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pikahlua · 1 year ago

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MHA Chapter 401 spoilers translations

This week’s initial tentative super rough/literal translations under the cut.

1 体が動かない…‼︎ からだがうごかない…‼︎ karada ga ugokanai...!! My body won't move...!!

tagline 1 「凝血」でAFO拘束‼︎ 「ぎょうけつ」でオール・フォー・ワンこうそく‼︎ 「gyouketsu」 de OORU FOO WAN kousoku!! AFO restrained with Bloodcurdle!!

tagline 2 No.401　THE LUNATIC　　堀越耕平ナンバー401　ザルナティック　　ほりこしこうへい NANBAA 401 ZA RUNATIKKU Horikoshi Kouhei No. 401 THE LUNATIC Kouhei Horikoshi

2 火傷の男とインゲニウムの会話から状況を推察やけどのおとことインゲニウムのかいわからじょうきょうをすいさつ yakedo no otoko to INGENIUMU no kaiwa kara joukyou wo suisatsu I inferred the situation from the conversation of the burnt guy and Ingenium.

3 戦場跡を辿りせんじょうあとをたどり senjou ato wo tadori I followed the traces of the battlefield.

4 雨風を免れた血痕を採取あめかぜをまぬがれたけっこんをさいしゅ ame kaze wo manugareta kekkon wo saishu I collected the blood stains that escape the rain and wind.

5 その血がAFOのものかオールマイトのものであるかはそのちがオール・フォー・ワンのものかオールマイトのものであるかは sono chi ga OORU FOO WAN no mono ga OORU MAITO no mono de aru ka wa Whether that blood belongs to All For One or All Might...

1 削いで尚そいでなお soide nao Then slice it off.

2 血風嗅ぎ穿つこの鼻がけっぷうかぎうがつこのはなが keppuu kagi ugatsu kono hana ga This nose that sniffs the scent of blood

3 うーん違ううーんちがう uun chigau "Hmm, wrong one."

4 報せてくれる‼︎ しらせてくれる‼︎ shirasete kureru!! will let me know!!

5 オールマイトああ OORU MAITO aa All Might, ah.

6 オールマイトおまえなら判るだろう⁉︎ オールマイトおまえならわかるだろう⁉︎ OORU MAITO omae nara wakaru darou!? All Might, you [of all people] understand, right!?

7-8 俺が敢えてこの躯を曝け出した意味！おれがあえてこのからだをさらけだしたいみ！ ore ga aete kono karada (kanji: mukuro) wo sarakedashita imi! The meaning behind why I dared to expose this body*! (*Note: This kanji for "body" can also mean "corpse.")

9 英雄の心は他が為にのみ存在を許される… えいゆうのこころはたがためにのみそんざいをゆるされる… eiyuu no kokoro wa ta ga tame ni nomi sonzai wo yurusareru... (Literal translation) A hero's heart is only allowed to exist for the sake of others... (Official translation) A hero can only claim that title as long as his soul burns fiercely in service of others...

10 …だが神が地に伏せ人のか弱き心をも得たのなら …だがかみがちにふせひとのかよわきこころをもえたのなら ...da ga kami ga chi ni fuse hito no ka yowaki kokoro wo mo eta no nara (Literal translation ) ...but if a god is a person fallen face down on the ground and has his even his heart turn weak... (Official translation) ...however, say a god has fallen prostrate upon the earth and his divine soul has turned feeble and mortal...

11 自らの生を踠くことすら許されよう！みずからのせいをもがくことすらゆるされよう！ mizukara no sei wo mogaku koto sura yurusareyou! They should also be allowed to struggle for their own lives!

1 判ってるさわかってるさ wakatteru sa "I understand,"

2 ステイン‼︎ SUTEIN!! "Stain!!"

3-4 この"ヒーロー40名殺傷犯"を終わらせに来いこの"ステイン"をおわらせにこい kono "SUTEIN (kanji: HIIROO 40-mei sasshou-han)" wo owarase ni koi (Literal translation) Then come and end Stain, this criminal who murdered 40 heroes. (Official translation) Then come for the life of Stain--the man who murdered 40 heroes.

5 「俺が「おまえは「omae wa (kanji: ore ga) You (read as: I)

6 来た」‼︎ 生きねば」‼︎ ikineba (kanji: kita)」‼︎ have to live (read as: am here)!!

1 「強制発動」「瀉血」「きょうせいはつどう」「しゃけつ」「kyousei hatsudou」「shaketsu」 Forcible Activation: Bloodletting

2 血をちを chi wo His blood...

3 捨てた⁉︎ すてた⁉︎ suteta!? He threw it away!?

4 赤黒！あかぐろ！ Akaguro! "Akaguro!"

5 君が何かして来る事は予想できてた！きみがなにかしてくることはよそうできてた！ kimi ga nani ka shite kuru koto wa yosou dekiteta! "I was able to predict that you would come and do something!"

6 だから事前に仕込んでいたさだからじぜんにしこんでいたさ dakara jizen ni shikonde ita sa "So I prepared in advance."

1 タルタロスから唯一人タルタロスからただひとり TARUTAROSU kara tada hitori "Because you were the only one from Tartarus"

2 僕を拒絶し逃げ果せたあの日から！ぼくをきょぜつしにげおおせたあのひから！ boku wo kyozetsu shi nige ooseta ano hi kara! "who rejected me and managed to escape that day!"

