Bitter Chocolate Decoration
07
Bitter Chocolate Decoration. Yearning for the ideals that everybody wants
Meeting Chuuya had always felt like an encounter orchestrated by fate. A gift from above, to Dazai who could never find meaning in anything he did. In a sense, Chuuya had been both his rise and his ruination, and for that reason, Dazai has never regretted their time together.
Falling madly in love at the ripe age of fifteen is as dreamlike as it is perilous. For the first time in his life, Dazai found someone he’d considered almost more important to him than Kunikida, however the affection he held for the both of them was different.
Kunikida was his best friend whom he’d known since childhood; they played together, attended every school together, kept no secrets between them, and even had plans to create a cinematic masterpiece together —which Kunikida insisted Dazai play a lead role in after they succeed in finding investors. He was younger than Dazai by three months, yet he always looked out for Dazai in the same way an older brother would; like the time the brunette’s parents had run off to a “Lover's Getaway” casino retreat, leaving their five year old son alone in their large, empty home and Dazai had shown up on the Kunikida family's doorstep, weeping as he recounted the details of what happened. Kunikida brought him inside to calm down, wiped his tears and stayed next to him until he fell asleep. It was the first of many more similar incidents, and each time Dazai would end up staying in their home for as long as weeks most times but Kunikida never once complained about the intrusion. In fact, he often begged Dazai to just stay with them instead of going back home whenever his parents returned.
To put it simply, Kunikida kept Dazai alive.
But Chuuya…
Chuuya made Dazai live .
Nakahara Chuuya, with his flaming auburn hair and ocean-like eyes, with his demonic temper and angelic voice, brought a whirlwind of colour and emotion into Dazai's bleak world. He gave Dazai the kind of affection he’d always wondered about, the kind his parents had for one another which was so deep they'd forgotten about the product of it altogether. Similarly, Chuuya’s affection made Dazai forget entirely about all life around him as well.
He inspired Dazai to fully take up acting, made him aware of the talents he possessed, and introduced him to a teacher with years of experience in the field. He told Dazai about his dreams, there were nearly hundreds of them and Chuuya intended to make every one come true all on his own. He taught Dazai what the difference between his “love” and Kunikida’s “love” meant, and how it's okay to hate someone if they've done him wrong or caused him discomfort.
But Chuuya also held back his opportunities, crushed his self-awareness, and would often deliberately make Dazai miss his classes. He told Dazai about his fears, they outweighed his abundance of dreams and he needed Dazai to help him make them disappear. He taught Dazai that “love” remained painful no matter what context it's used in, and that if the one who's done him wrong or caused him discomfort is someone he “loves”, he's not allowed to hate them for it.
If Dazai’s life moved as systematically and unfeeling as a machine, then Chuuya was an offset in his programming. Chuuya had given him momentary life and freedom to do what he pleased without having to follow anyone’s instructions other than that of the glitch itself.
The thing about faulty machinery, though, is that eventually it wears completely down until it dies or gets repaired. Fortunately —or so Odasaku would say— Dazai didn't die, but he was repaired. The glitch was removed and the machine had been reprogrammed to be good as new, only that meant it was now wiped of all its prior memories and settings.
Dazai reverted back to his empty self, stripped of the goal Chuuya had talked him into, and no longer the same friend Kunkida had grown up with