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Death didn’t always seem to be as rigorous as people made it out to be.
Yosano’s ability toying with the concept of life like a small dog with a beloved, half-torn plushie proved so.
(The dog knew its owner would always stitch it back together.
It didn’t care that the threadwork loosened more with each repair — not when the toy always looked whole again.
The owner noticed, of course. She always did. But she couldn’t bring herself to take away the dog’s one true joy.
Even as the thread ran thinner. Even as it frayed in her hands.)
The things that Atsushi endured at the orphanage, the countless times he woke up breathing when he was certain he passed out hours prior with his last breath escaping him, proved so.
Death didn’t always seem to be rigorous, nor did it seem finite.
Dostoyevsky's existence proved so. As did Akutagawa’s recurrence, the new shine in his eyes livelier than ever before.
And yet, the Director was dead, and it seemed like nothing could ever change that.
Did he want it to?
No. No, he did not, Atsushi decided. It was supposed to be over, supposed to be done. If God was going to bless a soul to return to earth, he wished desperately that He would never consider this one.
That night, he prayed for the first time in months.
It felt like an estranged but familiar affair; placing a candle next to his futon, kneeling down toward it, pressing his palms together and at last, shut eyes closing off the outer world.
Father, let him be gone. Let him be gone… and his image no longer haunt me.
I have been good. Haven’t I been good?
You may ask me to forgive, but I am no god. I am merely human, and I am terrified.
So I beg You, please, let it only be You watching over me. Let my mind be free.
Amen.
As soon as he finished, he fell down to his sheets. Exhaustion settled in, heavy with the guilt that came with such horrid prayer.
If he just closed his eyes, if it just became tomorrow, maybe he could pretend the thoughts never formed in the first place.
— — —
Yet the next day came, and the night still haunted him.
The sun shone well above the horizon, it’s rays casting a settled, warm glow across the entire room.
Oh, how exhausting.
That same damn routine. Opening his eyes, closing them, opening them again, the process repeating itself until his thoughts got so loud he could no longer simply stare into the darkness. That would be his sign to get up, take a piss, wash his face, sip a yoghurt, observe his wall until he started seeing funky shapes.
Then, he would lay back down on the futon, stare straight up at the ceiling, playing with the little cord that turned the ceiling lamp on and off.
He never used to be able to do something as insignificant as waste electricity. Maybe that was why he enjoyed such a boring act. It felt rhythmic, tugging it with just slight variations of force, the cord looped around his index causing small stings with every pull. It felt nice, the sting.
5pm struck, and Atsushi got up once again. This time, he headed to his desk, opening one of the books Kunikida had gifted him to a random page. It took him four rereads of the same paragraph to give up on that activity with an elongated groan.
Whatever. He didn’t want to read anything, anyway.
Reaching for his back pocket, he realised he should have checked his phone hours ago.
There was one new message in his inbox.
Atsushi-san, would you like to grab some ice cream with me later today?
Kyouka had sent the message exactly twenty-six hours ago.
Atsushi wasn’t sure if it were better to respond now, or not at all.
No — he shook his head. Poor Kyouka deserved at least a belated response.
It seems I missed your message, Kyouka-kun. It totally flew over my head, haha. Maybe tomorrow, after work?
His thumb hovered over the ‘send’ button, and he doubted hoped it seemed normal enough as he eventually pressed it.
The phone slid back into his pocket, and he stared into nothingness until he decided upon what he were to do next.
Right, he had a case to work on.
He opened one of his cabinets, the unpleasant sound of rusty metal scratching making a few hairs on his back stand up.
The pile of paper was topped off with settled dust, and he let it fall to his desk with a loud bonk.
The pages were scrambled, still, all reports mixed up after that unfaithful night they all dramatically tipped over the edge of his desk. It’d been over a week since it happened, and Atsushi still hadn’t sorted them out.
Maybe he could do that before getting started on the case. A simple, mindless task that didn’t require much effort.
Yes, that would be good. He would feel useful again.
Besides, the report he was looking for was somewhere in that pile. He had to go through it.
The pile was transported to the floor, giving him more room to work with, and he slowly started reading through the pages.
It felt nice to get something done again, even if it took him probably thrice as long as it usually would.
Roughly a third through the pile, he noticed an oddity; a ripped article from the local newspaper.