3 捨てたところで血は同すてたところでちはおな suteta tokoro de chi wa ona-- "Even if you threw it away, your blood is the same--"

4 馬鹿か？ばかか？ baka ka? "Are you an idiot?"

5 「抗原変態」「こうげんへんたい」「kougen hentai」 "Antigen Metamorphosis."

6 血を書き換えたんだよ！ちをかきかえたんだよ！ chi wo kakikaetanda yo! "I rewrote my blood!"

7 痕跡を残さないのが長く君臨する秘訣だこんせきをのこさないのがながくくんりんするひけつだ konseki wo nokosanai no ga nagaku kunrin suru hiketsu da "The secret to a long reign is to leave no trace."

1 血を抜いたおかげで目が覚めてきたちをぬいたおかげでめがさめてきた chi wo nuita okage de me ga samete kita "Thanks to the blood I drew out, I've woken up."

2 ステイン‼︎ SUTEIN!! "Stain!!"

1 ゼェッ ZE "[wheeze]"

2 ゼェ ZE "[wheeze]"

3-4 ステイン‼︎ SUTEIN!! "Stain!!"

1 「凝血」をいただこう「ぎょうけつ」をいただこう「gyouketsu」 wo ita da kou "Let me have Bloodcurdle."

1 思えば君は連合…延いては弔の成長に大きく貢献してくれたおもえばきみはれんごう…ひいてはとむらのせいちょうにおおきくこうけんしてくれた omoeba kimi wa rengou...hiite wa Tomura no seichou ni ookiku kouken shite kureta "If I think about it, the League...you contributed greatly to it and, by extension, to Tomura's growth."

2 あれで役目は終わってるんだよ殺人犯あれでやくめはおわってるんだよさつじんはん are de yakume wa owatterunda yo satsujin-han "With that, your role is finished, murderer."

3 AFO‼︎ オール・フォー・ワン‼︎ OORU FOO WAN!! "All For One!!"

4 終わらんさおわらんさ owaran sa "It won't end."

5 ハァ HAA "Haah"

6 全ては…過程だ魔王… すべては…かていだまおう… subete wa...katei da maou... "All of this...is a process, Demon King..."

7 高等教育など受けずともこうとうきょういくなどうけずとも koutou kyouiku nado ukezu tomo Even though I never received anything like a high school education,

8 英雄が何たるかは全部おまえが教えてくれたえいゆうがなんたるかはぜんぶおまえがおしえてくれた eiyuu ga nantaru ka wa zenbu omae ga oshiete kureta you taught me everything about what a hero is.

9 生きて勝ていきてかて ikite kate Live and win.

1 俺の全てーーーーー…… マイ・オールーーーーー…… MAI OORU (kanji: ore no subete)-----...... My all-----......

1 エルクレス⁉︎もう壊れた筈じゃエルクレス⁉︎もうこわれたはずじゃ ERUKURESU!? mou kowareta hazu ja "Hercules!? You should have been broken already."

2 最後ノシールドデスさいごノシールドデス saigo NO SHIIRUDO DESU "This is my last shield."

1 生キテイキテ IKITE "Live-"

2 俊典としのり Toshinori Toshinori,

3 がんばれ ganbare keep at it.

1 俊典‼︎ としのり‼︎ Toshinori!! Toshinori!!

2 まだ紡がれてるぞ！まだつむがれてるぞ！ mada tsumugareteru zo! [This tale] is still being spun!

3 がんばれ ganbare Do your best,

4 俊典としの Toshinori Toshinori.

5 お師匠… おししょう… oshishou... Master...

6 …これは幻覚だ …これはげんかくだ ...kore wa genkaku da ...this is a hallucination.

7 私が私を励ましているんだ… わたしがわたしをはげましているんだ… watashi ga watashi wo hagemashite irunda... It's because I'm encouraging myself.

8 与えられてきた全ても脚もサポートアイテムもあしも SAPOOTO AITEMU (kanji: ataerarete kita subete) mo ashi mo My support items (read as: everything that was given to me) and my legs,

9 もう使えないもうつかえない mou tsukaenai I can no longer use them.

10 もう戦えないよもうたたかえないよ mou tatakaenai yo I can't fight anymore.

1 でも demo But...

2 まだ死んでないまだしんでない mada shindenai I'm not dead yet.

3 来いやこいや koi ya So come!

1 AFO‼︎死柄木弔に接近‼︎ オール・フォー・ワン‼︎しがらきとむらにせっきん‼︎ OORU FOO WAN!! Shigaraki Tomura ni sekkin!! "All For One!! He's approaching Tomura Shigaraki!!"

2 泥ワープ圏内に入ってます‼︎ どろワープけんないにはいってます‼︎ doro WAAPU kennai ni haittemasu!! "He's within range for a mud warp!!"

tagline 絶望がもう [cut off] ぜつぼうがもう [cut off] zetsubou ga mou [cut off] Despair is already [cut off]

#my hero academia leak translations #mha 401 #bnha 401 #my hero academia manga spoilers #final showdown spoilers #oh #oh that's an invitation #that whole chapter is an invitation #for someone else #for a special someone else #oh that's a LOT of “live” and “win” in there #ohhhhh boy #i see you struggling on to live all might #i see it and i'm having so many flashbacks to another one of your students #another great source of inspiration #oh please bite his hand

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fyodcrs · 2 years ago

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Cathedrals of Melancholy (Pt.1)

Fyodor/Dazai (warnings for explicit smut)

“I thought I put the rat traps out,” he remarked.

Not looking up, Fyodor lifted his hand, displaying a broken rat trap. “One always escapes. Be wary of the skittering behind your walls, Dazai.”

