063

A/N: Started thinking about college often. I think I'll die starving to death or due to stress 😃

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The night had long slipped into its deepest shade, leaving only the bruised glimmer of distant city lights to lap at the rooftop edges like dying embers.

I sat there, legs dangling over the abyss below, the slick concrete biting cold against the backs of my thighs.

Above me, the sky sprawled, black and endless, the stars choked by the city’s relentless smog.

My fingers toyed with the scalpel pendant Mori had given me years ago — a whimsical “gift” he claimed would remind me to stay sharp, literally and metaphorically.

I had found it funny back then.

Now, as I twisted it between my fingers, the metal glinting faintly in the gloom, I wasn’t quite sure what I felt.

A gentle breeze scraped along my jawline, catching a stray strand of hair and brushing it against my lips. I stilled, my hand pausing mid twist.

Below, the faint hum of traffic drifted up, a comforting sort of white noise that made the world feel small, almost intimate.

I leaned forward, letting my weight tilt just enough to tease the drop below — a single twitch of my legs and I would be gone, splattered on the road like an abandoned canvas.

But I didn't move.

Instead, I just watched the lights, that distant spill of human life I had always found so painfully dull.

A laugh rose in my throat, strangled before it could emerge. I swallowed it down like a gulp of hot liquor.

“Hmm…” I exhaled softly, tilting my head.

That scene at that bar — them, together.

Dazai’s lips curved into a true, boyish smile.

Sakunosuke-san with his gentle, immovable presence.

Sakaguchi-san’s composed energy, sitting there calmly.

They felt like a small constellation in a universe I wasn’t invited to.

I pressed the scalpel pendant into my palm, feeling its cold bite against the thin flesh.

Funny. I didn't feel sadness. I didn’t feel anger.

Yet, there was something gnawing at my ribs, a phantom ache that coiled around my spine like a wet rope.

I tilted my head back to the sky, inhaling.

“Ah… I see,” I murmured to myself.

The words sounded distant even to my own ears, as though they belonged to someone else.

I had always thought Dazai and I were the same — the same void gnawing at the edges of our existence, the same hunger to unravel everything we touched, including each other.

But seeing him laugh, genuinely, seeing him be held in that circle, it had…

Something inside me shifted, a silent grinding of bone against bone.

I pressed the pendant harder, enough to prick the skin.

“Was it always just me…?” I wondered aloud, my voice soft, almost childish.

I peered at my hand, turning it in the dim glow. A thin bead of blood welled up from my palm, trembling before it dribbled down my wrist.

Curious.

I traced the line with my thumb, smearing it slowly.

Dazai has friends. Dazai has warmth.

The realization should have meant nothing.

After all, I didn’t crave warmth — did I?

I let out a small laugh, light and airy, echoing against the empty rooftop.

“Ah… You’re so funny, Y/N.”

I talked to myself often. The only one who ever listened properly.

I swung my legs again, lightly, the edge of the building groaning beneath me.

A childlike part of me, the same part that had cowered under the servants’ whips and my father’s curses, wondered if maybe…

Maybe there had always been something wrong.

But what was it?

What was this constriction in my chest?

I pushed a finger to my sternum, as if I could peel away the skin and find the answer there.

Nothing.

Just bone, blood, sinew.

I pressed harder, nails biting into my chest.

“Ah… Still nothing,” I whispered, a small, disappointed sigh leaving my lips.

The sky above yawned, vast and disinterested.

I shifted my gaze to the city below, searching the windows for flickers of human life.

Somewhere down there, maybe Dazai was laughing again, maybe he was tearing Sakaguchi-san apart with words, or letting Sakunosuke-san steady presence wash over him.

My throat bobbed, the movement almost painful.

I felt nothing.

Yet my body trembled faintly, a twitch in my shoulders, a small jerk in my fingers.

I pressed the scalpel pendant to my lips, tasting the faint iron of my own blood.

"Are we the same, Dazai?" I asked the night.

No answer.

Of course not.

I had always adored Dazai because I thought we mirrored each other — two devils reflecting back an endless abyss.

But maybe…

Maybe he had always been searching for light, even if he didn’t know it.

Maybe he was capable of being held.

Maybe he could laugh for real.

I tilted my head back again, my hair brushing against the back of my neck, the cold breeze slipping under my collar.

A sudden, sharp pain bloomed in my chest, and I gasped softly, surprised.

It wasn’t real pain. Not physical.

An echo, maybe. A ghost of something I couldn’t name.

“Ah… How interesting,” I murmured, voice barely above a whisper.

I wished I could dissect it.

Open my chest, spread the ribs like wings, and find the black seed at the center.

What was this feeling?

Envy?

I knew envy. It was sharp, easy, hungry.

But this… this was softer, slower, like drowning in a pool of syrup.

Was it loneliness?

I knew loneliness. It had been my oldest companion since childhood, since the first time the servants had called me “devil spawn,” since father had refused to meet my eyes whenever he had to pass by my villa.

I had learned to wrap loneliness around me like a fine coat.

