Chapter 34: The Double Black
Time quickly came for him to be discharged from the hospital.
The morning sunlight streamed through the windowpanes, casting alternating stripes of light and dark on the ward floor. The air was filled with the smell of disinfectant, but it wasn't overpowering.
Dazai Osamu was still leaning against the bed, his head down, his fingertips lightly tapping on his phone screen:
【Chuuya, I'm being discharged from the hospital today.】
The message was sent successfully, but the recipient has not yet replied.
Dazai Osamu wasn't worried about this, since the other person was probably busy, perhaps rehearsing on stage or participating in some event.
He put away his phone, and after everything was ready, he efficiently completed all the procedures for being discharged from the hospital.
He had already memorized the route map to the back entrance provided by the hospital. He put on a mask that covered half of his face and a baseball cap pulled low, and followed the shadows of the hospital's back alley toward the parking lot.
An inconspicuous black sedan was quietly sitting in a corner of the parking lot. Dazai had asked someone to park it there beforehand for his convenience.
Dazai opened the car door and got in. The car emitted a low hum as he started the engine. He checked the rearview mirror to make sure no one was following him, then drove onto the road.
All traces of "celebrity Osamu Dazai" on the internet have been completely erased by him. Moreover, before being discharged from the hospital, his expensive security team had thoroughly searched the surrounding area for several kilometers several times to ensure that there were no crazed fans or malicious paparazzi waiting for him.
However, there are always people in this world who enjoy stepping on the edge of the rules, even taking risks. So, just in case, Dazai disguised himself in a simple way.
He drove the black sedan, gradually merging into the traffic on Tokyo Main Street, and then turned onto the road leading to Dazai Osamu's apartment (Sato Goro had given him the key to the apartment before).
While passing by a large chain supermarket, I suddenly recalled some wonderful flavors of canned crab.
The taste of those crab meat strips sealed in the metal can, the sensation of scooping them out of the can and putting them in his mouth, suddenly came back to him from the depths of his memory. He also realized that he hadn't eaten canned crab meat in a long time, and his mind was now being held hostage by the desire to fill his mouth with canned crab meat. So he turned the steering wheel and drove towards the supermarket.
Actually, he wanted to eat crab, but if he bought it himself, the preparation of fresh crab would be too complicated, and finding a restaurant that suited his taste would not be something that could be done in a short time. So he had to settle for delicious canned crab meat instead.
He pulled over, checked again to make sure the brim of his hat and the mask were still in the same position, then got out of the car and headed to the supermarket.
It was four o'clock in the afternoon, and the supermarket was sparsely populated. The cashier closest to him was standing at the checkout counter with her back to the entrance, organizing the items on the shelves. Even when she heard the doorbell ring, she didn't spare a glance for the person, focusing solely on her task.
Dazai wasn't in a hurry, so he pushed his shopping cart slowly through the shelves, clearly targeting various flavors of canned crab meat, and also grabbing some instant food products and a few bags of potato chips.
As his gaze swept across the condiment section, a hot sauce labeled "Hellfire" suddenly caught his eye, and an idea popped into his head: why not try mixing canned crab meat with this newly discovered hellfire hot sauce? Perhaps something truly magical would happen.
With that in mind, he strolled into the condiment section, took down all sorts of oddly named seasonings from the shelves, and put them in his shopping cart.
When the cashier glanced up unintentionally, she noticed that the customer was covered up so much. The hat covered almost half of his hair and the mask covered most of his face. It looked really strange, so she couldn't help but take a second look. In the end, she made eye contact with Osamu Dazai.
When she saw those iris-colored eyes, she was clearly taken aback.
Those iris-colored eyes... are so distinctive.
Shock and disbelief flashed across her face repeatedly; her mouth gaped open uncontrollably, and she instinctively cried out, "Dazai..."
Dazai Osamu's pupils contracted almost imperceptibly because of her sudden reaction. She had clearly recognized him, but he didn't understand why his identity had been exposed just because they made eye contact, even though he was so well disguised.
However, his body reacted faster than his mind; his eyes suddenly curved into a smiling smile. At the same time, he raised his long, slender index finger and gently placed it on the part of his mask covering his lips, making a silent but clear "shh" gesture to the cashier.
