being the way I was before, like turning against myself." I stopped and took a couple of shaky breaths, surprised as hell at how earnest I was to get this out. "Do you understand any of that?" I asked Dazai. "The slightest grain?"


I finally chanced a look at him and met his eyes. They were the black endless tunnels of nothingness I recalled from the first time we met. He shook his head unnaturally slowly before responding.


"No."


I sighed, my body growing as still as his. I was trying to understand how Dazai's mind worked, at least to the extent that I could empathize with him. I had no idea how to go about it.


"First off," he said, and I was so relieved to hear him speak, my heart leapt. "It's the parents' fault for being incompetent and not preparing their children for potential disasters. It isn't your responsibility at all. How can I understand what you've just told me? You, Odasaku, are the weird one between the two of us." His shoulders relaxed like he was thawing out, becoming more at ease, though his fingers were still twitchy. "Next, you are too quick to trust..." He took a deep breath and let it out. His tone of voice made me think of a teacher disciplining a student, while simultaneously trying to explain why the behavior in need of correcting is wrong in the first place. "Do you know who I am in the Mafia? How dangerous it is to do such a thing under my watch, but more than that, to blindly confess it me with complete faith? If any person other than you did this to me, Odasaku, I wouldn't hesitate to take care of them on the spot. I would pop a bullet in their brain and be done with the problem."


My eyes burned. I couldn't help the reaction, couldn't explain the tears that sprang up. They were angry tears, not sad. I refused to let them fall.


"Do you think I don't know that, Dazai?" I demanded, gritting my teeth. "I am not the errand boy I pass myself off as. That is not who I aim to be when talking to you in here." Dazai raised an eyebrow. "I am confessing this to you because it feels wrong for me not to. If you were anybody other than you, I wouldn't speak a word of it. I'd save the kids in my own time and screw the Port Mafia over at the earliest opportunity like I would with any other authority who tries to indenture me." I breathed hard and fast, working to keep my voice calm and steady while maintaining a grip on the fury rising under the surface of my skin. "I am talking to you now, not as the 'next-in-line-for-executive' ... Screw our positions in the Mafia. In here, we're just a couple of guys having a drink."


Dazai sighed when I finished, his smirk a sad echo of its usual mischief. "What are the terms?" He shook his head, his focus sharp upon me from under his long lashes. I sensed a huge disappointment hanging over him, weighing him down. "I can't promise anything, but I will hear you out."


"Huh?" I asked. "What are you talking about?"


His gaze sharpened as he folded his arms across his chest, snapping at me. "Yes, Odasaku, the terms. Pay attention. This is your negotiation. You are the one who brought business to the table in here, not me. What do you want me to do? Are you asking for funds? Time off? Health Insurance?"


I lifted my hands, palms forward as if in surrender. "Whoa, whoa. No. Nothing."


"Nothing?" He repeated.


I reached forward and touched Dazai's wrist where he gripped his own bicep. It drew his attention and seemed to shock the anger from his eyes when they met mine closer up. They were no longer nothingness. They shone slightly, wide and alert. "I only wanted to tell you the truth about what is happening in my life. I like meeting up for drinks in here. If I'm ever away, you'll know why. I don't expect any special favors and I ask nothing of you. I am taking responsibility of the kids on my own accord and I just wanted you to know. That's all."


Dazai's lips trembled for a split-second, his eyes going unfocused. Then he rapped on the bar for more drinks. "Well then ..." He gave me a queer look while the bartender filled our glasses. "Tell me. Is this another one of your 'thrill of life' sort of things that go straight over my head?"


He was joking. I could hear it in his voice that he'd picked up a lot more from our conversation that he was letting on, but I let him keep the illusion.


"Pretty much. Yeah."


"Very well," Dazai said, lifting his glass. "To no expectations."


I raised my glass to his. "No expectations."


We drank and then sank into a comfortable silence. It was nice to be able to sit quietly without being alone. I could feel him watching me from his peripheral vision the last fifteen minutes or so of our visit. I showed no signs that I was aware of it. I was content. My heart felt like it had expanded just having gotten that secret off my chest. It was a good thing, I decided, not having something so big go unspoken between us.