Read on AO3 here!

The cloak of night lay heavy beyond the flickering light of a single candle that illuminated the name carved onto the tombstone: S. Oda. A bouquet of flowers had been laid carefully beside the candle at the foot of the stone.

Dazai kneeled, half-falling onto the earth. His legs were strengthless, and his hands shook ever so slightly as he reached for the flowers. They were chrysanthemums, crown daises, and they were fresh.

He pictured someone else kneeling here. A pale figure in a long, heavy black cloak, hands clasped, head bowed in prayer. Whispered words to a lonely grave, set aside atop a hill overlooking the rest of the cemetery.

Dazai had not left these flowers or lit this candle. He knew who had, though. There was only one other person who would have come here tonight.

…

“Why is this the only book you have?”

The sound of his voice washed over Dazai like that first breath of fresh air after months trapped underground like—well, like a rat. Dazai slumped back against the door and, as he had taken a moment to pause and breathe in that sweet, sweet not-prison oxygen, he took a moment now to pause and breathe in not the stuffy smell of a room that had been unoccupied for a while but the smell of hot food and lemon tea.

“I thought I put the rat traps out,” he remarked.

Not looking up, Fyodor lifted his hand, displaying a broken rat trap. “One always escapes. Be wary of the skittering behind your walls, Dazai.”

He was sitting at the table, reading Complete Guide to Suicide. On the table beside the teapot was a steaming plate piled high with pirozhki. Fyodor had retrieved his clothes before escaping the prison, evidently, because his mantle and his ushanka were hanging on the wall beside the door next to Dazai’s winter coat. At the moment, however, he was dressed in Dazai’s clothes, a white button-up shirt and an old pair of black pants. He’d showered recently; his hair was still damp, getting frizzy around his temples.

He looked relaxed, in a way that he had pretended to be throughout their time in the prison. But he looked tired, too, as worn and haggard as Dazai felt. The perpetual shadows under his eyes were as dark and heavy as bruises, standing out starkly against the pallor of his complexion. Yet while Dazai felt battered, sore all over, sporting his fair share of minor injuries, Fyodor appeared unscathed. A wonder, that. Sometimes Dazai almost believed Fyodor really was untouchable.

Dazai walked over and plopped down on the opposite cushion. Fyodor had poured him a cup of tea, still steaming. As usual, Fyodor had his movements down to the second. Dazai took a bite of a pirozhki, and his face immediately lit up.

“These are delicious!” he cried around a mouthful. “You made them with crab?”

“Usually I make them with cheese, but I’m always up for trying something different. And the only food I could find in this charming little abode of yours was a lifetime supply of canned crab. I know it’s your favorite, so I made it work.”

Dazai made a show of tearing up. “That’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me,” he sniffled.

“Seriously, Dazai, who has only one book?”

“When you find a book that’s good enough, you don’t need anything else,” Dazai said, the solemnity of his tone somewhat ruined by the fact his face was stuffed with crab pirozhki and he sprayed crumbs everywhere as he spoke.

Fyodor rolled his eyes. “It isn’t even a very good guide to suicide. What idiot tries to commit suicide by trapping themselves in an oil-drum?”

Dazai nodded soberly in agreement.

Fyodor glanced at him over the top of the book. “Really, Dazai?”

Dazai threw his hands up. “Look, it seemed like a good idea at the time, okay? I’d tried everything else!”

“Clearly not, because if you’d ‘tried’—” he used air-quotes, “—to throw yourself off a building you would have solved all of your problems and, more importantly, mine.”

Dazai huffed. In retaliation, he snatched the plate of pirozhki away just as Fyodor was reaching for one.

“The flowers were lovely.”

Fyodor closed Complete Guide to Suicide and set it down on the table. He regarded Dazai, pale lips curved in a smile. “A poor offering to leave at the grave of a martyred saint.”

Dazai’s returning smile was humorless. “Did you find the revelation you were looking for?”

“My revelation came long ago,” Fyodor said placidly. “What about you, Dazai? Do you hear his voice when you sit beside that lonely grave?”

“Sometimes,” Dazai confessed. He heard Odasaku’s voice often, in truth. His only friend’s final words echoed in his thoughts, reminding him, binding him, grounding him. They felt branded into his skin, beneath the bandages he wore to hide scars he didn’t have. Be on the side that saves people. If both sides are the same to you, then become a good man. At least then, it’ll make your world a little more beautiful.

Fyodor’s gaze drew him out of memory. He sighed and slumped onto the table, resting his chin on his folded arms. “Sigma’s fine, by the way. In case you were wondering.”

Fyodor picked up Complete Guide to Suicide again and opened it to a random page. “I suppose you’re trying to rope him into joining your little Agency?”

“Oh, Atsushi’s already decided he’s one of us. Practically adopted him on the spot when he brought us the Page. I don’t know when exactly Atsushi became our recruiter, but he sure does have a talent for attracting lost kids like himself, and he gets awfully attached. The others are all ready to accept Sigma into the fold, too. Kunikida’s the only one who—quite reasonably—cautioned against taking in a member of the group that was trying to destroy our Agency and kill us all just a week ago, but even he knows when he’s fighting a losing battle. We’re throwing a welcome party for Sigma tomorrow. You should come.”

“I decline,” Fyodor said politely.

“Aw, a shame. You could’ve brought some of these pirozhki.” Dazai grabbed another and chomped into it with enthusiasm. “Have I mentioned these are delicious? Did you ever make any for Sigma?”