The cashier instantly covered her mouth as if she had been muted, forcibly stopping herself from making a sound. Her cheeks flushed with excitement, and she nodded frantically at Dazai Osamu, her eyes filled with unwavering determination to keep it a secret.
A minor crisis was averted without serious harm, and Dazai Osamu quietly sighed. After successfully checking out, he quickly returned to his car with his shopping bags and drove away from the supermarket.
The little accident that just happened made him realize that [Dazai Osamu]'s fame in this world is probably not low, and it is not the time for him to show his face in public at will, so he decided to hurry back to his apartment.
Guided by both navigation and photographic references provided by Sato, he successfully located the apartment building, which was almost on the edge of the city. He was satisfied with the remote location, as it meant he wouldn't be easily disturbed.
He took his purchases and went upstairs, stopping on the third-floor platform. He then turned the corner, counted the numbers on the doorplates, and finally found the door. He inserted the key into the lock and turned it.
With a slight click, the door opened.
A faint smell of dust wafted over, indicating that the place had been uninhabited for quite some time.
The apartment isn't large, but it's more than enough for one person. The interior is less minimalist and more rudimentary, resembling a show flat with only the most basic furniture like a bed and sofa. There are no decorations, no signs of life, and no clutter piled up in the corners.
Dazai placed the shopping bag on the spotless kitchen countertop and then began to search the interior of the small house for any trace of what Dazai Osamu had left behind.
He opened every drawer, checked every corner, and even lifted the toilet tank lid, but in the end, he found nothing.
The apartment was predictably empty except for a note held to the refrigerator door by a magnet. Looking up, you could see a small dog with its tongue sticking out and a defiant expression drawn on it in scribbled lines. It was clearly a work deliberately created by Osamu Dazai.
Dazai Osamu's eyes instantly lost all their luster. With a speechless expression, he tore off the paper without hesitation, his slender fingers tearing it into pieces with just the right amount of force, and then throwing it into the trash can.
Just then, my phone vibrated in my pocket.
He picked it up and saw that it was a message from Chuuya Nakahara:
Okay, I just finished rehearsal and saw this.
Concise and to the point, with Chuuya Nakahara's characteristic straightforwardness, there were no unnecessary greetings or inquiries.
Dazai stared at the line of text for a long time. After confirming that there were really no other messages, his fingertip hovered over the reply box for a moment before he finally chose to turn off the screen.
He wasn't in the mood to experiment with the strange little food he'd temporarily named "Hellish Spicy Crab Meat Sauce" for the time being. Instead, he planned to have a simple dinner and then lie in bed cosplaying as a corpse.
After taking several cans of crab meat out of his shopping bag, he lined up several cans of different flavors on the table and, as if performing some kind of ritual, pulled the tabs one by one. The sound of metal tearing was particularly jarring in the quiet room.
Then, he slowly scooped out the pinkish-white crab meat with a small plastic spoon. As he chewed, the familiar taste spread across his tongue, triggering some trivial memories that made him feel as if time had returned to a day in the past when he was also enjoying canned crab meat—of course, the opposite was true; almost everything was moving forward, whether actively or passively.
He neatly arranged the cute little cans, then opened and ate them one by one, leaving only empty cans.
After finishing the last can of food, Dazai sighed contentedly. He neatly stacked the remaining cans in the most inconspicuous corner of the cupboard, while the other food was haphazardly stuffed into the refrigerator.
At this moment, the sky outside the window gradually turned grayish-blue, and the lights in the room were not turned on, and the light dimmed as the sun moved away.
Dazai didn't plan to turn on the light. Relying on his excellent night vision, he groped his way back to the bedroom, threw himself heavily onto the neat bed, and prepared to fall asleep.
Exhaustion washed over him as he collapsed onto the soft bed, making him want to fall asleep immediately.
Today, there are about two more days until my weekend meeting with that "smart elementary school student".
If I go to sleep now, will I still dream about Chuuya?
However, now that they've already met in real life, they may have lost the chance to meet again in their dreams...
Or, if I were to dream of it again, it might not be me anymore, but rather an image created by some kind of longing...
Dazai buried his face in the blankets, letting himself drift into a jumble of thoughts, his consciousness gradually fading into darkness…
When he woke up again, the sky outside the window was already the deepest indigo blue before dawn.
Dazai Osamu opened his eyes, his gaze momentarily blank before he quickly regained his senses.
