Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Stop wallowing in self-pity and do as you are told. For once."

His last words to Atsushi echoed in his head as Atsushi's pulse faded into thin line, then disappearing completely. Dazai palpated Atsushi's neck, wrist, chest, desperately trying to find a pulse, but he found nothing. Maybe he just couldn't find it even though it was still there. It must've been there. But placing his finger under Atsushi's nose, there wasn't a warm breath signaling that he was alive, breathing. There was nothing. Tiger's skin was slowly cooling, eyes closed. Atsushi was dead, and there was no way Dazai could ever take his last words to him back. 

Akutagawa reached out to his partner's hand, looking shocked and devastated. After all, they had spent countless of hours together training and getting to know each other, in order to cover each others' blind spots. To Dazai, it seemed almost like they were starting to form a friendship, even if a fragile and unstable one. But it was Akutagawa's fault that Atsushi died, he failed him. Worse, he essentially killed the tiger-boy. Akutagawa didn't deserve to touch Atsushi's corps-.. 

Dazai slapped Akutagawa's hand away, leaving a red mark on the boy's pale skin.  

"I never believed in you. I should've killed you the first time I saw you. This is all your doing."

Dazai felt the mafia blood boiling in his bloodstream, forcing him to spew it all on Akutagawa, saying things he shouldn't be saying. Akutagawa didn't even flinch, he just looked at Dazai with empty eyes. But Dazai knew that Akutagawa was absorbing every single word like a soaked sponge. And he still couldn't bring himself to stop. The words bubbled up with rage, mixing and flowing out of his mouth, before he even could even stop to think what he was saying.

It was like back then, he hurting Akutagawa, until he didn't get a response anymore.

 "You deserved everything that happened to you." 

That earned a minuscule flinch from Akutagawa, still sitting in place, looking frozen. Still no proper reaction? At the same time, it drove Dazai up the wall, and subconsciously gave him a sick sense of gratification. Why was he acting like that, Akutagawa usually only knew violence in situations like this. His training had worked.  It wasn't until he saw glimmering in the corner of Akutagawa's eyes, a wave of guilt flashed over him, replacing blind fury with aching regret.

Dazai just watched, as the last remnants of life and vitality left Akutagawa's eyes, unable to bring himself to do anything to stop it. 

 Now he had two essentially dead protégés, one laying on the floor, other mindlessly staring into emptiness, rocking himself as tears streamed down his face. 

                                                                                                                ...

This wasn't his first time.

Dazai knew what he was doing. 

He tied the noose to the hook specifically meant for these kinds of situations, tightened it around his neck and kicked the chair. His room was dark, but glow of citylights dancing in violet and orange coloured the walls, colours getting muffled up as Dazai felt oxygen escape from his head, veins filling with carbon dioxide instead. His arms were tingling and legs wiggling around, trying to resist the head's death wish. It was painful, but it didn't matter to him. He had caused so much pain, he didn't deserve a painless death anymore. As long as it was over and done with. He didn't deserve to live after all he'd done to people around him and all the atrocities his hand had committed. In this way he would take the responsibility, the control. He was sure that Akutagawa would be delighted to find out he was dead. Atsushi would too if he was alive. If Atsushi only was alive.

All he did was cause pain and suffering to others even if he didn't mean to, and especially when he did. It was like a curse, except he was in control of it all. 

Dazai didn't like pain, not really. Or at least that was what he told everyone. He was friends with pain, it was punishing him because of his despicable actions, because he deserved it. He deserved all the pain he could inflict on himself, and it was rather unfair that it was not someone else inflicting it on him. Akutagawa should've slowly sliced his guts open, that's what he deserved.

Dark spots were dancing in his vision, as his train of thought become increasingly incoherent. 

Just as Dazai was slipping into unconsciousness, a familiar beam of red cut the noose, Dazai's body dropping on the floor, limp. 

                                                                                                   ...

"-azai, wake up. Dazai!"

Dazai felt a sharp slap on his face. How was this even possible? He was alive. If his throat didn't feel like he had just ingested lava, he would've laughed at the absurdity of the situation. Oh, how many times he would involuntarily escape the sickeningly sweet embrace of death before it'd be granted to him?

The pain and guilt came in waves, as memories flooded into his head again. Maybe if he pretended to be dead, it would become true. Maybe the one waking him up would just leave him and he could try again? 

