Chapter 16: The Double Black
Dazai Osamu was penniless at this moment; his pockets were empty. Fortunately, hunger hadn't yet set in, and it was still early, so he didn't need to worry about finding lodging. He simply wandered aimlessly, walking through this world that had given him a new lease on life, revisiting places he had experienced countless times before.
His steps finally came to a halt on a stone bridge spanning the river. Below, the water shimmered in the afternoon sun, so clear that one could see the swaying water plants in its depths. It was like a silent, outstretched beauty, with a fatal allure, gently beckoning him, as if telling him that when he had nowhere else to go, he could turn to its embrace.
Dazai closed his eyes peacefully, a faint smile playing on his lips. The river breeze brushed his pale face and ruffled the hair at his temples. Facing the shimmering water, he opened his arms open as if to embrace a long-lost lover, leaning forward slightly, letting gravity pull him off the bridge.
Thump—
Water splashed everywhere, breaking the calm of the river. His figure was instantly swallowed by the water, with only a few strands of wet black hair floating on the surface, but they were quickly dragged into the depths by the current.
The icy river water instantly filled his mouth and nose, carrying the fishy smell of riverbed silt. Bubbles escaped from his lips. His chest felt incredibly heavy, and his limbs had lost all support. He swayed slightly as he fell into the river, his survival instinct causing him to struggle weakly for a moment, but then he went still. He let himself sink into the water.
He could no longer breathe, and his consciousness gradually faded.
In a daze, Dazai thought that even if this body wasn't his, he didn't care.
But, it's a little... lonely, another person dying alone.
The feeling of my first death is now a blur; I only remember that the process was a struggle against my survival instinct.
Who would have thought he would have a second chance to experience death? In the past, it would probably have been a possibility he absolutely refused to imagine. After all, when someone decides to truly face death, only to be forcibly dragged back into the world of life by an accident, that in itself is the cruelest punishment for their own will. Perhaps it was the sins he committed in the past that prevented him from finding true peace.
A new lease on life would never be a reward for him.
As his consciousness was fading, something seemed to pierce through the water and violently enter his gradually blurring vision.
Then, with a loud splash, he was pulled from the water. The fresh air choked him, triggering a fit of coughing and vomiting. He vomited an unidentified substance mixed with the fishy-sweet taste of the river water onto the grass. There seemed to be noisy voices on the bank, but everything was blurry and distant, and he couldn't hear anything clearly.
As the body was immersed in water and roughly dragged, most of the wounds on his body reopened, and the pain gradually spread throughout his body.
All he felt right now was how cold it was.
His body felt as if it had been riddled with countless holes of all sizes, and as the wind howled through it, he felt a chill to the bone.
It's so cold...
It was so cold that my very soul seemed to tremble.
If all of this is just part of a long nightmare, please let him... wake up soon.
As he thought this, darkness gradually enveloped him, and his consciousness was completely swallowed up by the boundless darkness.
Everything is meaningless.
This was the first clear thought that came to Dazai Osamu's mind when he regained consciousness.
He lay on the soft pillows and suddenly felt a sense of unreality.
He thought, if his memory is not wrong, then what is this?
He was already dead, so why give him a chance to wake up again? The Sanzu River should have been his final resting place.
Dazai Osamu couldn't understand it.
He struggled to move his eyes, his vision gradually focusing on his surroundings. Then, he froze.
A figure sat quietly beside the hospital bed. The other person's ochre hair appeared slightly dim under the pale light of the ward, and cobalt blue eyes were fixed on him with a scrutinizing and complex emotion.
—Nakahara Chuuya.
Dazai Osamu's iris-colored pupils widened slightly, meeting those cobalt blue eyes silently in the quiet air, and silence spread between the two.
Finally, it was Chuuya Nakahara who broke the silence. His brows were furrowed, his voice low and tense: "Hey, Dazai... what's wrong with you lately?" He didn't understand why the first thing this guy did after waking up was to leave the hospital and then jump into the river.
Thinking of this, his anger began to rise, because he had been taking care of Dazai Osamu during his coma. If he were to die so easily, he would feel that all his efforts during this time had been a complete joke.
Dazai Osamu's heart tightened. He didn't know how to answer the question. Should he explain that he was just a ghost from another world, or that he didn't actually need help and just wanted to leave?
Although all sorts of thoughts were running through his mind, he remained silent, not saying a word, until the silence dragged on for so long that Chuuya's patience was about to run out. Only then did he manage to force a weak, confused smile and ask, avoiding the main point, "What's wrong, Chuuya?"
However, this clumsy attempt at avoidance had no effect. Chuuya Nakahara's expression did not soften; instead, it became more complex—a mixture of doubt and scrutiny, as well as a kind of worry that Dazai Osamu found unfamiliar.
Dazai Osamu's heart sank, and his brain began to work at high speed, thinking of ways to break the current situation.
Of course, he knew that such an answer wasn't really an answer, and judging from the other person's expression, something had clearly happened without his knowledge. However, he had no information at the moment, and the incident had come so suddenly that he wasn't prepared to face this Nakahara Chuuya.
Before he could figure it out, he suddenly closed his eyes uncontrollably.
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself trapped in a strange perspective: he could see everything in the ward—the white walls, the IV stand, the red apple on the table, and Chuuya Nakahara sitting by the bed staring intently at "himself"—but he had lost control of his body.
