Grief

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/20015947.

Rating: Mature
Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Category: F/M
Fandom: 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs
Series: Part 2 of From Light To Darkness
Stats: Published: 2019-07-28 Chapters: 1/? Words: 6088

Grief
by MyTerribleIdentityCrisis

Summary

Draft

It's been a month since that morning.

By Fukuzawa's order, notice of Junko's condition has been withheld from her family. As far as Mr.
and Mrs. Furuta were concerned, their daughter might as well still be held captive, or maybe not,
they didn't know. Ranpo believed Junko wouldn't want them to know, and advised not to tell
anyone. Fukuzawa seconded that. After all, the girl was abandoned by anyone who knew her. How
would those people ever be able to face her again?
How could she face them?

So for the past month, Junko was held in a mental hospital in the hopes that some professional
medical attention would help ease her back into her life. Her existence was still kept secret so
communication with the outside world was strictly limited, but Kirokugakari has been getting daily
updates about her progress - or lack thereof any.

The first week was easy, the doctors say, she wouldn't talk, wouldn't step out of her room, wouldn't
look anyone in the eyes, after the second day eating her food didn't even cause her to vomit
anymore, she was hardly noticeable.
The second week has been a little more extreme, bursts of rage and episodes of hysteria became the
norm for her, she locked herself in closets or bathroom stalls, yelled at the staff, scream in her
sleep. She started taking psychiatric drugs as soon as she got there, and after a week of taking them
the negative side effects were ready to show themselves, and no positive effects were in sight.
On the third week, she attempted to escape the facility and they had no choice but to start her on
stronger medication, mostly sedatives, with fantastic results - at least for the doctors, that is, she
finally stopped struggling and they could continue telling high tales of the different approaches
they were attempting other than the medical ones, and how she's responding to some of the things
more than all the other things.
On the fourth week, though, no updates came in.
Kirokugakari decided at that point that the hospital was not a good place for Junko to recover, and
requested to pull her out of there. Fukuzawa objected at first, worried they didn't have the means to
provide her with anything better than what the hospital could, but after Kirokugakari made some
very strong arguments, he was convinced.

And now, the big day has finally arrived. After over two months away from the office, today she's
finally coming back.

And Osamu was ECSTATIC.

What would she be like?

What would she say?
Would she remember him?
Despite only meeting her at a glance, Osamu couldn't shake the feeling that that girl was worth his
attention. Her very existence was fascinating to him. Osamu being Osamu, of course, couldn't deny
she was just objectively beautiful in the pictures on Ranpo's desk, and he loved all beautiful
women, but that beauty was insignificant in this particular case, that wasn't what drew him in.

Most of all, it was the hype.

From the moment he entered that office, her presence loomed above him and eluded his grasp, like
an incomplete piece of literature or a question designed to not have a definitive answer. Maybe
that's exactly what she was. But her whole deal was just so alluring to him. There were so many
things that Osamu couldn't understand, about his new life, about this world of light, and maybe it
was the anticipation, maybe it was just the fact that he's heard about her so much, or maybe he just
projected onto her all the things he had nobody else to project onto because he had no evidence that
would refute his baseless assumptions, but Osamu truly expected her to be the answer.

He wasn't going to get his answer right away though, as he would soon learn, figuring out the
mechanisms of this world of light requires more effort than that, solutions don't come easy, and a
clear answer to all his questions isn't going to just enter through the front door like magic –

But SHE was about to.

Kirokugakari opened the office door and stood still for a brief moment, with a look on her face that
spelled out exactly what she was feeling:
she was absolutely horrified.

She just came back from picking up Junko from the hospital, which required her to leave the
comfort of the office and go outside, so it was expected that she would be a nervous wreck - she
never could handle going outside well.
But this was different.
She wasn't just agitated or on edge.
This was not discomfort.
The source of her distress was not the world outside of the office, but the girl standing behind her.

"We're here." Kirokugakari said, verbally announcing her arrival, more to herself than to the people
at the office. She took a step to the side, before freezing when she heard Junko say, "good morning
everybody!"