“Of course. It’s Nikolai’s favorite food. He likes them with beef and cheese. And Genichirou salivates over them almost as much as you’re doing right now.”

Dazai’s eyes sharpened at the mention of Fukuchi—and how interesting that he called the man the same name Fukuzawa used��but he ignored the subject for the moment. “The only problem we really had with Sigma is figuring out accommodations for him if he’s going to be staying with us for a while, but that’s not going to be much of a problem at all, ‘cause as it turns out he’s sitting on a fortune from the Sky Casino. Atsushi just about fainted when Sigma told us how much, roughly, he’s worth.”

Fyodor smiled at that. “He’d do the same if he ever found out about the fortune in blood money a certain someone has been sitting on for four years, no doubt.”

“Eh, I went through most of it while laying low, and what’s left…” Dazai shrugged. “He’s never asked about that, actually, although he’s asked me a few times why I’m always too broke to pay my tab at the café. He doesn’t really think about the fact I used to be in the Mafia. To him it’s like that was a completely different person.”

Something in Fyodor’s face softened, just for a second. “That’s not entirely true,” he said, after a brief pause. Dazai, who had been reaching for another pirozhki, froze in mid-movement. “The boy has just accepted that he’ll never know you. That’s all.”

There had been very few times, in this endless back-and-forth game of theirs, when Fyodor had actually surprised him. Dazai’s hand hovered in the air for a beat, and then fell back to his side. Fyodor was still flipping through the book, sipping at his tea and not looking at Dazai. He spoke as casually as if he was just reminding Dazai of something they both already knew.

“I suppose Sigma feels the same way about you,” Dazai offered, at length.

Fyodor placed his teacup down. It made a small clink sound. “We’re not really here, Dazai. We never have been.”

Dazai looked at him, sitting there on the other side of the table. Raven tresses cascaded to his shoulders and tumbled into his face. That small, secret smile lingered on lips full and pale as white wine. His hands, slender and elegant, lay folded on Complete Guide to Suicide. Serene and poised and readable only as he wished to be. A specter of the death Dazai had always been searching for. Dazai wondered, if he reached across the table, if his hand would pass right through Fyodor’s, like through mist. The night they met, Dazai had wondered the same thing, if Fyodor’s form would shimmer and break apart like a mirage if he tried to touch him, if he’d be able to stick his hand right into where it looked like the other boy’s sternum was and wiggle his fingers in what felt like empty air.

“I talk to him, sometimes. Odasaku.” His gaze drifted from Fyodor to the darkness of his bedroom beyond where they sat. The faint glow of moonlight painted silver the curtains closed over the window. “I sit at his grave and I tell him about the Agency, about how Kunikida drives himself half-mad trying to keep me in line, about Atsushi. He’d like Atsushi. If it was him and Atsushi—together they’d be able to keep me in line. Well, probably. Odasaku never really tried to reel me in, and Atsushi doesn’t, either. Odasaku just…kind of accepted what I am. Atsushi does the same. And Atsushi likes books. He would’ve loved reading the kinds of books Odasaku would have written. So I tell Odasaku all about Atsushi. He’d ask me about Ango, but I don’t have much to tell him, except that I let Ango live. He would have let Ango live, so I did, too.”

“How does he respond? Is he proud of you?”

“Can the dead speak to us?”

“You said you hear his voice, sometimes.”

“Only an echo,” Dazai said, weary. “Did you talk to him, when you sat and prayed at his grave?”

Fyodor’s smile was almost sad. “I did not know him, Dazai. There are no echoes of his voice I would hear.” He straightened; his hands clasped together in a perhaps unconscious imitation of prayer. “I spoke to God, as I always do. Dazai…have you ever asked why a man who wanted life had to die, while you, a man who has wished for nothing but death, still lives?”

Dazai’s mouth was dry. “I’ve wondered.”

His smile twisted into something cold, but there was still sadness in his expression, in his deep violet eyes. “Only in death does the soul find its salvation. Beyond death is silence, the eternal peace we all wish for. Death is not to be feared, but to be embraced, as not an end but a fulfillment of an eternal promise. Death is just, as life cannot be. Many try to deny it, to fight against it, but there are some who walk willingly into its open arms, and it is for them that the promised land awaits. The act of sacrifice purifies us, as once there was one who sacrificed for the purification of the world.”

Dazai shook his head. “Odasaku was killed. Murdered. His death was no great sacrifice. It was not just. It was…”

“A random act of cruelty? A meaningless moment in a world of chaos?”

“Yes.”

Fyodor spread his hands. “Yet here you are.”

Dazai regarded him, carefully impassive. Fyodor had walked him into a forest of bitter, terribly sharp thorns, and with each word he could feel them prick and tear at his skin. Drawing small lines of blood, hardly noticeable at first, until they had shredded his bandages and left every inch of him marred.

Fyodor continued, sedate and uncompromising, unaware of the thorns and their deadly needle points, because they did not touch him. Nothing ever did. “The death of your friend was not the result of a chaotic world, Dazai. It was the result of the actions of men you never had the courage or the conviction to kill. It was not without meaning. That should be clearest of all to you, but the very idea of rationality and order are repulsive to you, even frightening. You cannot imagine that there may be justice, only punishment. You can believe in hell, but you cannot conceive of the very idea that there may be a Heaven. You say that God loves chaos and struggle as a cheap cop-out to deny a truth you cannot bear to accept.”

