The morning after the party, 2
If you don’t want to be vulnerable, you learn to wake up fast. The first seconds of waking, between the languor of sleep and the sharpness of the waking, are dangerous in how unveiled they are. So you sleep lightly and wake up almost instantly.
But he forgot that, didn’t he ? He still could - he slept like that in the prison, with such a dangerous enemy just in face of him; he couldn’t afford to let slip anything, so waking up was dangerous. SO was staying awake too long. Such a thin tightrope. Somehow, yet, he still ends up waking not that harshly. Fast, certainly, but not harshly.
What truly brings him back to land of the living, though, is Ango’s expression - stricken, like he walked into his living room to find it belonging to someone else. His eyes are fixed on Dazi like he doesn’t know him - which is,r eally, incredibly rude. Someone with usually such a good control on his expression - Dazai has seen him let go of control or been startled out of it, and what was below was never this. It’s rude and hurtful and suddenly Dazai wants to never se this man again, who looks at him like an unwelcome stranger who -
He’s goin to lash out. He’s going to destroy him and everything he loves. He’s going to burn him, and make him suffer as much as he is suffering right now - no, ten, one hundred, a thousand times more. He will make him undersatnd who was known as a demon prodigy, and why, and he’ll let him live, miserable and alone and in despair, and he will never forget -
Something of his dark thoguhts must show on his face, because Ango blinks and this expression he knows. Concern is so very known on this face, but Dazi’s heart stays unmoored.
-Dazi-kun, waht’s wrong ?
He’s coming closer. Does he think this is going to work ? Doesnt he know? Dazai is not going to let himself be calmed down right now. -
-Seriously, Dazai-kun, what’s wrong ?
And Dazai picks up his weapons.
He doesn’t know what is coming out og his mouth. Soemthing abotu insignificant ango is maybe ? How worthmess ? How untrustworthy ? How boring maybe, which has always been untrue of ango himself and only of his mask, but right now dazai will take everythign - blame him for every hurt of his life - no, that’s too telling, let’s blame him for everything ath wwent wrong in odasaku’s life - eh’s furious enough he can weaponize odasaku’s death without breaking himself, he’s never going to let any part of him otu for that man to hrut again, he will not let him have evn the slightest handhold on his ehart, why does his herat belogn to him, this man cold and calculating and ruthless enough to lea his friend to his death, to lie for years in the most defenseless, sacred palce they have, to use tha sacredness as protection even as he desecrated it by final lies, no, he won’t let even the smallest part of himself in his man’s hands - even if
Even if ango looks devsateted rigth now, hurt to the core just as his own defense were entirely down.
Dazai runs.