He didn’t recognise it at first. It was a few months old, and it definitely looked familiar, though he couldn’t say why.
He then flipped the page, only to be met with his own face staring back at him.
An article on the arrest of the criminal organisation ‘The Park’. It was that group that ambushed the café on the floor below the agency. It was that case that brought the agency their motivation back after the war against the guild and the mafia.
It was also the publication of that case that brought the Director to his demise.
This was the very page he carried the day he died.
Atsushi had forgotten he had kept it. He now wondered why he had ever kept it.
Frozen in place, he simply sat there, on the floor, surrounded by work he now lacked the power to clean up. The article stuck in his grasp, his hands shaking from the pressure. He wasn’t sure if it would rip, or just slip to the floor.
Eyes prickled with tears that were supposed to fall when a father died.
His grip on the article tightened, the paper wrinkling in a way that could never be undone.
And it dawned on him — he still felt as unsure on how to feel as he did the day he found out.
Was it ever going to get better? Was Atsushi ever going to get better?
He feared for the worst.
How could he possibly get better if feeling awful was all he knew.
Was this what the Director wanted? Was it what he deserved? To never get out of this slump, to always feel like he was trapped in that basement, like the nail was never extracted from his foot, the rusted metal now one with his rotten flesh the way his sense of self would always be one with his memory of the Director.
The paper ripped, and he let his head sink to the floor.
His limbs lacked the strength to find the comfort of his futon that night.
— — —
His neck and back ached from the awful position he’d slept in.
Jeans clung awkwardly to his legs — damn it, he’d passed out in his clothes again.
The discomfort reached higher: his stomach gurgled like it might cave in on itself.
He sighed. He’d only had that pathetic yogurt the day before; of course his insides thought he was dying.
Stretching his upper body, a loud crack unknotted his shoulders. Then he shuffled to the corner of the room he called a kitchen.
He chewed on a few two-day-old rice balls. They tasted like nothing.
His phone read 8am, and right under the timestamp, Atsushi saw the small preview from the text Kyouka had sent him.
Oh, you’re coming in? I’m glad to hear that. I’m excited to see you again, it’s been a…
He shut his phone off again. It was time to get to work, anyway.
The walk over felt equally swift as it felt dreading. Lead held his feet down with every step, though he remembered taking none of them. He simply appeared at the entrance of the building, his head light and his body feeling like it would fall over with the slightest push of wind.
He stood in front of the door for a long time. It was frustrating — he couldn’t go in, and he didn’t know why.
So he just stayed there, waiting. For what, he wasn’t sure.
Then, he felt something brush lightly against his head, a shadow falling over his eyes. He reached up, fingertips grazing over the woven pattern of the strawhat.
“Hiya, Atsushi-kun!” a cheery voice spoke. “Haven’t heard from you in a while, glad to see you!”
He nodded, then handed the hat back to the kid. Walking with someone else seemed to make the action easier, because suddenly he was in the building. In their office.
The air felt a little different, and he didn’t remember it having a distinct smell. Nothing bad, or overwhelming, just… noticeable.
His feet found his desk, and he sat down. People greeted him, and he greeted them back once he found his throat.
Being back was hard, and that was frustrating. He wasn’t doing anything — he had done much worse and harder things in life, so why on earth was sitting at a desk, and having small talk with his friends so hard?
“Atsushi-kuuuun,” another voice yelled out. “Mind getting me a Ramone from the vending machine?”
He felt himself getting up, approaching the machine, pressing the buttons with familiar ease, and soon enough he brought back the drink.
“Thank you! Just let me know if you need my super deduction for a case of yours, I owe you one.”
“Yeah,” he breathed, and he swore he’d said more, but that was all that came out, apparently.
Sat at his desk again, he stared at the report in front of him. Something about a recovery mission for a trafficked ability-user, a type of case he usually thoroughly enjoyed. But right now, he wasn’t really grasping any of it.
Some more time passed, and he wasn’t sure what he was doing could be classified as ‘working’, but no one seemed to pay mind to it.
“Atsushi-kun!” Yet another voice called out his name, dragging him out of his clouded head. “Naomi and I are going to bust some gang. Wanna come with? I know you haven’t been out in the field for a while.”
“You two can handle it on your own, Tanizaki,” someone else responded, his voice grounded. “I have a few things I would like to task Atsushi with.”