“I am not denying—” No; that was not the way to keep this conversation going. Fyodor was proselytizing, and it was best to keep him in the mood. “What am I denying?”

“Yourself. All you have done, all the ‘good’ you think you have done, all of it has been to deny yourself. That is why you cannot defeat me. You should know better than to think you can challenge me with such…trite.”

His inflection was unchanged, but his eyes flashed, and just like in the prison, Dazai could not quite help the laugh that burst out of him. He exaggerated it a bit with a knee-slap, in conscious imitation of how he had acted before as they spoke to one another across their cells. “So I did offend you!”

“Only in disappointing me,” Fyodor replied, unruffled, but with a sudden and unexpected shift towards amusement. “I thought you would be more interesting.”

“And I thought you would be less chatty.”

“You should have known better than to think that, too,” Fyodor quipped, and then that glimmer of mirth faded like a dying moonbeam.

“You are right about one thing, Dazai: this world is full of suffering. But no suffering is without meaning. It is a great thing, even, for a man to suffer. In suffering, a soul can find its redemption. In suffering, man finds his purpose. There is no salvation without suffering.”

“Is there no suffering without salvation, then?”

“Can there be?” Fyodor challenged him in return. His eyes glinted, but he looked sad, terribly sad. “Did your friend not find salvation, at the end of his suffering?”

Dazai’s hands clenched and unclenched on the table, just once. Anger, slow and dull, curled like smoke in his chest. He did not reply.

“What is better for a man, in the end? A cheap imitation of happiness, an artificial smile constructed to form the mask of a human being, or a lofty suffering that brings him at last to the truth, and to true peace?”

Dazai offered a smile without mirth. “I have never been good at playing the part of a human being. Odasaku learned where I did not, when it came to that.” He leaned in a little, holding Fyodor’s gaze, maintaining his own composure by the barest thread. Thorns dug deep into his flesh, the bitter taste of blood in his mouth. “Is this what this is all about, Fyodor? You just want a reason for your suffering?”

“I want an end,” Fyodor said. “I am tried, Dazai.”

And he did look tired. Exhausted, and terribly unhappy, terribly desperate. He spread his hands, palms turned outward, perhaps in offering, or supplication. He did not speak with the implacable passion of the fanatic, only with the quiet weariness of the wounded. “I have carried this cross for so very long. I only want to finish the work I have been sent here to do.”

The urge to reach over and take Fyodor’s hands in his was strong, suddenly, but he resisted it. “Whatever we do,” he said, quietly, “we cannot make the world what we want it to be. Even with the Book.”

“Ah, but you don’t believe that at all, do you, Dazai?”

Thorns pricked and tore, and he let Fyodor drag him deeper and deeper in.

“Living itself is sin,” he murmured, almost as if to himself. “And so you wish for death. In that, I suppose we have always been the same.”

“We are not the same.”

Dazai raised his eyes, surprised.

Fyodor’s smile was pale and wan. “You cannot imagine what it truly means to live the life of a human being, but you have always tried. You have kept your agony locked away, hidden and secret, and have perfected yourself in the role of the affable rogue and happy eccentric. Even your attempts at suicide are farcical. People laugh awkwardly when you speak of your wish for death, and then they just ignore you, because they know better than to take you seriously. You keep yourself at a distance from others, but you have never tried to sever your ties to humanity entirely, however tattered and fragile they might be. You despise life, you fear it, even, but you try to live regardless. That is the difference between us, Dazai. I have never wanted to be human. I have never wanted to live.”

Dazai said nothing, only looked at him.

The long silence that followed was at last broken as Fyodor gathered the dirty dishes and the leftover pirozhki and carried it all to the sink. Dazai watched him, fascinated by the way he moved, such unthinking grace. His movements hardly seemed to make a sound, his touch so light and so ephemeral it left the barest of impressions.

We’re not really here, Dazai. We never have been.

Fyodor put the remaining pirozhki in a plastic container that he’d discovered after rummaging briefly through the cabinets. He gave the container a dubious look, and then rinsed and dried it. Dazai couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually used most of the food storage containers or the pots and pans stacked haphazardly in the cabinets under the sink. He mostly lived off take-out and alcohol and canned crab.

Dazai stood up and walked over to him. “I had hoped you’d come here to surrender.”

“No, you didn’t,” Fyodor returned easily. He turned and leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. The top two buttons of the shirt he’d stolen from Dazai’s closet were undone, revealing a tantalizing sliver of flesh. He tilted his head slightly, and now the curve of his smile was almost playful, teasing. Though weariness was an underlayer to it all, belied by those bruised marks under his eyes.

“You sent Sigma to us, handed him and the Page over on a silver platter. What’s left?”

“Neither of us has played our final cards just yet.”

“True. I guess you’re going to let me play mine first, then.”

Dazai reached for him.

Fingertips brushed snow-white skin, the barest of touches. The sensation was so alien to Fyodor that he tensed and caught his breath as if it had given him a minor electrical shock, but he did not pull away. A light, careful caress across his cheek, brushing back the fall of midnight hair, and not for the first time Dazai thought of Snow White, a silent, dreaming beauty in a glass coffin, waiting for a kiss to bring her back from a serene emptiness into life. The thought made him smile, but he’d save that particular joke for later. Fyodor’s eyes were steady and dark as Dazai’s bandaged hand cupped the side of his face, tilting his head up, and his lips parted just slightly as Dazai bent in to claim them.

