You interrupted my suicide

It was late at night, and moonlight still shone beside the floor-to-ceiling windows, its silvery light glimmering on the sheer curtains reflected in the glass. A burst of excruciating pain jolted me awake.

It hurt. It hurt so much I felt like I was dying.

Reality proved that Osamu Dazai's physical condition was poor beyond anything I could comprehend.

For instance, there I was, lying on a luxurious, soft bed, my forehead drenched in sweat from the severe pain in my abdomen.

My mind began to drift. What kind of life had Osamu Dazai been living?

Just one Crab Feast had left him like this?

I was so afraid of pain. Suddenly, I understood Osamu Dazai a little. I hadn't hated pain all that much before, but now I did.

No! Maybe I'd hate it forever.

How painful was it? Perhaps it was like having a red-hot iron bar cinched around my internal organs, a pain that spread from the inside out and made it hard to stay sane.

Ah... the pain was going to kill me. No, wouldn't it be wonderful to die right now? Then I wouldn't have to suffer so much.

Those thoughts drifted through my hazy mind.

Osamu Dazai was probably someone with an extraordinary capacity for endurance, even when his suffering reached a level no one else could bear, even when I was the only person there.

Yet Osamu Dazai's body remained utterly composed, wearing a false, careless smile, refusing to let even a trace of loneliness or pain show.

For a moment, I experienced a bizarre sense of disconnection, as though my soul were standing beside my own body.

Every limb and facial expression was so calm, so oppressive, yet I could distinctly feel that I could command this body, move it however I wanted, and endure its pain.

At that moment, I understood with absolute clarity that I was an ordinary person, but Osamu Dazai was not.

He was unflappable. He was deeply calculating. But I, an ordinary person, had acquired an extraordinary shell-a shell that never changed, no matter how much it hurt.

I wanted to die. I really wanted to die. Why did people have to live? My brain was being eroded by the lingering thoughts in this body again, yet, strangely, I wanted to follow through.

Sick and bewildered, I could no longer think clearly through the pain, but Osamu Dazai's body and brain still kept me going until I made it outside.

I left the hotel, put on a false smile, wandered around gathering information, then headed toward the train as planned.

May 11, 2003. I had a chance to become an upperclassman to those menaces at Jujutsu High.

I murmured it softly to myself, my composure betraying not the slightest weakness to anyone.

I smiled and skillfully coaxed directions to Jujutsu High out of the people around me.

It was easy. Even in my dazed state, my body made the right choices for me.

Ah, one task finished. Why not go die for a bit?

With that thought, as though something had bewitched me, I bought some hemp rope at a convenience store and hung myself from a crooked tree not far from Jujutsu High.

What a perfect crooked tree for hanging myself. Wonderful! I could come here often to try some neck therapy.

Ah... breathing was getting a little difficult. Time passed to the rise and fall of my breaths. Gradually, I could no longer draw in air, my entire head grew heavy and muddled, and the hands gripping the rope tightly fell away.

Let me die like this. Let me embrace death. Send me to the Sanzu River.

I let myself hang rigidly from the tree like a hanged ghost, even though I could undo the rope at any moment, even though my subconscious might still have wanted me to live.

But I didn't do it. Why? I didn't know. I wanted to know why, too, because this wasn't me.

It was agonizing, wasn't it? Impossible to understand, wasn't it?

My old self hadn't exactly been sunny and cheerful, and my life hadn't been good, either, but I had never possessed the courage to die.

I didn't know whether the pain had eroded my will today or Osamu Dazai's body had taken control of my original thoughts. At least in the instant I hung myself, I had truly wanted to leave this world.

Was death a bad thing?

I didn't know.

Gentle breezes brushed against me, and faint floral scents spread from my surroundings into the mountain woods.

Today's sunlight wasn't harsh. It was absurdly gentle. In weather this lovely, I wondered who would discover a person hanging beside Jujutsu High, on the verge of death.

No, that wasn't quite right. Apart from Boss Dazai, probably very few of the other Osamu Dazais could actually succeed at suicide.

Then would I succeed?

My consciousness and body split apart once again. I wanted to live, but Osamu Dazai wanted to die.

I was no longer entirely sure whether this was really my body. After all, the book that had appeared before had said my original self should have been paralyzed, lying in a hospital bed.

Then whose body was I using now? Osamu Dazai's?