Two seconds separated the moment Junko finished her greeting and the moment she took her first
step into the office. Those were the longest and most nerve-wrecking seconds in the history of the
agency.
Doppo was standing by Akiko's desk, holding a cup of coffee in each hand. One was Akiko's, the
second was his. They were just about to have their morning coffee when Akiko got the text from
Kirokugakari, warning her that she was coming. Akiko was clutching her phone. She didn't look at
the text two minutes ago when it arrived, and just now, as those events unfolded, she opened the
message and read it. She regretted not reading it earlier and properly preparing her friends
accordingly.
As for Osamu, he was not preoccupied with anything - he was fully and entirely committed to
staring at the door and waiting for this, and his eyes were fully available to examine those
moments as they happened. Out of the three, he was the most excited. Out of the three, he was the
only one not consumed by fear of what's to come. Out of the three, he was the only one with the
ability to respond.

"And a very good morning to you as well, young lady," he chirped with a warm smile.
Without delay, Junko turned to face Osamu, smiled politely in return and bowed deeply.
"Good morning, sir. I am Junko Furuta. I just heard you joined the agency as a detective a while
ago. It is a pleasure to meet you."

"Pleasure to see you again as well, if you recall, we have met before, Dazai Osamu, remember?"
Osamu said after an almost - almost - nonexistent pause. He wasn't expecting any specific response
in particular, but he was definitely not ready for what she decided to go for:

"Have we? How rude of me, I truly am sorry, but I don't recall ever meeting you before, which is
strange, my memory doesn't fail me often."

Kirokugakari flinched.

What an interesting development.

"Oh dear..." Junko took a look around, "this place is a mess. Did nobody clean around here in my
absence? Were things really that busy? I'm so sorry I missed so much."
And without even acknowledging the two other detectives, who just stared at her, stunned, she
grabbed the broom that was resting in the corner of the room and started sweeping the dusty floor.

"Furuta-san... welcome back." Akiko finally managed to say after swallowing a lump in her throat,
her voice threatening to crack, "are you... alright?"

"'Course I am." Junko answered quickly, too quick for her answer to actually mean anything. "I
can't say the same about your desk though, Yosano-sensei. It's gotten rather cluttered. Should I
straighten it up for you?"

"Furuta, stop this. Let's talk." Doppo interrupted, and Junko's smile seemed to just evaporate in an
instant.
"Talk about what, Kunikida-san?" she lowered her voice a little.
"Everything. You just came back. We want to know how you're feeling."
"Nothing special, really, why?"

It hit Doppo like a whip, his mouth went dry, his eyes darted around from side to side, his fingers
went a little numb.
What the hell was Junko doing?

"What's going on, guys? You're all acting weird." Junko held the broom tight and tried to force the
smile back to her face with underwhelming results. Osamu could swear her eye twitched, but he
said nothing. This was such an odd situation he was completely captivated by it, and couldn't move
a muscle, he feared any movement on his side would break this magic spell Junko casted on his
colleagues.

He thought she might be a little out of it, the circumstances definitely permitted her to be, but he
never expected it to be THIS GOOD.

"You're acting weird!" Kirokugakari blurted but then immediately covered her mouth with her
hands in embarrassment.
Junko turned to look at Kirokugakari.
"I'm - uh... Sorry for causing you trouble..." she looked so helpless and confused, but something
was still just so OFF.
"D-don't apologise to ME.... I should apologise to YOU! We should all be apologising – "

"God, stop." Akiko interrupted Kirokugakari a second before the girl would have started crying.
She walked over to Junko and put her hand on her shoulder. For a second there, Junko looked
mortified by the contact, but Akiko didn't give her a chance to escape her touch.
"Furuta, don't worry about the office. Go see the president, he'll want to talk to you. We can clean
up here later together. Ok?" The normally eccentric doctor sounded uncharacteristically calm, but
the hand that wasn't on Junko's shoulder was clenched into a fist.

"O-oh, ok, I'll do that." Junko bowed her head slightly after Akiko removed herself from her, she
rested the broom back in the corner of the room, knocked on Fukuzawa's office door, and went
inside once she was given permission, leaving the three detectives all staring at the door, and the
record keeper in tears.

