Do you honestly think you can buy this...?
No, it's honestly baffled you the most that the price is so exorbitant, and it even was rare to find out in general store. So, you look up through the internet to buy it online but the moment you look at the price, you had to squint your eyes twice to see whether you were mistaken about it or not.
That Honey Buddha Chips...
"So expensive!" You cried out in front of your phone and then closed the apps. It was the only thing that you hadn't get your hand on it yet. "Who even buys that stuff just to eat it? Ridiculous." You thought to yourself. In the end, no matter how exclusive it is, the food we eat will just digest so all the same, it's a waste of money.
Plus, unhealthy.
If you were to check all the cholesterol and the amount of sugar in the snack that Ranpo usually takes, you can bet he going to have diabetes soon enough if he didn't take precaution in his diet. With all the complications of various health issues later on, he could've died of atherosclerosis or cerebral hemorrhaged for all you know. But then again, you shouldn't worry too much for him now, don't you? After all, worrying and caring for someone too much might just end up hurting you in the end.
Like everyone else that always leaves you behind.
Ah, this is bad. Just thinking about your past make you feel down. You need to get rid of that negative thought. Right, you shouldn't meddle about this too much.
Almost a week after the last case that you handle, you weren't able to come to Armed Detective Agency as you were busy with filing reports and to arrest those involved in the drug case with an official warrant that your chief approved. It was hard to convince him, but you managed to prove your point and valid evidence. Well, of course, you had to face his nagging about what Kyouka has done before and he even questioned why you bring the convict around with you. In which you had to explain that you didn't have real evidence about her crime to say that she was, indeed, guilty. It's not that you lie or covering for her, you are saying based on the situation.
If it appears that she's indeed in wrong, then it probably the government special abilities department that will apprehend her. However, you are rooting for Kyouka to be given second chance after you spend time together with her. Perhaps you have become somewhat mellow now. But she changed your mind and you have sworn to be better—Ehhh??!
"Oi, that dangerous! Don't just suddenly cross the street!" You shout inside your car and press the brake pedal in an emergency. It's not liked the person outside there could hear, but you did show how visible annoyed you are. If you were too late, you could have hit over them.
That person is staggering on the street with a face that you can describe what looks like a zombie. Their eyes bloodshot and then they were coming to your car's direction. There is also a weird blotch mark apparent on their neck, face or forearms.
"What is happening here?" You crane your neck to see a better view of the street. Why is everyone acting weird as if they are losing their mind? There is a child crying without their mother at their side and fighting between men and women straggling each other. Furrowing your eyebrows, you were about to exit your car to assess the situation, but another random person has slammed right beside your window with a crazed look and they are trying to open your door and shake your car while spouting curse. Luckily it was locked from the start you drive.
"Eiikkk! What the hell?!" You can feel your heart pounding and you revved your engine again. This time, without caring for red light you speed ahead to Armed Detective Agency office. You can worry about any fine later. Along the way, the smoke already billowing and there already someone starting a fire at the street as if you were witnessing a riot. But they don't seem that they have something against the government as everyone just... acting weird and scary that they seem to lose any reason to be rational.
This is more like apocalypse and the rising of brain-dead zombies. You steered and avoid any rubbles or hitting any passerby that shared a similar trait with the one you encounter earlier on the street. This city is really in a chaotic state. When you arrived at the building, you immediately exit your car without looking where you step on. You didn't know you were stepping on a cursed ability that gives you the same blotch mark that appeared on your neck too.
"Ranpo-san!" You opened the door to inform him something bizarre is happening outside but when you enter the office, all eyes that were glued on you were all red with sinister and hatred gaze that you were so familiar with when you grow up.
You can hear it, their voices circling in your mind and giggling at your pitiful self.
And then you were surrounded once again by your own nightmare.
(A/N: Triggering subject of suicide and bully ahead)
*
Splash.
The cold water was dumped on you in the toilet, then you heard the voices from girls outside were cheering and giggling with each of them.
"Ew, do you smell that?"
"What is it, Kanae?"
