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It was cold.
The air was stiffening, snow holding back from falling, grey clouds blocking any sunlight, and ice lingering on Dazai’s breath. The weight of his coat, however comforting its warmth should have been, was a burden. It was too heavy to provide any relief from the chill sinking into his bones. Most of all, he was aware of the way it was clinging to his wrist, to a damp bandage just lightly covered in red.
For as cold as every other part of him was, his wrist was burning, like hot coals or a rampaging fire. Maybe neither, Dazai thinks. Not quite painful yet, but noticeable and uncomfortable, a sharp juxtaposition to the rest of his body. Water beginning to boil, he settled on.
Fresh wounds barely beginning to stop bleeding covered the roughened, scarred skin of his arm. Old scars splitting in half and new ones preparing to form on top. Layers of skin replaced with layers upon layers of jagged, pink regrets. A voice plays in the back of his head as a muffled song in the next room, deep and calm, not quite chiding him for always, always, being like this. For never trying hard enough to change. It was accompanied by the image of a bar and of someone from another life, yet his brain could no longer quite pull together the memory properly.
The events of a few hours ago come to him not in fully formed scenes, but flashes.
Another night spent completely sleepless. Half a bottle of cheap, shitty whiskey and a few cheaper cans of whatever he could get from the store on his short route from work. The same thoughts on repeat in his brain. Bandages being slowly, methodically removed to reveal his pale, rotten skin. The box cutter coming out from its resting place under his pillow. The grey tatami mat irreparably stained, with blossoming droplets of blood spreading out across it. A half-hearted attempt to stop the bleeding before it ruined his flooring any further. Passing out at 4a.m, knowing full well he’d be awake in 3 hours to go to the Detective Agency and pretend all over again that none of this pathetic nonsense happened.
Now, stood outside the Agency’s office with a cigarette slowly burning out between his fingers, he couldn’t help but laugh at the fact that none of it mattered. Nobody would notice the fresh bandages underneath his clothes, the way he shifted his weight whenever his leg began to ache and rip apart anew. The way he couldn’t rest his right arm on his desk without wincing unconsciously. He would never have to worry about someone in his apartment, nor the idea that someone could notice the obvious and break his incredibly well crafted facade. He took another drag, resisting the urge to pull at his bandage and see if it could rip open the wounds it clung to inches below his hand.
The images subsided as he finally began to feel aware of his body again for the first time in god knows how long.
He hadn’t noticed just how much he was shivering. His knees struggled to hold him upright, his shoulders shaking rapidly. Too cold. But the boiling water was much more like fire. It spread along his arm, began to ignite on his thigh. It burned like he’d held a lighter to his skin last night instead of a blade. Too hot. Whether he was even shivering at this point, or just shaking, he couldn’t tell.
Dazai felt sick. Sick sick sick sick. He was going to throw up a mixture of bile and acid and the remnants of the cheapest alcohol he could find, mixed further with the remnants of the cigarette lingering on his breath. Nausea rose up his throat, a new kind of disgusting stinging heat that he couldn’t ignore.
But nothing came. The nausea passed in a wave as his stomach settled again. Maybe he just hadn’t eaten enough for his stomach to be able to pump it back out. He couldn’t really remember anyway. He never seemed to be able to remember. But nobody notices, not if he can continue to laugh and joke and do anything to dispel those images from his mind.
Blood. Blood staining the floor, the walls, his favourite plush - a huge pink cat that he won at the arcade shortly after meeting Chuuya, who had immediately won the matching white rabbit “to prove he was as good at crane games.” Blood dripping along his leg, making his feet stickier with every step he took, dripping along his arm and under his nails until it fell from his fingertips, leaving a ring of dried blood around his the chipping black polish. The ecstasy of life draining from his body being slowly replaced with increasing light-headedness as the mania wore off. The same routine whenever he needed the release. Roll out tissues until it covered enough space for him to bleed freely, only to miss and make a mess when he became too exhausted to remember how he was supposed to sit. Never bothering to clean the blade, only tucking it back under his pillow when it was dried in the morning.
He dropped the cigarette, watching it lose its colour on the ground below him, and shook his head a little, trying to reset back into his usual personality. Dazai that could make a witty joke any time. Dazai who was completely okay no matter all of the signs stating otherwise. Dazai who shouldn’t be taken seriously in his attempts.
As he turned, cautiously trying to avoid his trousers sticking to the bandage around his upper thigh, he caught a glimpse of himself in the window of the building. Sickly, and yet not even close to as thin as he had been before. Dead eyes with bags more red than grey. The same colour as the cuts decorating his skin, he mused. Hair barely kept presentable, with an outfit to match, the same clothes he’d worn every day this week. He was barely in his body half the time, his memory falling apart from dissociation and drinking himself half dead. A complete disaster, but not quite such a disaster for anyone to really care.
Staring at his reflection, observing every detail of how miserable and pathetic and hopeless he really and truly was, he felt exactly one thing.
Numb.
He couldn’t bring himself to care anymore. Every temperature he could feel in that moment, the cold in the air and the warmth of uncleaned injuries, all accumulated into one thing - emptiness. There was no feeling left anymore. Just pure numbness, like the nerves of his emotions had been cut - he almost wiggled his fingers at the thought as if checking he still could - leaving nothing but an absence in its wake. At most, all he felt was the itch. For a drink, a blade, to go as long as he could with no food just to see if he break the last record. The same old urges that did nothing to counteract the misery inside him.
He’d open the door, go back into the warm stuffiness of the office, and continue to pretend. No matter how utterly full of despair he truly was. A quick joke about how he had oh so much paperwork, just to watch the way Kunikida’s face twisted - he never could hide his feelings - followed by flopping into his chair over-dramatically. Ignore the way Ranpo took one look at him and twitched his eyebrow, just enough of an indication the detective was aware of something. Flirt with whoever came through their door and annoy the team a little more.
An act, carefully designed to hide the smell of alcohol and blood, to push people ever so slightly further away so they could never see the bloodstains covering every part of his living space, and most importantly, to keep them from ever prying about just how deeply, irreparably broken he was. The numbness remained, ever-present. A void lingering where something should be, but he’d long forgotten what. His wrist had stopped burning without him noticing, the shaking subsiding. Or he had just drifted away again, no longer connected to his body.
Snow began to fall, hitting his arm as he reached for the door. He felt nothing.
It was cold, but Dazai was colder.