He grabbed his phone from the bedside table; the time showed 5 a.m., very early. His inbox contained a few new messages, mostly unrelated junk messages besides those from Sato Goro.
I didn't send him any messages either.
This discovery dampened Dazai Osamu's spirits slightly.
Sato Goro reminded him via email to come to the company today to sign the termination agreement, saying that everything had been taken care of and all he needed to do was sign it.
Dazai's fingers tapped on the keyboard, and he replied to Sato with a short message, his expressionless face indicating that he already knew.
After he finished washing up, he took a can of crab meat from the mountain of canned food piled up in the corner to have for breakfast.
After finishing the delicious canned food, a strange sense of satisfaction successfully lifted his mood slightly. He picked up his phone again, his fingers dancing across the keys, and sent another text message to the recipient named [Nakahara Chuuya]:
【Chuuya, I'm not very familiar with Tokyo. If you're free today, could you show me around the area?】
This time, the reply came incredibly quickly:
Okay, then let's meet near Exit A of xxx subway station at 3 PM, is that alright?
A small smile appeared on Dazai Osamu's face. He tapped his fingers on the keyboard and replied: "Sure, let's meet at this time then."
Today's harassment also plans to achieve
Next, he needed to do some small things to pass the time.
He turned on his computer and skillfully logged into that high-level forum account.
There are no superpowers in this world; Chuuya told him this during our last information exchange. In this world, the only truly active groups are criminals and detectives. The crime rate seems high, and detectives assist police officers in solving cases, earning a certain respect and admiration, like Kogoro Mouri.
Currently, his name can no longer be found online (this is due to his demands on the company, as well as the result of his own use of certain technologies), meaning that no entries related to "celebrity Osamu Dazai" can be found, and the only drama he acted in has also been taken down.
Regarding this phenomenon, there are many different opinions about him online. Some conspiracy theorists insist that he offended some unspeakable force and was thus vanished from the face of the earth, while pessimists believe that he had already died in the previous assassination attempt and that the so-called resurrection news was just a farce orchestrated by his agency and reporters. Some even imagine that a huge behind-the-scenes black group is controlling everything, making him disappear from the entire internet just to cover up some secrets he may know.
No one would have imagined that the person who "disappeared" was the one who started all of this. Even the peaceful termination announcement from his former agency, stating that Dazai had voluntarily terminated his contract and that they would have no further relationship, was interpreted as a ruthless severance by capital, only earning him a lot of criticism.
Dazai browsed through these comments with an indifferent gaze and no emotional fluctuation. He was simply using these online comments to estimate how long it would take for him to fade from public view.
Time slipped away quietly as he searched for information. When it was almost time to meet Sato, Dazai got up to leave.
He picked up the mask and put it on. As his gaze swept over the hats on the coat rack, the image of Chuuya Nakahara suddenly appeared in his mind. The other man always seemed to have a special fondness for all kinds of hats. In his previous dream, if the other man found a hat he liked in a store display case while walking on the street, he would basically buy it on the spot.
He also vaguely remembered that once he dreamed that they were going somewhere to do a mission. In just over ten minutes, seven or eight hats of different styles were floating around Chuuya Nakahara by gravity.
Although it was just a dream for him, it probably actually happened in another world.
The other person wasn't wearing a hat when they last met, probably due to work restrictions. As these thoughts arose, a small gamble suddenly popped into his head: whether he would wear a hat when they met again that afternoon.
His intuition told him: he would wear it.
With this in mind, he went downstairs. The apartment building was quite quiet, and the neighbors were spaced far apart, so it was rare for them to bump into each other.
Although it wasn't late, after Dazai Osamu got into the car, he didn't see a single person walking on the street. After all, this place was quite remote, and most of the residents were probably office workers and students, so it wasn't their usual time to be around.
Dazai drove to the agency's headquarters. The contract termination process went exceptionally smoothly, thanks to Sato Goro's high efficiency. Although the penalty for breach of contract was substantial, it was nothing more than a numbers game for Dazai, who had a large account balance.
The moment he signed his name, the last vestige of his connection to his celebrity status was completely severed.
This time he only wore a regular gray mask, leaving his baseball cap on the coat rack. As he walked out of the company building, the afternoon sun was a bit dazzling, causing him to subconsciously squint.