“Of course, President!” the first voice said, and soon, footsteps faded as the pair exited the building.
Atsushi wondered if there was a reason he hadn’t been sent out into the field in a while. He didn’t get the chance to think about it much (not that he could actually hold a thought that long — since when was that a thing?), because he then was in fact tasked with the utmost important job of all; sweeping the floor.
He couldn’t complain, though, the simplicity was appreciated.
His shift ended when he noticed the coat rack across his desk getting gradually less stacked, until only two remained. He looked to his side, only to be met with piercing blue eyes.
Oh, right. He forced a smile out.
“Hi Kyouka-kun! Are you excited for some ice cream?”
She nodded firmly, then paused with a puzzled look on her face, and quickly wrapped her arms tightly around his torso.
Atsushi completed the embrace — the action still felt unpracticed in ways, but it conveyed comfort.
They grabbed their coats, and he followed her out the building. He noticed he felt more grounded when walking along someone else. It was nice to feel somewhat present.
Outside, the air was cooler than expected, but his trusty coat shielded him from any shivers. Kyouka led the way, and honestly, he was just glad to find out they were walking and not driving to the shop. She might be a terrific driver in dangerous situations, but it was truly terrifying to sit in a car with a fourteen-year-old behind the wheel. So yeah, whenever he could avoid that, he did.
The ice cream shop hadn’t changed since the last time he brought her here. It was right after… everything. His head hurt thinking back on it.
(Akutagawa’s corpse. So many things had happened, yet that would always be the first image to come to mind. He hated himself for it. For letting it happen.)
He ordered whatever she pointed at for her, and picked the first flavour his eyes landed on for himself. It didn’t register. Something beige. Maybe coffee. Maybe not.
They sat on a nearby bench, overlooking the water. It shimmered in the light, but Atsushi couldn’t seem to focus on it. He took a bite. He didn’t usually bite his ice cream. Too cold. Too sweet. He chewed anyway.
They chatted, though Atsushi didn’t register most of it. He responded, sure; he laughed and talked and smiled and listened, but he wasn’t really there for any of it.
It made him feel awful. Kyouka deserved better than that.
Still, he pushed through, trying his hardest to make the hangout as enjoyable as he could for her. Sometime in the future, they would get ice cream again, and he would be a better friend. That was a promise to himself he had to uphold.
— — —
He shoved the door open, and his eyes instantly fell to the ground.
Right.
Atsushi closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, recollecting himself, and approached the paper mess.
It took him an hour to move everything to the corner of the room. In actuality, he probably only spent three minutes on it altogether. Typical.
This way of living drained him. He didn’t know if there even was another way for him.
He let himself fall to the chair at his desk, face caught between his palms as he let out a frustrated groan.
A cleanse. He desperately needed a cleanse.
His hands shifted — sliding down from his cheeks, fingertips meeting in a loose press, palms together for another quiet prayer. He rested the bridge of his nose and his lips against his index fingers, elbows braced on the desk, eyes shut tight.
The position was still. He hoped it could silence his mind, too.
Father, I ask You for Your guidance, for I fear I have lost my anchor in this world.
I miss how it feels to feel, how it feels to remember. I’m losing myself.
(He wondered if part of the reason he was losing himself, was because he had lost his father. He wondered if he would feel less lost with him still here. He hated that he truly didn’t know.)
Can You take my hand and teach me how to feel, again? I don’t know how I forgot, but I did.
(Was it God? Had God taken this away from him to punish him for his sinful life?)
I promise to be good. I want to be good. I want to be good. I want to be good. I want to be good. I —
(He remembered nothing from the rest of this night. Only that he woke up with swollen, crusty eyes.)
— — —
The huge, sealed doors stood before him again. The sight of them brought that familiar unsettling chill to his spine.
The dream always brought him here, because he was always there, and he loved to pester Atsushi.
Though this time, the Director was nowhere to be found, and when Atsushi pushed, the doors gave way easily. No resistance, whatsoever — they opened without sound, without weight.
But instead of that eerie hallway that led to the imprisoned Ueda Akinari, he found himself in something that looked like an old church.
Right in front of the altar, six men stood. Only one of them had a face Atsushi recognised.
Once again, the Director was haunting him. Though in this moment, he paid no mind to his failure of a ‘son’. He simply chatted with his companions.