"That's the smell of someone taking a dump! Not eating alone on the toilet bowl!"
"Ahahahah! My God, that's totally going to be suck. Who even eats in the toilet? Perhaps, that someone's mother should just flush her inside it while she still got a chance!"
They laugh again. Even though you couldn't see their face, but you still can remember their voice. Your bento on the lap has become wet with the water along with your tears that also flowing into it.
"An illegitimate child shouldn't come to our school. Perhaps she should've killed herself instead since her mother failed. Oh, I forgot. Her mother committed suicide because she gives birth to her!"
They gasp but then they laugh again while you are trying to stifle any sounds. It was hurt, it really was hurt to hear that. It's hard to breathe. It pains you a lot in your chest that you once have thought to follow their suggestion. Perhaps dying by killing yourself would be better for everyone after all if you just disappear.
A child unwanted... and abandoned by this world.
When you look up at the ceiling what you see is a hanging rope, the one your mother has used to take her own life. It was inside her room that your grandmother still keeps. Sometimes, she would drag you into that room when you did something wrong and she forced you to look at the rope as a reminder.
"Look at it! Look! This is because of you that Aoko commits suicide! You ungrateful brat! If you say that you didn't want to go to school again, I will lock you inside this room forever!"
You wonder how many times you plead after that and banging the door to be out or how long it was when you have your last meal instead of just plain water. When the last time you see the sunlight instead of staring at the rope that still hanging at the ceiling. As though it was beckoning you, it moves and sways with the breezes that barely was there.
It was your fault.
One step forward.
Perhaps... if you had died instead...
One step forward.
You don't have to be miserable this way...
One step forward.
Maybe, your mother that you barely knew would still be alive...
One step forward.
And everyone would be happy if you are truly gone.
Just another step forward and you will be free from this painful memory.
You extend your hand to wear it around your neck and then—
*
"(Name)! (Name)!" You heard a voice is calling you and shaking your body like they are trying to wake you up. "Get a grip of yourselves!" Then you feel a slap across your cheeks with both sides. It really stings. "If you don't wake up, I will cut your limbs while you were still sleeping one by one."
Ugh, what? Cutting your limbs? Who is speaking right now?
You forced your eyes to open and slowly it revealed a woman with short hair and gold butterfly hairclip and wearing a white coat and glass. She had a serious expression first but then she looks relief when you regained consciousness.
"Hm? So, you are actually awake now huh. Tch." She released your collar from her dainty fingers and somehow clicked her tongue in disappointment.
Blinking few times with your head feeling like it's going to split, you tried to move but your body was strapped on a bed inside the infirmary.
"W-what happen?" You asked, unable to recall what the last thing that happened to you. You swear that you were having a bad dream but why are you here again? And that woman is the doctor in the agency, right? She's the one who saved your life before.
"You don't remember? You were under the influence of Q's ability when you came bursting to our door and start to hallucinate. We already had to deal with Kunikida and then you. Really, you were quite a handful to handle." Yosano sat on her chair and twirl around to face you while crossing her legs. "You can't imagine how happy that idiot Dazai was but then even he was freak out."
"I'm sorry... but I don't get it. What really happen?" You didn't even know who is Q that was mentioned.
Yosano is sighing and rests her chin on her palm then looking at you in a languid manner.
"You went to our rooftop and tried to jump over had Dazai did not stop you for real."
Your blood feels like it drained when you heard it that you couldn't help but gulped. Did you really do that?
"By your face, I can tell that you had no idea you were doing it," Yosano observed. "So, what's your story, (Name)? You must have your reason why you did that. I know it will sound like I'm being busy body here. But those who are under Q's ability will mostly trouble by their past. Kind of what happens with Kunikida and Atsushi. Until Dazai can fully nullify it, you are not going anywhere from that bed. And we got time to talk. But don't try to lie to me, I will let you know that I am fond of hearing screams of my patient." She said with a smile, and by the look of it, you can tell that she's not lying.
So, this is a sort of interrogation from a doctor? Kind of like talking with your therapist but instead of opening up, you will be forced to open up if you didn't cooperate with her? That's...