Not much time passed before a man dressed entirely in black, wearing dark sunglasses and black leather shoes, at least six feet tall, spotted the air-dried mackerel hanging from the tree. He looked like a mafioso but was actually an educator.

We called him Mr. Yaga for short-Masamichi Yaga.

Masamichi Yaga visibly froze when he saw me, then silently removed his dark sunglasses and took another look at me hanging rigidly from the tree.

He probably hadn't seen such an exquisitely unconventional method of suicide before.

But that wasn't important. What mattered was that Osamu Dazai's body had been hanging here for nearly fifteen whole minutes, and he was somehow completely fine!

There was still discomfort, of course, but compared with my stomachache at that moment, this little bit of suffocation was genuinely nothing.

"Hi! You there, the teacher from Jujutsu High! Good morning."

Still dangling from a branch, I waved at Masamichi Yaga with a brilliant smile.

Clearly, though, after that performance of mine, Masamichi Yaga wasn't doing quite so well. There was a tiny billionfold trace of confusion in his eyes.

Just a tiny billionfold trace.

Of course, to protect Mr. Yaga, who might become my teacher in the future, I cut the rope I had used for my suicide attempt under his astonished gaze and let myself fall freely.

"Heeey-are you okay?"

I yawned, ran up to Masamichi Yaga again, and waved vigorously at him. My soft, messy short hair bounced along with my lively movements.

"You..."

Masamichi Yaga gave me another bewildered look. Then he noticed that the person who had been attempting suicide-me-was wrapped up like someone with severe injuries, with even an eye covered in bandages.

Was he disabled? I was certain that was what Masamichi Yaga was thinking, but I wasn't.

"Ah! My eyes are fine. Really, really fine, so please stop looking at me like I'm disabled."

A faint smile settled on my face, accompanied by a little resentment at being fussed over. All in all, I seemed lively, cheerful, and youthful. Of course, that description might have been more convincing if I hadn't just attempted suicide.

"Doesn't that obstruct your vision? It limits what you can see." Masamichi Yaga frowned, still showing concern for the boy before him, whose mental state was clearly not normal.

As an educator, Masamichi Yaga could say with absolute certainty that the boy was in terrible shape. He had no idea what the boy's teachers had been doing.

As for me, I didn't think there was anything wrong with my condition. If anything was wrong, it was Osamu Dazai.

So what I was currently pondering was why Osamu Dazai covered one of his eyes.

Perhaps it was only my interpretation, but Osamu Dazai had once believed that if he covered his eye, he wouldn't see those awful things, those filthy deeds, and wouldn't have to look at them.

Later, because Oda from another world had pulled off the bandages on that side of his face, the bandages changed position. Osamu Dazai forced himself to remain in a terrible place and chose to send everyone else toward the light. That meant he simply had to face all those awful things head-on.

As I mulled this over alone, a black sludge I had never felt before welled up inside me. Such a gloomy aura radiated from my whole being that Masamichi Yaga couldn't help worrying about my mental state again.

"Ahem." Masamichi Yaga gave a light cough, startling me out of my clearly abnormal state. I blinked and continued answering.

"Ah-it's fine. Just a hobby." I returned to smiling merrily, as though I really were optimistic and cheerful.

"A hobby? Then what about hanging yourself?" Masamichi Yaga frowned, apparently reassessing me again, and posed another question.

"Oh, that. Hmm... that's probably a hobby, too~" The lilt at the end of my sentence was decidedly peculiar. I was certain it would disgust Masamichi Yaga beyond endurance, but what did that have to do with me?

"Have you seen a psychologist?"

At that point, Masamichi Yaga couldn't help sighing a little. He wasn't sure what the boy before him had been through, but he hoped Osamu Dazai would seek proper treatment.

As an educator, Masamichi Yaga didn't want any child to fall into darkness, especially not to the dreadful extent this boy already had.

"The psychologist said I was perfectly normal."

I continued speaking in that lively manner, though I couldn't help frowning.

In truth, the pain in my stomach had already made it almost impossible for me to hold myself upright, while control over my body remained firmly in the grip of my subconscious.

I stood off to one side and watched. This wasn't the first time I had marveled at just how much Osamu Dazai's body could endure.

Still grinning with a bullet through his heart, still expressionless despite grievous injuries-that probably described Osamu Dazai. I couldn't do any of it.

My body was already swaying, my head swimming, the pain growing worse. It probably had something to do with my courting death by hanging myself, then climbing all those stairs despite the pain in my abdomen.