Dazai kissed him slow, drew him into this unfamiliar rhythm. Fyodor seemed more than content to allow Dazai to lead. His hands settled on Dazai’s shoulders, seeking an anchor against the sudden onrush of sensations he had never known and never permitted himself to imagine. Dazai wrapped an arm around his slim waist and pulled Fyodor to him, bodies flush against one another, slipping a hand beneath Fyodor’s shirt to rest at the small of his back. Fyodor arched against him at the touch, letting out a soft sound into Dazai’s mouth, and Dazai seized the opportunity to dive in and taste him fully, a heady, liquid heat curving down his spine and pooling below the waist. And for all that this was completely new to Fyodor, there was no hesitancy in him, no uncertainty. Delicate fingers rose up to curl into Dazai’s hair, drawing them impossibly closer.

Dazai gripped his hip, pushed him back against the counter until he had the other man pinned there, fingers digging into vulnerable flesh with a surge of barely contained hunger. Fyodor’s hips jerked a little in response, and Dazai could feel him beginning to harden beneath thin fabric, an answer to the already maddening hot pulse of lust aching in Dazai’s groin. Dazai pushed his thigh between Fyodor’s legs and dropped both hands to dig into his hips, grinding him down, greedily swallowing the gasp that elicited.

Easy, he chided himself suddenly. Go easy.

They broke for air and Dazai pulled back a little, loosening his grip with abrupt, belated remorse. His thumbs traced circles across Fyodor’s hipbones, as if to soothe away bruises not yet formed. A light kiss to the corner of his mouth might almost have been an apology.

Fyodor looked at him, half-lidded violet eyes and kiss-swollen lips that curved gently in a hint of amusement, because of course Fyodor knew exactly what he was thinking. Fingers traced the line of his jaw as Fyodor bent in to steal another kiss.

Dazai plunged one hand back into the softness of dark hair and moved to mouth a line down his neck, suckling at the quickening pulse, savoring the way Fyodor tilted back to give him better access. With his other hand he fumbled with the buttons of Fyodor’s shirt, tracing open-mouthed patterns down every inch of skin revealed. His lips closed over a nipple, flesh hardening with a surprised hitch of breath; Fyodor had not expected this, and Dazai grinned and nipped playfully at the little peak, basking in a moment of smug triumph. A shudder went through Fyodor, muscles tensing as a bandaged palm brushed across the flat planes of his bared stomach.

Fyodor’s hands were still on his face, and with the slightest pressure he coaxed Dazai back up into another kiss, those skillful musician’s fingers working to return the favor and undo the buttons of Dazai’s shirt along with his already loosened tie. In a flash of impatience, Dazai shed himself of the unwanted articles of clothing, tossing them carelessly to the floor. Fyodor paused to regard him, hands traveling lightly down Dazai’s chest, over the coarseness of bandages. Questions that had been asked a million times by a dozen different people—why do you cover yourself up like this?—flashing across his countenance, answers Dazai never gave—maybe I don’t really know, maybe it’s just some small sense of comfort—trailing them like shadows, and Dazai looked to see himself through those eyes, to see how he appeared to Fyodor in this moment, if it was anything like how Fyodor appeared to him. Fyodor lifted his gaze to meet Dazai’s, his hands settling on Dazai’s stomach, fingers splayed, feeling the unsteady rise and fall of his breath. Dazai leaned in to press his brow to Fyodor’s, keeping his eyes open even as Fyodor let his slip closed, shared breaths filling the barest of spaces left between them.

“Come on,” Dazai murmured at last. Taking Fyodor’s hands in his, he guided them to the bedroom.

He had noticed the conspicuous absence of empty bottles and fast food containers in the living room, but here it was even more obvious; the place was practically sparkling. “You cleaned up, I see,” he observed dryly.

“Even rats have standards, Dazai,” Fyodor said, affecting a prim and haughty sniff. “And I wasn’t going to be fucked in the middle of a trash heap.”

Dazai laughed and dropped down onto the mat. He tried to drag Fyodor down with him, but Fyodor, as agile as a dancer, shifted his feet to maintain his balance and lowered himself into Dazai’s lap. They met once more in a heated kiss. Dazai wrapped his arms around Fyodor’s waist, slipping hands back underneath his open shirt. Now Dazai had the leverage; he flipped Fyodor over onto his back on the mat, eagerly swallowing down the little breath of laughter that earned him.

Dazai took his time exploring pale, smooth skin and lean muscle. He wanted to drown Fyodor in sensation without overwhelming him, touch-starved as he was, a precarious balance Dazai wasn’t used to. Fyodor was deliciously responsive to his touch, squirming beneath him with the slightest caress of fingertips, his breath coming short and rapid between kisses. He moaned as Dazai suckled his neck, and the sound vibrated through Dazai’s entire body like thunder, set off a hollow roar in his head like an inferno bursting to life, lethal heat rushing straight to his cock, throbbing and insistent and increasingly uncomfortable trapped in the chaffing fabric of his pants. He traced his lips across Fyodor’s chest, briefly catching a frantic heartbeat, then down his side and his abdomen, outlining the contours of a body delicate as porcelain and deadly as steel, the faint salty taste making his thoughts hazy and disconnected. He pressed a light kiss to a sliver of exposed hipbone, and the shudder that went through Fyodor echoed the sweet anticipation that was going to drive Dazai mad if he dragged this on too much longer.

