"So rainy..." Dazai mumbled. The weather had been off the past couple of days, and though rainfall was low in November, it sure felt like they were still in their pluvial season.
"Dazai-san hurry up, we're gonna be late,'' Atsushi called out. He could still feel the rain dripping down on him. The umbrella he held onto was no use. The cold weather and the rain didn't go well together.
"I'm coming~ besides, why the rush?"
It just made it colder and they both didn't like it.
"Noirs performing tonight, I don't wanna miss it!" Dazai halted for a bit.
"Noir?" he questioned. "Like the color black or the classic movies?"
"No! They're the band we're seeing! Have you not heard of them?"
"Hmm, no I haven't"
"Well, they're a four-member group from Tokyo. two of them are foreigners and they're pretty well known. I thought you'd heard of them."
"I see..."
Rain is nice to visually perceive, but it comes with its disadvantages. The matter of something falling or moving doesn't transmute the fact that rain pours down on others. Others who aren't like rest. Others who are visually impaired by life, money, greed, ambition.
"Dazai-san we're here," Atsushi had announced.
"Come on, let's go find our seats before it gets too crowded," Atsushi says as soon as they get in.
With such an immense crowd, finding the seats was such a nightmare. Dazai now understood why Atsushi was in such a hurry.
The theater was roughly plenary, and was crowded with rambunctious teenagers and adolescent adults. He was thankful that Atsushi wasn't rambunctious like rest. He was thankful that Atsushi had scored such good seats.
"Say, what did you say this band was called Atsushi-kun~," He asked the younger boy while getting comfortable on his seat
"Oh, they're called noir-" A voice cut him off.
"Hello yokohama~," A woman's voice called out.
"Are you ready?" Heavy cheers began to erupt from the crowd, a chuckle leaving the person's mouth.
"Let's get started then shall we," they said before the lights began to shut off. The stage light then turned to face the band.
There were four of them. One faced a woman who was front center. Her hair was akin to Yosano's, and it would've been virtually exact if the woman who stood in front of him hadn't had layers and longer hair . She wore an ebony turtleneck that had been styled with some brown dress pants and a sandy trench coat—similar to his, that hung on her shoulders.
The drums of another band member commenced to play in the background. The woman from afore commenced moving her tenuous fingers against the stings of the bass. The exhibition was commencing.
"Nine in the morning, the man drops his kids off at school"
Her voice sounded familiar, and her face. Her face was so intimate, and though it was chilling at first, she was impeccable.
" Sends his assistant for coffee in the afternoon, Around 1:32"
She held herself very straight and though with her nails that had looked recently done, she played the bass impeccably.
"She"
Her voice wasn't pitchy nor was she out of tune.
"She's the first one that i see and i don't know why"
She was crowning, untainted.
"I don't know who she is"
And though her eyes said otherwise, as he looked at them, a feeling of uneasiness washed over him.
"He takes a boat out imagines just sailing away,"
Those eyes of hers reminded him of himself.
"And not telling his mates,"
But not just of himself.
"he wouldn't know what to say,"
But of Yosano Akiko herself.
SHE
CHAPTER ONE: OUT OF TOUCH
"Dazai-san, the show's over, let's go!" Atsushi rattled him marginally before smacking the back of his head.
"OW! Atsushi-kun, how could you!" Dazai hadn't realized that he had missed the rest of the show when he regained his phrenic conception
"Sorry! You looked a bit lost!" Atsushi said before apologizing and beginning to walk to the exit.
"Hey Atsushi-kun, wait up! We're supposed to share an umbrella!" He yelled before catching up to him. "Hey, Atsushi, I have a question" Dazai asked, making Atsushi raise a brow.
"Who was that?"
"Who?"
"Her." Dazai pointed towards the bassist before turning back.
"Oh, that's Tsuki! She's the lead vocalist and bassist of Noir. Not much is known about her actually..." He babbled on. Dazai wasn't sure what he said after that because he stopped listening after a while.
"Ah...I'm feeling a bit hungry now. Say Atsushi-Kun, how about we go out and get some lunch!"
"Uh..I'm not sure-" Atsushi said feeling a bit uneasy
"Oh come on! I'll pay this time! For real!"
"You said that last time though!"
"I brought my wallet this time I swear!"
"Fine, fine we can go,"
Dazai in fact, did not pay for lunch that afternoon.
Rain tapping the pavements, cars passing by.
The two sat in silence. It wasn't excruciating, nor was it pleasant.
There Dazai was agonizing among himself. His bandages were soaked and his hair stuck to his temple. His back faced the girl that he hadn't noticed until he tried to get up.
She looked remotely dainty and her apparel flowed along with the wind. She had looked sooty and her hair covered her face. Her arms and legs were crossed and she was humming that damn musical composition from Saint-Saëns.
The Swan.
"Beethoven or Tchaikovsky ?" The woman asked.
"Debussy."
"Piccioni?"
"Toshifumi."
She frowned. "Depressing."