"Wow."
Osamu was the first to speak. "That was incredible. What was that?"
"Dazai, please!" Doppo chided, "don't turn this into a joke!" he instinctively ran over to put his
hand on Kirokugakari's shoulder when he noticed the tears in her eyes started flowing.
"God, are you ok?" Akiko bent down to Kirokugakari's eye level.

"She's... she's acting crazy..."

Osamu had seen Kirokugakari crying before a few times. He was responsible for most of them,
there were plenty of things that made her cry these past two or so months he's been around. Going
outside, wearing pants, fighting with Ranpo, all those things left her in tears. But Osamu haven't
seen her this heartbroken before. On a later opportunity he would go back and reflect on why that
sight brought him such misplaced joy, but for now, he just wanted to see where this was going.

"She's not acting crazy, God. It's called denial. It's a natural coping mechanism. Like Ranpo is
doing about his ability. It's not scary..." Akiko tried to calm the girl down.
"It's terrifying! It's awful! Why is she doing that?! Why isn't she mad at me?! Why doesn't she hate
us?! Why is she acting like nothing happened?!"
"She's been like this on the way here, too?" Doppo asked.
"She apologised to me! She said she was sorry I had to leave the office because of her! She was
worried about me when I'm the one who..."
"God, calm down. That's just how she chose to handle things. She's been through a lot. Let's just let
her take it easy until she's ready, ok?" Akiko pulled Kirokugakari in for a hug and stroked her hair.

"Or, you know, you can just let the drugs wear off and see what she'll do." Osamu mused as he
looked up at the ceiling.

"How do you know about the drugs?" Kirokugakari stopped crying for a moment just to give
Osamu a surprised look.
"Her eyes are red and her fingers are twitching, plus there's the fact that she did just spend a month
in a mental hospital, doesn't take much to put two and two together," he replied, "what's she taking,
then?"
Kirokugakari sniffed and took a deep breath.
"9 different things. I don't know what. The doctor gave me a list of instructions, I didn't get the
chance to look at it yet, and I couldn't understand what he was saying. He did say I have to slip
everything into her food because she refuses taking them – "
"Don't do it, then." Osamu said.
"Dazai!" Akiko scolded him, "you're not her doctor, it's not for you to decide!"
"She doesn't want to take them, God clearly doesn't want to give them to her, I don't see the
problem." Osamu sounded pretty sure of himself - because he was.
"I'll look at the list. Whatever she's taking, we're giving it to her." Akiko held Kirokugakari tight,
giving her hair one final stroke before letting go. "don't worry God, it'll be fine. She'll be fine. We
can handle this."
"No, Dazai is right. This is why I pulled her out of there in the first place. I don't want to just stuff
her full of drugs to make it easier for us."
Kirokugakari never agreed with Osamu once.
It kind of surprised him that this was the first thing they would see eye to eye about.

"God, listen to me," Doppo couldn't keep quiet anymore, "drugs aside, there are lots of things we
have to figure out, but we can't lose our heads. Let's just see how she handles for now, and after the
day is over, we can all sit down and discuss this properly."

•••

"Good morning, president."

"Furuta, come sit down."

Fukuzawa's office was a different realm than the rest of the office - not because of the furniture or
decorations, but because it was his office. It was his domain. The space around him reflected his
presence, the walls surrounding him soaked up his energy, nothing could touch him in that office,
nothing but this.

She slowly walked over to the empty chair that was left across from his desk, and took a look
around before sitting down.

For a few seconds, both of them were quiet - one of them had so much to say he had no idea where
to start, as for the other, she may have had things to say, but she didn't want to say any of them.

Neither of them prepared for this conversation well enough to endure the crushing weight of the
silence that was hanging in the air, but they were even less prepared for actually vocalising what
was going through their heads.
Apologies, begs for forgiveness, questions about everything that happened, tears, neither of them
could have handled those.