He lifted his head and shifted back a little, taking a moment to let Fyodor catch his breath—and catch his own—and to take in the sight of him, splayed out beneath him. Fyodor looked back, his hair fanned out across the pillow. They had not bothered to turn on the bedroom light, and in the dim contrast of silver-white moonlight and the orangish glow from the kitchen, flushed skin glimmered with a thin sheen of sweat. His arms rested above his head, fingers curled loosely into the mat. Legs spread, knees bracketing Dazai’s waist. His eyes shadowed and brilliant, shining like long-hidden jewels. Beautiful as a dream.

Carefully, watching his face, Dazai slid his fingers under the waistband of Fyodor’s pants. Fyodor lifted his hips to help him tug them off. Dazai curved his hands under his knees, a grazing kiss across the soft flesh of his thigh. His other hand reached up to cup the hardness between his legs, silky skin ablaze beneath his palm, and Fyodor breathed out a quivering moan, straining against that touch as if his body was trying to move away and arch into it at the same time. Dazai flashed a wicked grin and began to stroke him, his grip teasingly light. Fyodor shuddered with every movement of his hand. His eyes fluttered half-closed but remained on Dazai’s face, his thin chest rising and falling with each panting breath. Dazai had him now in the palm of his hand—quite literally—and the feeling of power, of victory, was as heady and intoxicating and dangerous as the pleasure that burned in his blood. Only his desire for death had ever been this strong, this desperate and all-consuming, and how fitting it was, because he had never been as close to death as he was now. He was eager, too eager, to be closer.

He bent, licking slow strokes up the hard length. Fyodor gasped, muscles tensing under Dazai’s hands as he spread Fyodor’s thighs wider. He sucked the tip of Fyodor’s cock into his mouth, the taste of arousal on his tongue, and sank down little by little, taking it easy for Fyodor’s consideration rather than his own. Chuuya had never had much in the way of consideration, and Dazai had never had much to give in return. With the two of them, the line between fucking and fighting had always been thinly drawn, and their couplings had been exchanges of pain and pleasure that were never intended to be equal. Things had not been much different with the other nameless and faceless lovers, male and female, that had filled the time in between his departure from the Mafia and his acceptance into the Detective Agency.

But this—this was different. Fyodor had known pain all his life; it was all anyone had ever given him. Dazai intended to give him everything he had never known.

He closed his eyes as delicate fingers tangled almost tentatively into his hair. Fyodor moaned low and restrained, his hips moving just slightly, falling effortlessly into the rhythm that Dazai set. As always, they were as in tune as long-time dance partners, and the advantage that Dazai’s experience gave him meant little with how easy it was for Fyodor to read his steps and follow them.

One hand braced under Fyodor’s thigh, with the other Dazai groped over the bedside table until he found a small bottle, not-so-discreetly set in between the alarm clock and an unopened bottle of alcohol. The fact that it was still precisely where it always was probably meant that Fyodor hadn’t touched it while he was picking up all the other shit Dazai had had strewn about, which was mildly amusing.

He rose, one last playful lick making Fyodor squirm before Dazai captured his mouth in a deep, hungry kiss. Fyodor’s hands cradled his face, and perhaps it was the taste of himself on Dazai’s tongue that brought the sigh of Dazai’s name to his lips. The sound sent a shiver down Dazai’s spine that Fyodor followed with his fingers down his chest. He unhooked Dazai’s belt and undid the button of his pants. Impatiently, Dazai shifted to push them off. Once he had finally divested the both of them of what remained of their clothing, he finally broke the kiss and shoved Fyodor back down onto the mat. Fyodor smirked up at him, his hands pressed flat against Dazai’s bandaged chest. He was breathtaking like this, breathless and sweat-slick and completely bare. Dazai had never wanted to be inside someone so much in his life.

He popped open the bottle, never taking his eyes off of Fyodor’s face, and slicked up two fingers before tossing it aside. With his other hand he reached up to brush sweat-damp tresses from Fyodor’s brow, fingertips tracing a tender caress down his cheek. Fyodor’s expression softened into a smile that stirred a warmth within Dazai that had nothing to do with the lust thrumming through his veins. He discarded it at once, careful not to examine it too closely.

Fyodor’s breath hitched when Dazai pressed a finger to his entrance. He kissed Fyodor’s stomach, feeling the muscles flutter as his body clenched around the intrusion, the unfamiliar sensation.

“Relax,” Dazai murmured against his skin, and made sure Fyodor could feel the curve of a playful and taunting grin. “Are you nervous?”

A shaky laugh vibrated through them both, and he sounded just on the edge of overwhelmed. “Are you nervous, Dazai?” Almost purring, and dammit, just when Dazai thought he firmly had the upper hand, Fyodor had to go and do something that nearly made him come in his pants like an overexcited teenager. A constant stalemate.

In retaliation, he nipped at Fyodor’s hip, just enough to make him wince.

He pushed in, little by little, first one finger and then two, gentle pressure until something gave, all the while peppering kisses over Fyodor’s chest and stomach, tracing quivers of muscle and ragged breaths. He curled his fingers and knew he’d found the right spot when Fyodor gasped. He pressed down, and the sound of his name falling from Fyodor’s lips was like something divine.

Dazai stole a glance at his face; eyes shut, a slight pinch to his brow betraying discomfort that was quickly receding against a burgeoning tide of pleasure.

When he pulled back, Fyodor’s eyes fluttered open, hazy and blown almost black. Dazai traced the line of his jaw with kisses, significantly less gentle when he claimed his mouth, the bruising hunger a contrast to the movements of his fingers. Once again, though, Fyodor was not to be outdone, and it was him who bit at Dazai’s bottom lip, making Dazai groan, unable to help it.