There was only about an hour left until the time agreed upon with Chuuya, but if we rushed over now, it would be just right, and everything was going smoothly.
He drove to the agreed-upon destination, found an open-air cafe near the subway station, ordered a black coffee, and chose a spot with a great view to sit down and wait for Chuuya Nakahara to arrive.
At this moment, Dazai was leaning back in his chair in a relaxed posture, his gaze seemingly unfocused, but in reality, he was paying close attention to every figure around him that might be Chuuya Nakahara.
At the same time, his brain was working at high speed, thinking about the information he had received in the past few days, such as the censored keywords on the forum, the "smart elementary school student", and Nakahara Chuuya.
At this point, there was still half an hour left until their agreed time.
Suddenly, a familiar figure entered his field of vision. Even though the face and hair were completely obscured, Dazai immediately recognized the person by their unique gait and figure, as well as the familiar feeling they gave him—it was Nakahara Chuuya.
Chuuya Nakahara was walking briskly out of the subway station exit, his eyes quickly scanning his surroundings as if searching for something.
Dazai's current location wasn't particularly conspicuous, but half of his face and body could still be seen through the glass window. So, Nakahara Chuuya quickly located Dazai and strode towards him.
Dazai didn't change his position, but simply raised his head slightly and watched through the glass as Chuuya Nakahara went against the flow of people, heading straight for the coffee shop from afar, and finally arriving in front of him without the slightest hesitation.
“Dazai.” Chuuya’s voice was slightly out of breath from exercising. He was also wearing a mask, a crisp light blue shirt, and ordinary jeans. “I was planning to wait for you here a while, but I saw you as soon as I got off the bus. Since we were so close, I didn’t text you.”
A smile appeared beneath the mask of the woman named Osamu, a smile that contained no hidden meaning, simply a smile of pleasure, but unfortunately, Chuuya Nakahara couldn't see it.
His exposed iris-colored eyes curved into joyful crescent shapes, clearly reflecting Chuuya's figure: "It's okay, Chuuya. I guessed you might arrive early, so I found the spot where I was most likely to see you first and wait for you."
Chuuya Nakahara was visibly taken aback, his eyebrows twitching involuntarily, clearly surprised by Dazai's answer.
He nodded and muttered under his breath, "...you bastard." But he didn't say anything more. It seemed to be just a simple, meaningless murmur, but it clearly reached Dazai's ears.
Looking at him like this, Dazai Osamu couldn't help but chuckle softly, his chest trembling slightly, finding the scene before him inexplicably amusing.
"So, where do you want to go next?" Chuuya asked, seemingly having already accepted the role of guide.
He didn't ask Dazai about the meaning of his laughter, just as Dazai didn't ask him why he knew he might arrive early. Upon arriving at the destination, he began looking around.
“I don’t know,” Dazai stood up, his movements as natural as if he had rehearsed it countless times. “It’s all up to Chuuya. Please think of any fun places nearby so we can go check them out together.” He deliberately emphasized the word “we.”
“Okay.” Chuuya readily agreed, his gaze sweeping across the visible surroundings through the glass facade of the coffee shop, seemingly planning his route.
Finally, he pulled Dazai up and started walking towards the shop entrance: "Then come this way with me." However, once Dazai Osamu had completely stood up, he let go of his hand.
Dazai Osamu immediately followed, walking lightly beside Chuuya, keeping a half-body distance, but his gaze seemed to casually sweep over the top of Chuuya's head—where a black and white baseball cap was being worn.
Result of the bet: Success.
Dazai Osamu's lips curved silently beneath his mask, but this subtle pleasure was quickly replaced by an even stronger interest in watching Chuuya seriously consider leading the way.
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Author's Note: I've finally made up for yesterday's update, and this chapter includes an outline. Actually, I've only written half the plot; the other half I can't finish right now, so I've decided to split it into two chapters. There might be another chapter updated this afternoon. Thank you all for your support! [hugs]
While writing, I kept feeling like some of the scenes I described had appeared in my dreams [hugs]. It was like I dreamt I was writing about someone's life, and that person's life, as the words unfolded, transformed into all sorts of bizarre and fantastical scenes that appeared before my eyes in the dream. And reaching 100,000 words for the first time feels so difficult and magical! The other chapter this afternoon will be a celebration [sprinkling flowers].
Editor n: I polished the chapters and corrected some typos.
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