"Yosano-sensei will take you to buy some clothes later today so that you don't have to keep
wearing her old rags, the only thing you had in your dorm room was your school uniform, but you
won't be needing those anymore, we didn't tell anyone that you're back, and we don't intend to." he
tried to gloss over as many details as he could cram into that one short run-on sentence, the less he
directly dumps on her at once, the better, he thought, anything that was not absolutely necessary
for her to know was left unsaid, because he didn't have the words for it, and she didn't have the
ears for it.

She took a similar approach and responded with only a nod, because even saying 'I understand'
would have been too much for them both.

"Kirokugakari turned the study in her apartment into a bedroom for you, you'll be staying with her
for the time being."

He gave her a chance to react, and the only reaction she could give him was a worried look, which
was enough - he knew exactly what she wanted to ask:
'For how long? Won't I be imposing on her and senpai? Do I still get to keep my dorm room? Why
can't I stay there instead? Can't we just pretend this whole thing never happened and go back to
normal?'

And in response, he gave her a somber, serious look, which didn't need any explanation because
she knew exactly what it meant:
'I don't know. Probably, but she doesn't care. Your room will wait for you. Because we don't want
you to be alone right now. And no, no we can't.'

They knew each other for almost a decade, and were familiar enough with each other to allow that
exchange to remain entirely in their heads and never come out into the real world.
But the events that transpired changed something. Broke something. Allowed something to slip
through the cracks.

"President, is my promotion no longer on the table?"

She changed.

"You're off duty until further notice."

He changed too.

"Am I suspended?"
"Yes."

The results varied, but the change itself was similar.

"For how long?"

"Until further notice."
"Can I still come to the office?"
"Depending on your schedule. Kirokugakari contacted a few trusted sources and arranged some
appointments for you."
"...Appointments?"
"Yes."

Fear. Fear was the change.

•••

"What... the hell... is that..?"

Akiko and Kirokugakari both stared at the door, dumbfounded, unable to understand the sounds
that reached their ears, they've never heard those sounds before.
Doppo and Osamu did hear those sounds before, but they were just as confused as the girls,
because they recognised Junko's screams of agony, but why would she be screaming in agony right
now?

"Is that... Furuta?" Akiko pressed her ear to the closed door in an attempt to figure out what was
going on in there, "is she screaming? Is that what it sounds like when she's screaming?"
"You've never heard her scream before?" Osamu tried coming closer to the door, but as Akiko
pulled away from it she also pushed him away from it with her.
"No, never." she shook her head, her eyes still fixed to the door as the voice quieted down and
became soft mumbles for five seconds, only to become twice as loud and thrice as painful right
after.
"Why would she be screaming at Yuki? What's going on in there?" Kirokugakari also gave a go to
nearing the door, and she too was pushed away by Akiko, and Doppo was about to try his luck as
well - but then the voice suddenly went silent, and all four of them stopped moving and breathing
and thinking, dreading what that sudden silence could have meant.

The silence lasted a little under a minute before it was replaced by approaching footsteps and the
turning of the handle, and then the silence returned for a little bit more when Fukuzawa opened the
door and took only a single step outside.

And they all straightened their spines like arrows and directed their eyes and ears at their president,
awaiting instructions, explanations, or literally just anything, anything other than this silence.

"Conference room." he commanded his four employees, but only three of them nodded in
compliance.

"I don't think you need me for this," Osamu said, "I am an outsider, I have nothing to contribute."
Doppo opened his mouth and Osamu fully prepared himself for the angry growling he assumed
was coming his way, but Doppo didn't scold him.
He just said "he's right," and the other three non-outsiders just agreed with him, and they all went
to the conference room.

Without him.
Because he was an outsider.

And without her.

Because now, in a way, she was also an outsider.

Fukuzawa left his door open, and at first Osamu contemplated walking in there and observe her
condition first hand, but right now she was still silent, and he worried that if he approached her too
soon she would never make another sound again - it was a stupid thing to worry about, but it was
enough to prevent him from walking in on whatever it was that she might have been doing there.
He tried to spin this into something that made sense - right, it's a little bit like trying to capture a
frightened deer in the woods, if he just charged straight at her she would just run away, so instead
he should set a trap and lure her into it.