A disturbance caused the ground to shake, and Atsushi held his breath as he watched small pieces of debris break off of the ceiling.
The men didn’t seem to notice, quietly carrying on with their conversation.
Then, one by one, they vanished.
The Director remained.
Finally, he turned to face Atsushi fully, and the hallway began to shake again. Much, much harder than the first time. Glass that once made up a beautiful rose window shattered. Walls cracked like dried skin. Everything caved in around him — dust, beams, pieces of ceiling — and Atsushi tried to run, but the collapse was too fast. Too consuming.
He fell beneath the weight of it all, debris pressing into his back, his legs, his chest. He could barely breathe.
The Director just stood there.
Watching him.
A disappointed look on his face.
Atsushi could do nothing but face him back.
The man finally opened his mouth, sighing.
“Get up, you useless brat—”
“— Get up,” another voice said, cutting clean through the dream.
Atsushi’s head hurt.
His body jolted, sweat slick across his skin, and he gasped into the muff air of his apartment.
Dazai was standing beside him, hands in his pockets, expression unreadable beneath the usual half-lidded calm.
“You’re not him,” Atsushi snapped, his voice caught between anger, fear and relief, before it dissolved into a breathless whisper. “You’re not him…”
Dazai only laughed, soft and low, like it was all mildly amusing. Atsushi stared up at him, embarrassment washing over, and then muttered, “Sorry.”
“No need,” Dazai replied, now leaning against the wall. “But it’s late afternoon, you know. You planning to sleep through all of it?”
Not waiting for an answer, he tilted his head toward the kitchen. “Do you still have tea?”
Atsushi blinked absently, barely registering the question as he nodded, “Yeah… I think so.”
“Alrighty!” Dazai smiled. “I’ll get it started.”
Atsushi pulled himself up with effort, every muscle stiff, then wandered into the bathroom. The mirror greeted him with a hollow version of his face. His face pale, accentuated with eye bags that resembled his childhood. Sweat was still clinging to his hairline. He felt gross.
And so, a water stream started flowing in the shower. It was too cold at first, but he wasn’t one to wait for it to warm up, and so he got in, anyway. He let it engulf him, not moving an inch as the temperature slowly rose. It felt nice. He scrubbed quickly, reminding himself he had a guest over, and when he returned to the main room, the smell of steeped leaves reached him before he even saw the cups.
Dazai sat cross-legged on the floor, two cups of tea placed neatly in front of him.
One for each of them.
Atsushi sat down across from him, the steam from the tea curling small figures into the air. He dropped two sugar cubes into his cup, watching them slowly dissolve before finally asking, “What’s up? Why are you here?”
Dazai gave him another smile. “To check up on you.”
“You didn’t have to,” Atsushi said quickly. “I’m just taking a few days off, I’m sorry for worrying you.”
“Yesterday was the first time I saw you in about three weeks, kid.” Dazai’s voice remained light, but he spoke more quiet. “And you didn’t really talk to me.”
Had he? Atsushi sucked in a breath. Had he accidentally ignored Dazai?
“I’m sorry, Dazai-san,” he said, guilt heavy. “I didn’t mean to—”
“So let’s fix that,” Dazai cut in.
“What?”
“Let’s talk. Now. About anything.”
Atsushi frowned. “I don’t know what you want to talk about. My life hasn’t been interesting lately.”
Dazai tilted his head slightly. “Do you like it?”
The question caught him off guard. “Huh?”
“Do you like the quiet?”
Ah. Silence lingered as Atsushi decided upon an answer — anything but honesty feeling like an unworthy betrayal.
“...Not really?” he admitted.
Dazai gave a small nod, as if he’d been expecting that answer. Maybe he had.
“So, why haven’t you been coming in to work?”
“It felt like too much.”
“And sleeping till 2pm isn’t?”
“Hey!” Atsushi protested, his face warming.
The other man smirked into his cup as he took a sip. Silence settled between them again, but it was softer than before.
Then, Dazai leaned forward slightly. “Talk to me, Atsushi-kun.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“...Talk to me, Atsushi.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“Try actually talking to m—”
“He’s still dead.”
The words dropped like stone.
Dazai stilled. His cup hovered inches from his mouth. He didn’t move. Didn’t speak.
Atsushi rubbed at his eyes. It burned.