This wasn’t that.

Or maybe it was, and I simply hadn’t known its true shape.

A laugh bubbled up, sharp and bright, echoing over the rooftop edge.

“Ah… How funny,” I crooned, eyes crinkling. “It seems… I still don’t understand anything at all.”

I pressed the scalpel pendant to my forehead now, the metal cold and slick with blood.

I imagined slicing into my scalp, peeling away the skin, seeing if the answers were tangled in the folds of my brain.

Would they be there?

Or would I find only the same black void that stared back at me in the mirror every morning?

I shifted, drawing my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms around them.

Like a child.

That’s what Sakunosuke-san had seen, hadn’t he?

The lonely child.

I could almost feel his gaze again, those steady eyes that neither judged nor pitied.

I felt that phantom rope around my spine tighten, almost painfully.

Was that what Dazai felt around Sakunosuke-san too?

No… He seemed… lighter with him.

Not free, exactly, but less sharp.

Less alone.

My fingers drummed against my knee, absently.

I had thought we were the same.

That had been the only comfort I had ever allowed myself.

And now…

I swallowed, mouth dry.

Maybe it was only me again, after all.

That should have been fine.

I had always been alone.

I had always been the only one left standing in the smoking ruins of my own making.

I twisted the pendant again, until it cut a deeper groove into my palm.

“Hmm… How boring,” I murmured.

But there was no real amusement in my voice.

Just a curious sort of hush, like the moment before a scalpel meets flesh.

I imagined Dazai’s eyes again, that sly glint, the way they had softened tonight.

I had never seen them like that with me.

No… With me, his eyes had always been sharp, searching, greedy.

Wanting to consume me, to unravel me.

Because I was his mirror, his experiment, his obsession.

Not… a friend.

The word felt foreign on my tongue, like a language I’d only read about in books.

I leaned my forehead against my knees, inhaling the scent of rain soaked concrete and metal.

The world felt far away, like a stage I had wandered onto by mistake.

My mind felt too loud and too empty all at once.

I wanted to claw it open, see what was inside.

Would there be anything at all?

A small, childish voice in my head whispered: ‘Maybe he was never yours to begin with.’

I closed my eyes.

That voice had always been there, soft and insistent, whispering truths I never wanted to hear.

I hummed softly, rocking slightly.

I imagined the sound of his laugh again.

Imagined that scene, the warmth pooling between the three of them.

I just… sat.

A trembling breath rattled from my lungs.

“Ah… Dazai…” I whispered, voice muffled against my knees. “You’re not… the same as me, after all.”

There was no bitterness.

No grief.

Only that persistent, humming curiosity.

I should have felt relief, maybe. Or triumph — for I had always been singular, special.

But instead, there was just that rope around my spine, pulling tighter, tighter.

I flexed my fingers experimentally, feeling the dried blood crack and flake.

What a fragile thing, a human body.

I could open it in an instant.

My own or someone else’s — it hardly mattered.

A small smile curved my lips, thin and sharp.

I had always known I was alone.

It was easier that way.

Predictable. Clean.

But seeing that scene tonight had cracked something.

A hairline fracture in my carefully cultivated emptiness.

Not enough to break me.

But enough to let something in — something I didn’t have a name for.

“Ah… So that’s what it feels like,” I murmured, as if speaking to an invisible audience.

I tipped my head to one side, considering.

The moon overhead shifted behind a passing cloud, throwing the rooftop into deeper shadow.

I imagined the darkness pooling into my bones, filling the hollow spaces.

Would it be enough?

Could it drown whatever this was before it grew?

I giggled then, the sound high and breathy, echoing strangely in the open air.

"Mm… I suppose it doesn't matter," I cooed softly, twisting the pendant once more.

The metal caught the moonlight, a small gleam of silver in the abyss.

“Curiosity,” I whispered. “That’s all it is. Just curiosity.”

If I said it enough times, maybe it would become true.

A child’s logic — repeat the lie until it becomes your world.

I hugged my knees tighter, forehead pressing harder, as if I could push the thoughts out through my skull.

The image of Dazai’s smile floated behind my eyelids, bright and unreachable.

I laughed again, shorter this time.

“Ah… I really am funny,” I muttered.

My voice cracked a little, but I ignored it.

I had learned early on to ignore small cracks.

That was how I had survived.

The rooftop remained silent, the city’s pulse far below, indifferent to my tiny tragedy.

I rocked gently, the motion soothing in a mechanical, mindless way.

Above, the stars began to emerge again, shy and half hearted.

I watched them, eyes half lidded.

Beautiful, distant, dying.

Much like me.

I closed my eyes again, letting the night wrap around me.

The pain in my chest shifted, throbbed once, then settled into a low, steady ache.

I could live with it.

I had always lived with things I didn’t understand.

That was the secret, wasn’t it?

Endure.

Pretend.

Move forward, even when every step felt like sinking into tar.

I shifted slightly, pressing my cheek to my knee.

Somewhere below, a car horn blared, sharp and angry.

I let out a soft hum, as though echoing it.