In the end, I couldn't withstand it. I staggered, about to fall.

Masamichi Yaga, standing beside me, reacted swiftly and caught me, but the instant he touched me, his eyes widened.

Still dazed, I saw that look and couldn't help chuckling. Ah, so this was what people meant by someone's pupils quaking.

In fact, Masamichi Yaga had just been pondering what the boy had told him. The psychologist had said there was nothing wrong with him. The boy wasn't lying, but that was precisely the worst part.

Had he memorized the questions, or fooled the psychologist?

Neither possibility was good for the boy before him. Masamichi Yaga didn't mind staying here a while to talk him through things, though this brief opening probably wouldn't accomplish much.

Then Masamichi Yaga saw the boy sway and instinctively steadied him. In an instant, all his cursed energy and his cursed technique vanished without a trace, immediately putting him on alert.

"Oh, you noticed-" I barely managed to straighten up and put on an innocent smile. Seeing Masamichi Yaga's utterly stunned expression even improved my mood.

"Who are you?" Masamichi Yaga quickly let go of me and discovered that his cursed energy and cursed technique had returned. He began forming some theories about the boy's ability.

"Hmm, if I had to say, an ordinary eighteen-year-old boy, but with an incredible cursed technique?"

I puffed out my cheeks, trying to make myself look cuter, fluttered my eye, and gave Masamichi Yaga a wink like a high school girl. Unfortunately, his expression seemed a little off.

Huh? Wasn't Osamu Dazai handsome? In theory, that should have looked good. Why wasn't Masamichi Yaga reacting at all?

Of course, that mystery cleared up when I realized one of my eyes was covered.

"Then let me ask something else. What are you here for?" Masamichi Yaga watched the boy apparently fail to realize something, then rapidly return to normal, and remained vigilant.

"Huh? Isn't this Jujutsu High? Obviously, I came here to enroll. Is there any paperwork I need to complete?"

I blinked my big, clear eye and looked at Masamichi Yaga with absolute sincerity. Then, under his mildly suspicious gaze, I slowly lowered my head, putting on a pitiful, timid look.

"The enrollment period for Jujutsu High has already ended, and you're not the right age." Masamichi Yaga gave me a stern look and answered strictly by the book.

"Could I skip a grade? Can't you make just one exception for cursed technique nullification?" I sighed softly, still wearing that aggrieved expression. Watching me, Masamichi Yaga was starting to suspect that the Jujutsu Higher-Ups had sent me.

Wow, what an unfair accusation. How could I possibly have been sent by those old fossils?

"Fine, fine. If your Jujutsu High really won't take anyone, I'll try Kyoto Jujutsu High instead. Or ask around the clans or something."

Pretending to be utterly dejected, I picked up the rope I had just used to hang myself, turned, and prepared to leave.

As though responding to me, the wind brushed against my red scarf and the hem of my black coat. The tree's shadow fell across my entire body, and I felt a pleasant touch of coolness.

What Masamichi Yaga saw, however, was a boy whose eyes had held a faint light just moments before, now lowering his head in desolation. Though his spine never bent in the slightest, his figure gradually disappeared into the shadows.

Masamichi Yaga couldn't help becoming a little unsettled. What if he encountered a curse user along the way? What if he chose a path that didn't lead toward the light? What if turning him away here led to a curse user killing him?

This child had already come to Jujutsu High. Didn't that mean he wanted to step into the light, too?

Even in such a terrible mental state, he had taken the initiative to come here. Even if it broke the rules, why couldn't I help him?

"Wait!" Masamichi Yaga had still intended to hesitate, but after considering what might happen, the educator's mouth moved faster than his brain. He called out to stop the boy gradually disappearing into the dark shadows.

I turned at exactly the right moment, looking slightly bewildered as Masamichi Yaga strode toward me, and tilted my head in puzzlement.

"Was there something else, sir...?" My voice became calm, devoid of its earlier vitality. I seemed utterly unable to understand why Masamichi Yaga was approaching me, but chose to stay nonetheless.

"Come back to Jujutsu High with me." Masamichi Yaga heard himself say it. If possible, reaching out to someone trapped deep in darkness was something he could do.

The righteous path, the righteous path-what exactly was the righteous path? He didn't know, either. But his intuition told him that if he didn't stop the boy, he would regret it.

What Masamichi Yaga couldn't see, of course, was the faint smile that curved my lips as I followed close behind him.

Yes! All according to plan.