"Dazai! Wake up!" The voice was familiar, saturated with fear and fury. Akutagawa. He couldn't leave Akutagawa with the impression that he was dead. The boy was unsteady enough already, and him finding Dazai's dead body wouldn't help a bit. Maybe he could travel away from the city and try again, outside Akutagawa's reach. 

Dazai opened his eyes slowly, blinking at the beams of light softly making their way to the room. Akutagawa let out a relieved sigh, before slumping on the floor. 

Dazai knew he had hurt Akutagawa. He had made the boy irreparably broken, beaten his soul to sore. It was enough to make that orphan boy a murderous machine, void of remorse or mercy.

Dazai was underage at the time, he had spent his formative years in the mafia, led to believe that kindness was weakness and abuse was the only way to train a successful executive. He couldn't bring himself to do the same things Mori did to him, but he was still ruthless and violent, putting out every little glimmer of light that once shone in Akutagawa's eyes. His age was not an excuse, his upbringing was not an excuse. It was wrong, even if it was all he knew, literally. Maybe Dazai just tried to convince himself that he wasn't stained from birth, but a product of the circumstances. Still a human, even though he didn't always, most of the time, feel like that. After all, he had barely turned eighteen when he was told that nothing in this world would fill his emptiness.

After Dazai joined the Agency, he couldn't bring himself to apologise to Akutagawa. Apologising was difficult, as it included the part of accepting one's failures and taking the responsibility behind them. No, Dazai knew how to carry responsibility, the scars marking his body were proof of it. But he didn't really know how to carry responsibility by apologising, at least when it came to serious matters. It was easier to endure the pain and punishment than to apologise. It was familiar to him.

It felt easier to just ignore all the shame and guilt, ignore his past, ignore Akutagawa. By taking Atsushi as his apprentice, he hoped subconsciously that it would clear his records, cancel out everything he had done. But it didn't atone his actions, obviously. Dazai had been so busy playing a changed man, that he hadn't thought about the raven-haired boy, who was still only a boy, waiting for someone to approve him, to say that he was making someone proud, no matter how lowly that sayer was.

Akutagawa was waiting him to say he was proud, even though Dazai had failed him, abused him, to the point that the boy was only a pale shadow, white-tipped black hair hiding his eyes, teardrops dripping from his chin. 

But after all these years, what was there left to say? There was nothing Dazai could do to make things right (besides depriving the world of his miserable existence). Maybe he should say that he was proud? It was too late. But at least he could say it, try to actually be a good person for once instead of pretending to be one.

"Akutagawa. I am proud of you." 

Akutagawa slowly raised his head, looking at Dazai wide-eyed, shock plastered across his face.

"And I was harsh earlier. I apologise." 

Apologising felt weird, difficult. It was a weird feeling, having to admit your own wrongdoings out loud, mean it, and carry the responsibility in a way that didn't hurt anyone, not even himself. But if he wanted to be better, this was the first step.

Akutagawa was like a loyal dog, always waiting for him to show even a slightest hint of approval. And he absolutely loathed that, because it was his own doing. He had made Akutagawa like that, molded and manipulated and then left him like a stray cat into a trashcan.

In some, sick and twisted, way it inflated his self-esteem. To see someone so dependent on him, on anything that came out of his mouth. With half a word he could either destroy or comfort. But that was the problem.

He didn't want it to be like that, not anymore.

He wanted Akutagawa to forget him, to continue his life and find meaning, and let Dazai be. It wasn't possible, though, not before he apologised.

It was the least he could do. 

"And.." Dazai swallowed dryly. "You didn't deserve it, and I apologise. 

..

..

..

I apologise for everything I did."

Akutagawa's eyes widened even more if possible, tears spilling out of his eyes again. Dazai pulled the boy into a firm hug, and Akutagawa lost the last remnants of his composure, sobbing and screaming, letting the broken and hurt boy inside him spill all the years of bottled emotion out. 

This didn't correct or erase his actions, no. It was too late for that. But maybe it slightly eased the nagging sense of inferiority and feelings of dread and fear that hid deep inside Akutagawa. And even that was worth it in the eyes of Dazai. 

In the back of his mind he hoped someone could hold him like he did Akutagawa, to let him spill all his hurt and fear out. But nobody ever did.

Nobody ever made things right to the frightened boy inside him.