A flower that blooms in the darkness. Huh...

Mori told him something similar a long time ago. Surprisingly his phrasing managed to be less fatalistic. Though given Kouyou's experience he can't blame her. Heartbreak can warp one's thought process enough to cause such strict ideas of light and dark. Misery brings out the poet in people too.

Mori said, "don't get burned too badly."

As if it were an evitability that would happen to him. Suppose in the end he'd been right to an extent. It's less he's been burned and more like he's a plant slowly dying of overexposure. In either case his life has been an interesting combination of metaphors.

"Dazai, if I asked you to walk away from the edge, would you?" Mori asked, strolling across the roof top without much urgency in his steps.

He'd been sitting on the top of the Mori corps headquarters looking for the city for a while at that point. For once he hadn't been looking to jump off it either. He wanted some space, and an empty rooftop was the only place he'd get that in the building.

Still it's a wonder the boss hadn't sent someone up sooner to get him to go back inside. Mori also seemed to have an extra sense when it came to his suicidal tendencies with how often someone would show up to stop him. The one day he doesn't, their patriarch shows up wearing a frilly pink apron to get him.

He remembers shrugging off the question and asking Mori, "Do you ever wish you were like them?"

The boss stopped mid stride and blinked owlishly at him. Sometimes it could be hard to believe Mori came off as anything less than the frightening mafia boss he was. Then he does something like that, and it becomes easy to see how he got away with the act. Because to an extent it wasn't. Not entirely at least.

"Who?" Mori asked, slyly scanning over the area until those sharp as glass eyes landed on him and the edge he was leaning over. The one thing the mad doctor couldn't hide. To be honest he's hardly any better at keeping his edges from bleeding out at the worst times.

Hell, Dazai'd been out there that evening because he was a missed timed breath away from murdering one of his subordinates for a minute mistake. Yet he couldn't help the hollow feeling of being alone in a building packed full of people he didn't want to be around. His solution was to people watch from the top of the building so everyone looked like ants... Not his best idea but it was either that or get Chuuya to punch him through something.

"Ah, so that's why you're up here," Mori said, walking the rest of the way to the edge. Leaving some space between them.

"Once," He did a half shrug and continued and continued, "Learned the hard way it'd never work out."

"Silverwolf." Dazai replied dully.

Mori let out an obnoxious cackle, "You always were too good at gathering information. Of course you'd find out about him."

Not like the man didn't painstakingly drill the whole know your enemy philosophy into him. Who better to start with than the kettle himself?

After a moment Mori sighed and leaned heavily into the railing. "We both know I'm not exactly a good person-"

"You don't say," Dazai mocked, but Mori didn't seem to hear him.

"You out of everyone should know the road to hell is paved with good intentions," He said gesturing towards the people going about their daily lives below. "There are those willing to stain themselves so they can enjoy their fantasy of a just world but they are quite few and far between. That distance between yourself and them will probably always be there outside those rare few.

Then he slinked back up with another heavier sigh, "I already have one executive who's been burned badly. I don't need another. Try not to get too badly burned by the light when it comes."

Dazai rolled his eyes at the ridiculous metaphor and was going to respond with something sarcastic, but Mori beat him to it.

"How about we go back inside and have some cake. I was in the middle of baking one for Elise when someone said you'd been up here awhile."

He wanted to turn up his nose in disgust at the idea, but the man was a good baker so instead he stubbornly followed after him grumbling about nonsense.

Under the blood and the violence, he had some interesting memories of his time in the mafia. He'd keep them buried beneath the black hole in his chest with everything remotely related to why he's burning. He'll have to see how long until he wilts completely.

Outtake

Dazai's in the middle of explaining why Kyoka remembers seeing pictures of him in Kouyou's office when Kunikida's pen snaps.

"What's the matter Kunikida?" He asks, stressing each syllable in the man's name.

Kunikida twitches but remarkably manages to keep his anger contained for the time being. He quickly turns the question around.

"You remember the mafia are a group of criminals right?"

"But of course!" Dazai chirps, twirling around in his chair to face him. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Kunikida spins him back in the other direction and mutters, "It's weird to listen to you talk about them like-"

He cuts him off, "like they don't spend all day cackling like villains in their dark offices while plotting to murder puppies?"

To be fair to the other man he might have actually done that once... Spent the day at his desk cackling like a madman just to see what would happen because he was bored. Predictably Chuuya kicked him for being a brat but all in all it'd been an enjoyable experience. It was fun to watch some of the new recruits squirm in terror while they tried to figure out if their new boss was stable or not. It was also one of the few times he'd seen Akutagawa question him. His baffled apprentice walked out of the office that day questioning his life choices.

Not something he should mention to Kunikida though Atsushi might get some useful information out of his stories.

"That's not what I mean! Don't put words in my mouth!"

OOOO

Does it count as an outtake if it was supposed to be the lead up to the original bit about him and Mori? The draft I wrote for this months ago includes Dazai in a power suit too lol

1/3