Dazai stayed silent. He had barely even met the girl and she was already remarkable. As a matter of fact, she was phenomenal, conspicuous.
"Why are you here?" he souted.
"What do you mean?" she looked at him, confusion on her face.
"Well, why are we here?"
"I'm always here," she said. "The real question is why are YOU here?"
"I-" He paused. That's right. Why was he here? Come to think of it, the last thing he remembered was bickering with Chuuya on base and then heading out with Odasaku.
"I...don't know."
"Then that's why you're here" she hummed.
Engulfed in silence, Dazai was dazed. In a way he was bitter at himself for not comprehending anything from before.
"You hate it don't you?"
"Hate what?" he coaxed.
"Living."
He couldn't bring himself to reply to her. Why he hesitated is something only he would know. If he knew what the situation was, this would've been over by now. But his head was filled with absolute nothingness.
"Living is hard," Dazai hummed in agreement.
"An endless game" he said before staring up at the sky.
"Like enduring the loss of what you didn't choose," She said, a small smile on her face.
"Sob story?"
"Hell no," She chuckled. "If you look around, everything looks the same. The roads, the towers, the cars, the people walking along the streets. Nothing seems to change,'' She faced the passing cars.
"It's raining again. So fascinating, yet so vile. And though it looks so alluring, it has its deficiencies. They look the other way, ignoring the ones who aren't like them. Incapacitated by class, greed."
There was always something off about her.
Her foot tapping the ground is all they could hear after that. Dazai, stuck in his own world while the woman next to him seemed to be focused on something else.
"Tell me, what's your name?" She asked, getting him out of his thoughts.
"Dazai," He paused. "Dazai Osamu."
Something that he couldn't make out.
"Is that so?" She shifted a bit. "Dazai, tell me, what do you hate about living?" She asked, now fully facing him
"That shouldn't be a question. There really isn't any meaning in being in a world like this." Dazai turned to her. "It's useless, don't you think?"
She stayed quiet.
"...You have a point..." Her foot still tapping the ground.
"I always wondered when the day would come where I would leave this vicious world, where the rich are only heard. Fleeing the dreadful society we dwell in." She says, playing with the bands on her fingers.
"But, it's also a day I dread..."
He recalled it being his first encounter with her, back when he was with the mafia. Her visits weren't as frequent as he initially thought, though he still deflected from the work he didn't already do.
It was when Oda had passed that her encounters stopped.
"You know regret is the most painful thing you can experience in life. There are always some regrets in life."
"Like what?"
"Choosing how you wanna live,"
"..."
"It's often said that if you commit a sin, it is natural to be punished." she said. "But living in the dark shouldn't be a punishment."
It never seemed to stop raining. It was like they were stuck in a loop and he didn't mind that. He was put to ease knowing that she was right next to him.
"Will I still get to see you?" he asked
"We'll have to see then, but for now I have to go." She said, picking up the umbrella that laid on her lap. The one that he failed to notice.
"Full moon tonight huh?"
Why Dazai let his foolishness get the best of him made his face twist in disdain. And though those words weren't meant for him specifically, there was still a pit in his stomach as she walked away from him.
It was raining the day she had left him.
He had found it funny that despite the amount of time they had seen each other, he had not known a single thing about her. Her name, affiliation, her favorite color, if she had any hope of humanity.
Chuuyas car had been blown up the night Dazai had left the mafia. Nothing could have made him happier than seeing that stupid hatracks car go up to flames. Tragic I must say.
July
August,
September
When the leaves started falling, he thought of the times the girl he had sat next to watched the rainfall.
October
November
December
When the snow had started to pile up, he thought of how it was always cold when she was around but she never seemed to shiver one bit.
She had disappeared.
She never came back.
Why he was trying to chase a silly dream and make it a reality was foolish. He subconsciously wished for it. A person who adored him. Someone he could be devoted to. Why he thought about it so much hurt in a way ever so before. Inoculated in his head.
"When I fall asleep at high speeds in the late of the night,"
And though it was years ago,
"Only halogen lights shine in a charming way,"
he was still astonished by her pulchritude.
"Even if a voice whispers to you"
There Dazai was seated in one of the finest lounges he had ever been before, watching the group perform. Nitwitted Dazai Osamu could have snuck in with one of his ludicrous ways if he hadn't seen his ticket to enter.
The ginger Dazai called his oh so friend had walked right past him when trying to seduce a group of girls to hand over their seats to him in exchange for a night to remember. Fucking womanizer.
"That I'm a woman cold as ice"
"For a guy like you, I hadn't imagined you were that type...I expected more from you!"
"Shut it you wimp," he snarked before continuing.
"Don't worry!"
"I just happen to know the lead singer."
"Im just playing games I know that's plastic love"
"Dance to the plastic beat another morning comes"
"Really?! For how long!"
"A while."
"Im just playing games I know that's plastic love"
"Dance to the plastic beat another morning comes"
"Oh my! You mind if I get her number? She is a very fine lady,"
"You damn womanizer,"