Then he can capture her.

Choosing the perfect bait that would make her come to him was impossible, since he knew very
little about her, but he figured that the first thing that would deter a deer away from any trap would
be knowing that they are being lured into one, so he started by imitating a safe environment for
her. Once she comes out of the president's office, he'll figure out a way to force her into a
conversation.

"Welp," he shrugged and brought his hands behind his head with a lighthearted tone, almost as if
he was talking to himself, "guess I'll just... go back to my seat and finish my morning coffee."
He was sure she could hear him, even if she didn't respond.
He was also sure she heard everyone leave for the conference room.
And he was also sure she could hear his footsteps as he walked back to his desk.
But just to be extra sure, after sitting down, he put his feet up on the desk with a thud that was just
a bit louder than it would have been naturally, just to make sure that the sound would reach her.
And just to be even extra extra sure, the sip he then took of his coffee was also an exaggerated one.
And just to be extra extra extra sure, he picked up his book, cleared his throat, exclaimed "oh, I
forgot to put a bookmark in my book, now I don't remember where I stopped!" and made sure even
the flipping of the pages was audible.

He's the only source of noise or danger outside of the president's office. And he's sitting at his
desk, his feet up, he's drinking coffee, reading a book, he's seemingly immobilised by all his many
distractions, from her point of view there was no way for him to launch an attack on her faster than
she could escape from the scene.

The stage was set.

The silence that persisted was only interrupted by his occasional sipping of coffee and flipping of a
page, and his eyes drifted back and forth between the book and the door.
For the first few minutes, nothing happened.
After maybe three or so minutes, he thought he could hear her taking a couple deep breaths, but she
still didn't come out.
Three more minutes after that, he heard her shuffling around and getting up to her feet, and then in
the corner of his eye he could see that she stood at the door - he wanted to turn his eyes towards her
so that he can fully examine her expression, but she was still sniffing around, and he still didn't
have a proper bait, if he made any move that would cause her to suspect anything she would run
into the woods and the hunt would be over, so he kept his face focused on his book.

Well, at least he thought he didn't have a proper bait.

What he failed to take into account was the fact that she wasn't a deer, she was a detective.

"You took over my desk, I see." were the first words she said, and she remained at the door for a
couple more seconds. Only when she started walking towards him did he finally dare to raise up
his head and look in her general direction, but he still didn't attempt direct eye contact.
"Astute observation," his eyes followed her as she took small and quiet steps further away from the
president's door, "and fast, too. How could you tell?"
"I sat by it every day for a minimum of two hours, sir, I know every scratch and dent on it's
surface." she stopped just a few steps away from his-hers and hers-his desks.

Before she left, she would sit at her own spot by her own desk, which was pressed against another
desk, much in the same way most other pairs of desks were set in the office. For a while, after
Katai quit, the desk just across from hers remained empty, so over time it became sort of like the
office dumpster, it was always covered in stuff nobody knew where else to put.
After she was gone, her own seat was only empty for a very short amount of time - Osamu sat
where she used to sit, and the pile of random stuff remained untouched, because still, nobody knew
where else to put all of that stuff.
But yesterday, when Kirokugakari informed her crew that she is bringing Junko back, they had no
choice but to clear away all that junk from the empty desk. Most of the things, they threw away, as
they should have done a long time ago, some of the things finally found themselves a permanent
location somewhere around the office, a few items were taken by clerks who had use for them.
After that was over and done with, Osamu asked Doppo to switch the desks.
When Doppo asked, Osamu told him that when Junko comes back she would want to out all her
things back in order, she's going to come back to an empty desk anyway, so instead of moving all
of his own things to the newly cleared out desk they should just switch between the two - but the
real reason he asked for the switch was because he was curious to see if she would ever be able to
tell the difference.
And now he knew for a fact that she could tell, which was a very good first thing to learn about her
straight from her, but it surprised him to learn it so soon.