That's kind of scary!
You don't want to imagine what kind of experience you will go through.
Inhaling your breath deeply, you closed your eyes again and look up at the ceiling with melancholic expression.
"I sometimes wonder... if it had been a mistake after all." You murmured softly. The ability that you were under really make you recall a bad memory that you don't want to remember if you can. But it's not something that you can discard entirely.
"Mistake?"
"My birth." You replied to her right away. "When I grow up, everyone just sorts of telling me that maybe, if I hadn't existed, then my mother would not kill herself in the first place. Even if they didn't tell it directly, I can still see it on their face. What they thought. How they feel. I am... disgusting in their eyes." You clenched your fist under the blanket and shift your head sideway, the opposite from Yosano.
"Even until now, I still can't forgive myself for it. Perhaps they were right, perhaps I was the wrong one. I don't know... becoming a prosecutor maybe just my excuse to justify myself. Or to shift this blame to someone else instead."
And maybe, the reason why you hate liar the most.
It's because you can't be honest with yourself most of all.
"... so, that's how it is." Yosano drawled as she observed you from her seat. "Man, and here I thought you would have a grand reason why you would think of suicide. Mental health is one thing but using that as an excuse is the lamest thing that I won't be able to forgive someone. To take life lightly since I am a doctor." She said and then she jerks your collar again so that you will face her.
"I won't stand for it if you blamed yourself over something that is not even your fault in the first place."
"Yosano-san...?"
"While I don't agree when someone wanting to commit suicide, there's just thing that we can't do to save them no matter how much we want and their life slip between our fingers. Because it's their reason and they have made up their mind. It might be painful to accept, but we are the living ones that still need to carry forward. Even if the sin weight on us. You can't blame yourself and stuck in the past forever..."
Us... why did she talk to you as if... she included herself as well?
Yosano eyes glazing with sympathy as though she can understand your pain as well. During the Great War that she has participated as a nurse as a front liner, she has saved many lives with her healing ability, again and again. However, because of it as well, she has lost someone dear to her that it still scarred in her mind and heart. Neither she can forgive herself, but she has to move and carry herself forward.
So, looking at you blaming yourself like that is like looking at the mirror of her past self. Even with different circumstances, you were struggling with something similar that she can't ignore or look away from.
Because it will be like rejecting her own past.
"It won't be easy, I know. But what choice do you have? Would you rather keep blaming and shut yourself then turn your eyes blind? Grasp that truth with your hand and give them a middle finger instead. Proved them wrong that you can stand on your own. After all, we women aren't all that weak. Don't you agree with me, (Name)?" Yosano stated and you thought at that moment she really looks so cool.
Her words are sort of uplifting your spirit that you hadn't realized you begin to shed tears. There was no one that ever told you such a thing before. You had always felt alone when you were still small. Your vision crystallized and it began to be blurred but her message is clear enough even though it sounds savage.
"Yes, thank you. Yosano-san."
Now you were able to thank her properly. Not just by saving your life once before but now it counts as twice. She really is a nice person.
"Hmm. I'm glad that clear off your mind somehow. However,..." Yosano smiled to you tenderly and then she raised a sharp scalpel. It glints maliciously from the fluorescent light from the ceiling. "I have yet to hear your scream."
Eh...
What?
Her smile then being replaced by a sadist grin and the scalpel is coming closer to you.
"Hieekkkkkkk, wait a minute. Y-yosano-san?! Yosano-san!! No, no, no! Ahhhhhhhhh—"
.
.
.
"Well then, that's settled it." Ranpo who was outside the whole time and listening to the conversation take his leave the moment he heard your screams. "One problem solved~" He sucked on his lollipop and popped it from his mouth. He had arranged it so that Yosano would be the one who will talk you off from this problem instead since he's not into this kind of stuff. And his concern was for nothing that it already settled now.
At least, for now.
It won't be easy to overcome the past.
But if he can avoid it, then he will avoid it as much as he can than to deal with the trouble.
Sometimes, the truth is better to leave unknown.
Since it was not yet the time.