“Everyone I saw die came back,” he said, voice cracking with the effort to keep it steady. “They’re walking around in that office like they hadn’t fucking died. Yet he is still gone. And I don’t want him back, but he— he just— is still gone. But he’s still here.”
He swallowed, and the rest rushed out with too much ease — like an opened floodgate, and everything inside now had to be emptied.
“No matter what I do, he’s still here. And I don’t know if I even actually want him to leave my head, because then he’ll be truly gone and I’ll be alone. But why do I still want him with me? I have you. And the agency. And that should be enough. But he is still my father to me, and I hate him. And I want him dead. And he is dead. And I don’t know if I want him to be.”
He looked up to meet Dazai’s eyes, hoping the man will know what to say because he always knows what to say. Maybe finally, Atsushi will know what to do.
“That’s rough, kid.”
Atsushi huffed out a laugh. “Is that all you’ve got for me?”
Dazai refilled his teacup, more focussed on that than the conversation he’d insisted on having. “You need closure, Atsushi-kun, and the events in Minkowski space robbed you of that.”
He waited for a reply. Atsushi didn’t have one. So he continued, “You need a final goodbye. One set on your terms, when you think it’s time. Have one last chat, and be it your sign to move on with life.”
“But he’s dead? How will I —”
“That’s for you to figure out, kid.”
Atsushi silently finished his tea.
Dazai stayed until the sun dipped under, and even with all those thoughts heaving him down, that night Atsushi had the best sleep he’d had in weeks.
— — —
He woke up early, the soft morning glow so far only reaching a certain angle of the room.
His mind felt clear, for once. It’d been a few weeks since that talk with Dazai, and he woke up with the feeling that he was finally ready.
He truly had gotten better, but he was also still doing absolutely awful.
It still took him incredibly long to get up, take a piss, wash his face, sip a yoghurt, but then suddenly he was stood at his door, well-dressed and feeling refreshed, ready to go outside with purpose. Tapping his pockets, he made sure he got everything he needed, and then he closed the door behind him.
He decided to wander around town first. That wasn’t him procrastinating, the weather was simply too nice not to!
Eventually, his feet found the doormat in front of the flower shop, and after briefly wiping them clean, he entered.
He greeted the florist, then braced himself with a shaky breath.
“Do you keep track of all your past orders? Even the ones that were never finalised?”
The lady was incredibly nice and helpful, and before he knew it, he was holding those doomed flowers, walking a path a son never wished to tread to find his father.
He found the grave all too easily, and suddenly it truly kicked in that he was here. He hadn’t been here since the funeral. He hadn’t truly been here then, either.
“I’m here to talk to you,’ he spoke to the marble headstone. “The actual you, not a figment of my mind that looks like you. I want you to hear the words that I’m saying.”
A soft breeze pushed past him, and he kneeled down to place the bouquet on the grave. He stayed on his knees, eyes levelled with the portrait of his father.
“I have no sympathy for you. And I’m not forgiving you, either.”
The small photo smiled back, the Director’s eyes friendlier than Atsushi had ever seen them.
“Your life was unfair, and it made you stronger, and because of that you saw a little kid you wanted to be strong, too, and the only way you thought you could achieve that, was by making my life unfair, too.”
He huffed out a laugh. “And I guess it worked, because you are dead, and I am not. And I would lie if I said it wasn’t because getting stronger was the only way for me to live. But I will not thank you for making my life a hell, just because you thought it would get better if you did.”
He paused.
“I hate you. And I will always hate you. And I hate myself, too. Your abuse didn’t replace my self-hatred — it just gave me more of it.”
By taking a deep breath, he pushed back the tears he wouldn’t allow to fall, because sons cried at the deaths of their fathers, and he was no son, and that man was no father.
“My life will be good, now, and you don’t deserve to see my happiness. So I’m glad you’re dead, and I’m glad I am not, and I will never forgive you because you won’t weasel your way into a single thought of mine, from this day forward. You are dead, in every sense of the word, and you will no longer haunt me.”
He took out the lighter of his left pocket, and shielded off the flame with his other hand as he brought it closer to the beautiful flowers.
“You don’t get to live in me anymore.”
He stayed until the very last petal turned to ash.
Then he rose, dusted off his knees, and walked away without looking back — the wind sweeping the ashes off the stone, scattering them into the grass as if they had never been there at all.