"Hold on," he took a second to rewind her words in his head just to be sure he wasn't imagining
things, and then put down his book so that he could dedicate his entire being to express how
ridiculous he found them to be, "'sir'? That's what you're going with?"
"Of course," she responded calmly, her face showing no signs of her being either offended or
amused by the way he snorted at her, "you are older than me, and you're a full-time employee, you
are superior to me in every way, and we just met, I wouldn't want to be disrespectful."
"It's not disrespectful to say my name," he chuckled, "the way I see it, you have seniority here, you
outrank me, if anything, I'm the one who needs to make an effort to impress you."
"Not at all, sir," she pulled back the chair by her-but-not-really desk, "seniority doesn't affect
ranking, ranks affect ranking."

Osamu took note of the way she sat down, she first stood close to the front of the chair, then
slowly sunk down with her spine straight, once her bottom made contact with the seat she
smoothed the fabric of the pants she was wearing as if it was a fancy skirt she didn't want to
wrinkle, then her ankles moved slightly backwards before she crossed them, then with just the toes
of her feet she pushed her chair closer to her desk and allowed her hands to rest on top of it at a 90°
angle.

This will be the last time he will see her crossing her ankles, because by tomorrow she will have
bought herself an actual dress and won't still be in the headspace of school-uniform-skirt's-length,
but other than the fact that from tomorrow onwards she'll be crossing her legs and not her ankles,
the process of sitting down would always be almost revoltingly conscious - not a single movement
was not carefully rehearsed or perfectly executed.

And she called him 'sir'.

Which was... A thing that she did.

"So can I use your name?"

"Naturally."
"But you won't use mine."
"Unless given permission, no, I won't."
"You need permission?"
"It would be rude to do so without permission, I don't want to be rude."

'Come on, drop the formalities, I've already seen you naked,' was what he was going to say,
suggestively, with a charming smirk and maybe even a wink, but he stopped himself.
And he wasn't exactly sure why he stopped himself - well, he knew why, he just wasn't exactly
sure, he figured saying something like that might break the wall of fake and forced 'everything is
fine' wall she built around herself, but he wasn't sure why breaking that wall was a bad thing. After
all, he wanted to break that wall, that's the whole point of trapping her in a conversation. He
wanted to see what she's hiding there, that was why he tried to lure her in. He was curious to see
how she would react when the safe space he built for her collapses, that's why he built it in the first
place.

And yet, he still stopped himself.

"Alright, then," he removed his feet from his-and-also-her desk, "Junko-chan, I would like to
officially grant you permission to use my name freely."
For a split second or so he thought she looked like she was a little taken aback by him diving
straight into first name territory - if he wasn't going to break her safety wall, at the very least he
wanted to chip at it a little bit –
"Thank you, Dazai-san." she smiled and bowed her head slightly.

The wall remained.

Odd.
But not in a bad way.

"You're welcome," he found himself smiling back at her, even though he didn't intend to, so he just
picked up his book again and pretended to go back to reading it.

And he was very grateful that he was only pretending, because had he actually started reading
again, he might have missed that glint in her eyes as she titled her head slightly at the sight if his
book.

It was not a scowl, or a confused wrinkling of the nose, or a displeased groan, or a questioning
exhale.
It was distinctly a glint.

"'The Complete Guide to Suicide'." she read the title out loud, in a slow, quiet, distracted mumble,
as if she wasn't even aware of the fact that she was doing it.

He lowered his book with his trademark nonchalant grin he asked her, "interested?"

The strange little girl seemed to blush and scramble to cover her face with both hands as a stream
of apologies flowed out of her - "I didn't mean to pry, I'm sorry for looking, I wasn't trying to
invade your privacy, I didn't mean to be rude, I'm sorry, I'm sorry – " - and she only stopped said
stream when a burst of surprised laughter erupted from his stomach, echoing from the walls and
chasing away any remnants of the silence from before.