He could see Dazai Osamu and Nakahara Chuuya sitting on the bed through his body's eyes, but he couldn't speak or move; he could only passively watch everything happen.
Suddenly, a wide, exaggerated smile appeared on Dazai Osamu's lips, his iris-colored eyes curving into crescents. In a deliberately drawn-out, sickeningly sweet tone, he said to Nakahara Chuuya, "Wow~ Is the dog concerned about its owner? It's so touching, I could cry!"
Veins bulged on Chuuya Nakahara's forehead, and his clenched fist turned white at the knuckles. All the complex doubts he'd felt moments before were instantly ignited into pure rage by that familiar, irritating tone. He just wanted to punch that guy hard: "You bastard—!"
"Ouch!" Dazai Osamu immediately clutched his chest dramatically, his face full of smug provocation. "You can't lay a hand on your sick and weak master, you know. I'm seriously injured right now!" The smile was on the surface, but deep in his eyes was a calmness, which he hid very well.
Chuuya Nakahara took several deep breaths, his chest heaving, forcefully suppressing the urge to punch. He quickly regained his composure, realizing it was nothing more than a clumsy attempt to provoke him. So his sharp gaze refocused on Dazai Osamu's face, clearly not intending to let the previous question go easily. Just as he opened his mouth to continue questioning—
"Chuuya~" [Dazai Osamu] spoke first, silencing Chuuya Nakahara who was about to finish his sentence.
Then, Dazai Osamu's slender finger pointed precisely to the bright red apple on the bedside table. "I want to eat that apple~"
Interrupted from his train of thought, Chuuya Nakahara felt a lump in his throat, his face darkening further. He glared at Osamu Dazai, who looked back at him innocently, his eyes filled with the stubbornness of "I want to eat the apple right now."
"...Tsk." In the end, Chuuya Nakahara succumbed to a certain habit, perhaps a sense of duty to care for the sick, or perhaps a long-standing indulgence that he himself was unwilling to admit. He got up irritably, grabbed the apple, and slammed it in front of Dazai Osamu.
"for you"
[Dazai Osamu] glanced at the apple, didn't touch it, and instead commanded in a matter-of-fact tone: "Chuuya~ I don't like eating apples with the peel on."
"So?" Chuuya Nakahara's voice was almost squeezed out through clenched teeth.
"Peel it for me!" [Osamu Dazai] declared matter-of-factly, as if it were something perfectly natural.
Chuuya Nakahara sneered, deftly pulled a folding knife from his pocket, and then slapped the knife and apple together onto Osamu Dazai's blanket.
"The tools have been prepared for you."
"No!" [Dazai Osamu] immediately protested loudly, "Isn't it only natural for a dog to peel skins for its owner?! Besides—" He dragged out his words, deliberately feigning weakness, "I'm a patient who can't lift a finger!"
"Chuuya, are you really going to make me do it myself? What if I cut my hand? It hurts so much!"
Chuuya Nakahara: "...Eat it or don't, it's up to you!"
With a loud slam of the door, Chuuya Nakahara was so angered by Osamu Dazai's inexplicable behavior that he left.
The ward fell silent instantly.
The exaggerated smile on Dazai Osamu's face vanished quickly, leaving only a blank expression tinged with barely perceptible fatigue. He threw back the covers, ignoring the pain coursing through his body, and hastily pulled open the bedside table drawer. His fingers rummaged through the clutter for a moment before finally touching a palm-sized metal-framed mirror.
He picked up the mirror and held it up in front of him.
The mirror clearly reflected his face, which was expressionless and had extremely cold eyes.
[Dazai Osamu] stared at his reflection in the mirror, but the corners of his mouth slowly turned up, eventually forming a malicious smile.
"Have you seen enough?" He spoke silently to the mirror, his lips moving clearly. "Now, it's your turn to answer me." His fingertips lightly touched the cold mirror surface, directly facing the center of his "self's" brow.
Why are you inside my body?
In the mirror, on the face that looked exactly like his, the lips moved in sync, but no sound came out. Even so, it wasn't enough to hinder their communication. [Dazai Osamu] understood the strange shadow's meaning by reading its lips: "I don't know."
Time was rewound to just over ten minutes earlier.
Dazai was thinking of something to say to Chuuya Nakahara when he suddenly felt dizzy and instinctively closed his eyes.
Then, when he opened his eyes again, he found that his surroundings had changed.
He could see Dazai Osamu and Nakahara Chuuya sitting on the bed through his eyes, but he could neither speak nor move.
He had no idea where he was until he saw Dazai Osamu take out a mirror. The instant Dazai Osamu's face was reflected in the mirror, a powerful suction force suddenly pulled him into the mirror.
Now, he has become the reflection of Osamu Dazai in the mirror.
He can now see Dazai Osamu's face and the wall behind him, but he is still restricted and cannot move completely. Most of the time, he can only follow Dazai Osamu's movements.
The only consolation was that he felt no fatigue or pain, or rather, all the negative feelings had vanished into thin air. He felt light as a feather, and if he weren't bound by the mirror, he might be able to float around like a ghost if he were outside in this state.
He realized that he now seemed to have become a mirror image of "himself".
A note from the author:
----------------------
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
