Osamu Dazai

Love will drive you crazy.

Boredom will spell your descent into insanity.

Impulse will design your fate.

Humans are but mere puppets to the grand scheme of things. You'd obediently dance around on a cardboard stage for those tugging the strings to watch with glee.

The same plot. The same characters. The same routine.

The same fate.

Day in and day out.

Days never seem to end when you perpetually reflect on your true lack of autonomy.

You aren't your own. You're a programmed machine.

So, what point has there ever been in conformity?

”Normal” is subjective.

”Normal” is nonexistent.

In Dazai's realm, it wasn't even part of his vocabulary.

Osamu Dazai was born an enigma. Nobody deemed a “demon” at 14 was normal under any circumstance.

He was but a child when he behaved like an adult. He didn't have a childhood to begin with.

What kid shot people blank in the face? What kid knew over a thousand ways to torture information out of a person being interrogated?

What kid worked in a crime syndicate?

Dazai is like a hollow cauldron of weightless grief and agony. All it does is bubble up and simmer over time, increasing his discreet misery over the years.

He doesn't care whether he lives or dies, whether the mafia burns or not.

He's only here for one reason, and that's to use his observations of humanity's disgusting actions to give himself a reason to live.

He never found it, even over the course of a few years.

But then a new member joined the mafia.

You.

When he saw you for the first time, there was an immediate connection. He didn't understand why this was the case. Sure, you were attractive, but this feeling was something so much deeper than lust or aesthetic appeal.

It was something much more primal.

For once in his life, Dazai had a desire to build a meaningful connection with another person.

He had to have you. He needed to.

Initially, this was just curious adoration from afar.

Posing like a normal human being, Dazai approached you one day and made his move. He offered to show you the ropes of the mafia.

Though you were put off by his disposition, you accepted his offer anyway. From that day forward, the two of you became friends, or at least more friendly acquaintances.

That same day, when his hand grazed yours, he knew that you were the one.

You were his reason, his savior.

Is this the so-called fate that everybody around him has blabbered about for so long?

One thing about Dazai is that he's painfully self-aware. He knows he's fucking delusional to think you'll fall in love with him, he knows he's sick in the head for his developing fantasies.

But simply put, he didn't care enough to alter his behavior, especially not now.

So, Dazai began hefty work the day after he first spoke to you.

Cameras and bugs were installed in your home residence. When visuals from afar were insufficient, Dazai would occasionally haul himself over to your residence in person, just to get a glimpse of you through your open curtains.

He had various photos of you saved, and maybe even a few locks of hair.

He was giddy when he got to watch you, and was beyond elated when he got to see you get naked or get off. Oh, good God how that made him feel hot all over every time.

It'd been a few good weeks since he'd started stalking you. It was his routine. However, there was a disturbance that was getting in his way.

You were taken. You were already in love with another.

Finding this out, Dazai felt his blood boil with rage. You didn't belong to that bastard, but to him.

What could he do about that accursed wretch?

Various ideas flickered through his mind, but one stood out the most.

And so, the demon prodigy got to work.

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────

On a day where Dazai was sure you wouldn't be in town, he decided to pay your current lover a visit.

He put on a friendly facade, if only for a mere second.

It wasn't long before he was gagging them with a random cloth he had shoved in his coat pocket. He watched them squirm and gasp, desperately clawing at the fabric, at his hands, to live.

But eventually, they suffocated, turning pale in the face and falling limp on the floor.

No mess to clean up afterwards. Talk about success.

Dazai called for a mafia driver to pick him and the corpse up, which he dragged with him outside and shoved in the trunk before getting in the car.

Arriving back at Headquarters, Dazai took the corpse to one of the abandoned, secluded kitchens within the mafia. One that you wouldn't find, for certain.

Human meat has never had an appeal to Dazai, nor was he even a good cook.

But he had to express his love in some way, right?

And so, Dazai proceeded to make a divine dish just for you. Every sickening squelch of blood and tear of fat and muscle brought him closer to heaven, to giving you something unforgettable.

After hours and hours of cooking, he finally finished. The kitchen smelt like a mixture of rotting flesh, seasoning, and meat.

He allowed his creation to remain there, whilst he went to go take a shower and change his stained clothes.

When Dazai found you in another block of the building, he pulled you aside to ask if you would be as kind as to join him for dinner tonight, just for a little while.

It didn't seem like he wanted a romantic date, so why refuse his offer? When you accept, Dazai says that he'll pick you up in a few hours after work.

So, after your shift, you took time to spiffy up for dinner. Every now and then, you'd check your phone.

Why wasn't your lover answering their texts?

Later, Dazai pulls into your driveway and picks you up, driving the two of you over to the apartment that he lives in. Thank God he had a decent place to show for now, instead of that shipping container.

His apartment is rather barren, giving it a dreary feeling. However, various candles are lit, creating an atmosphere that's almost sensual.

Dazai urges you to sit down at the table, his hands sliding over your shoulders in the process. Once you're sat, he comes out with a plate of food and sets it in front of you.

It's a large slab of meat. Steak, perhaps? But God, it was bloody, and as you poked the meat with the fork, it seemed rather firm.

You seemed hesitant. Why wasn't he eating, too?

Eventually, Dazai sighs, running a finger through the puddle of blood beneath the meat and dragging his finger across your lips, staining them red.

“C'mon, love.. It'll get cold, if you don't eat it. Is something wrong with it? I poured all of my love into this dish..”

You don't know what, but something is wrong.

Really wrong.