"It's ok, it's ok!" he reassured her, still trying to catch his breath, "it's not like it's a secret or
anything!"
"...is it good? The book, I mean?" she asked, and the timidness in her voice made it very hard for
him to control his laughter which wouldn't stop entirely, and wouldn't drop below a steady giggle.
"A modern masterpiece!" he cheered proudly.
"What is it about?"
"Can't you tell by the title?" he steadied his elbows on his desk, leaning forward to look straight at
her, still with a stupid exaggerated grin, "it's a book containing different suicide methods!"
"...interesting," she said after a pause, and he blinked at her, a but surprised by that reaction, the
giggling finally halted, "I'd love to check it out, where can I find a copy?"

He should have probably told her that it was difficult to find that book and getting another copy
would be difficult, and he was going to, at the end of the day she would leave the office with his
own copy in her hands, but he wasn't going to surrender his precious book just yet, because he first
had to get over the hurdle of understanding why she would even want the book to begin with.

"I thought most girls your age preferred romance novels," he jested playfully, but was prepared to
raise his guards up should she take on the offensive, "I had no idea today's youth was so interested
in such things, other than myself, of course."
"It's not the book itself I'm interested in, actually," as she said that he made a mental note for
himself to pursue this subject, but he forgot about it once she finished the second half of her
sentence, "but, generally, I don't really like fiction, regardless of the genre."
"...you 'generally' don't like fiction?" he blurted out, baffled by her statement, "I get not liking a
certain genre or a style of writing, but not liking fiction in general?"
"It's a flawed concept." she shrugged casually, "storytelling in all it's forms is a flawed concept, be
it in cinema, poetry, literature or otherwise."
"Flawed, how?"
"For one thing, it assumes there is going to be a conclusion." she held her chin in her hand as her
elbow rested on her desk, the fingers of her other hand gently tapped the wooden surface, "all
stories, in all forms, despite having somewhat different structures, all rely on some sort of a, well,
something, that would end them. That's not how the real world works, though. In reality, there's
never going to be a last line, there's never going to be closure, there's never going to be an ending,
because there's always going to be the day after that ending, and the day after that, and the day after
that. If novels wanted to stay true to reality, they would have to come to terms with existence being
infinite, they would have to just continue, endlessly, without a destination, but if you wrote a story
like that you would have to write for so long that you'll end up losing sight of what made you start
writing. Telling stories is simply not a very good way to look at reality."

It took her words a few moments to sink in, and then a few more moments after that for him to
figure out how he felt about it and how he wanted to respond.

He expected a lot of different things from this strange creature which took the form of a young girl
- an intellectual philosophical debate about the nature of existence and how humans interacted with
it was not one of those things.

"Storytelling isn't for analysing or examining reality, dear," he argued and tried sounding
condescending, but it was hard to keep the jovial smile off his face entirely, "humans tell each
other stories to communicate with each other, to share their thoughts and opinions and their
individual experiences. Fiction isn't trying to imitate or replicate real life, the point of stories is not
accuracy, the point is to convey a meaningful message."
"Ah, I see," she responded even faster than he managed to close his mouth, "so, communication is
not about reality, it's about making a connection with others." it was breathtaking to see how
quickly she absorbed and understood his words, "it's not about understanding the world, then, it's
about understanding people."
"Right." he confirmed, still in awe.
"Interesting interpretation, I like it." she nodded with a smile, "do you have any recommendations,
then?"
"Recommendations?"
"Yes, I mean, books you think are worth reading."

Books that are worth reading.

Stories that are worth telling, stories that are worth listening to.
Human connection, communication.
Listening.
Understanding.

"Nope, sorry, can't think of any," he shrugged with one of the most forced, contorted, painful,
disgusting smiles of his entire life, he hated himself so much for that smile, if anyone ever asked
him for a list of reasons why he wanted to end his own life, this one smile would surely make it to
the top of the list.
"I see, but the book you're reading now, you seem to like it, right?"
"Yes, I love it, it's the best." he shot back impatiently, the toxicity of the smile taking hold of his
whole body, mind and soul, until there was nothing left, nothing but anguish and remorse and
complete and utter repulsion —
"Would it be alright with you if I read it, Dazai-san?"

He blinked at her.
The smile was gone.

"Sure, go ahead." he handed the book over to that peculiar living being in front of him.

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