“Fuck, I’m going to ruin you,” he promised. Fyodor laughed, tingling warmth he could taste.

He pushed Fyodor’s knees back against his chest, and if his patience hadn’t already been whittled down to practically nothing at this point, he might have taken a little longer to admire this, Fyodor spread out beneath him like an offering, narrow chest flushed and heaving, cock hard against his stomach. And to bask in the way Fyodor was looking at him, as if he was the only thing in the world, as if everything else around them had fallen away, all their plans and schemes, all the destruction they left in their wake. The smell of sex saturated the air, thick and heady. Dazai hoped Fyodor could see himself through Dazai’s eyes, just as Dazai had tried to see himself through Fyodor’s, that Fyodor could see how beautiful and how positively obscene he looked like this.

He braced a hand on Fyodor’s stomach, feeling the hiss of breath as he entered him, slow, sinking in and pulling back, until he was fully sheathed in exquisite heat. Tight, impossibly tight. Fyodor’s eyes slipped closed again. Long lashes, delicate as the rest of him, rested dark against defined cheekbones. His fingers had the mat in a death-grip, but the pain that tightened his features soon melted away with a sigh that formed into a whisper of Dazai’s name as they began to move together, with deliberate slowness, tension drawn into liquid as his body learned to adjust.

Dazai groaned. All perception narrowed down to every point of contact between them—the weight of Fyodor’s legs on his shoulders, sweat-slick skin beneath his palms, molten heat around his cock. He could drown in this, like throwing himself into the river, like the unnaturally heavy waters of Meursault they had tossed each other into like kids pushing one another into a pool. Dazai shifted, the rocking of his hips still torturously slow, and Fyodor’s back arched, a soft cry falling from his lips. Distantly, Dazai was aware that he was speaking, his voice shaky and harsh—that’s it, baby, that’s it, perfect, you’re perfect, you’re mine, mine—but he hardly knew what he was saying, focused so completely on the rising friction of flesh on flesh, on every little reaction of Fyodor’s, every gasp and stuttering moan that he could feel as much as hear.

With a shift of their bodies, he draped himself over Fyodor, and wrapped his fingers around Fyodor’s wrist, maneuvering his hands above his head and holding them there, his grip loose. Bent almost in half, Fyodor locked his knees against Dazai’s sides, and the change in angle had him moaning with every thrust inside him. He turned his face into the pillow, dark hair falling over his closed eyelids. His hands clenched and unclenched, though he did not strain against Dazai’s hold. Dazai quickened his pace, his movements shallower, a continuing stream of praises and promises tumbling disjointedly from his tongue as every coherent thought was submerged beneath the tide of pleasure, rushing deliriously towards its crest.

Dazai let his forehead fall against Fyodor’s shoulder, and all he could think was how perfectly they melded together. It was this that would be the end of him, he knew. It was not being outdone that he had ever had to fear; it was being perfectly matched. And how blissful it was to be undone, how eagerly he dived toward his own undoing, as ever.

His other hand still pinning Fyodor’s wrists to the mat, he reached to take hold of Fyodor’s neglected cock, now trapped between them, rubbing perhaps uncomfortably against the bandages wrapped around Dazai’s torso. Fyodor tossed his head back against the pillow, mouth falling open in a wordless cry, his body growing taut as he came, liquid heat spilling over Dazai’s hand. Dazai fucked him gently through it, until at last he stilled, pleasure so great his vision whited out and all the strength sapped out of his limbs. He thought he might have shouted, and he thought Fyodor might have said his name, but he could hear nothing over the roaring in his ears.

He collapsed on top of Fyodor, utterly spent. Fyodor wrapped slender arms around his shoulders, fingers carding through his hair. It felt good. Dazai buried his face into Fyodor’s neck with a contended hum. Satisfaction lay heavy within the silence that wrapped around them like a blanket, unraveling into the slowing cadence of their breathing.

It might have been hours, or days, or maybe it was only a couple of minutes—time, Dazai had come to understand, was the most fickle of masters; it dragged and jerked its helpless prisoners around ever relentless and uncompromising, but often seemed terribly inconsistent in its consistency, the marching rhythm it ordered never feeling like much of a rhythm at all—before Fyodor started to shove gently, even playfully, at Dazai’s shoulders. Dazai, taking the hint, rolled off him and flopped inelegantly onto his back. Reluctant to come down from this high and let the world settle back into its accustomed place around them, he kept his eyes closed against the inevitability of reality. Beside him, he heard Fyodor let out a final deep, prolonged sigh and the faint rustle of the mat as the other man shifted. A hand touched his chest, fingertips tracing random patterns over the bandages. Time, Dazai decided, was going to stop right here, at least for the two of them.

“I don’t want to move,” he confided to Fyodor.

“Then don’t,” Fyodor suggested.

“Okay,” Dazai replied, perfectly agreeable.

Much to his chagrin, however, Fyodor had other ideas. The hand on his chest withdrew and the mat rustled faintly again as Fyodor sat up. Quite begrudgingly, Dazai opened his eyes. Moonlight slanted across long pale limbs as he stretched, his hair mussed, his eyes half-lidded and sleepy, and Dazai thought he had never seen anything quite so magnificent.

He ran a hand up the curve of Fyodor’s spine, relishing the way Fyodor leaned into the touch, the sweet little shiver that went through his body. “And where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m going to use your shower again. I feel gross.”

Dazai snorted at that. “Who knew rats could be such prima-donnas.”

A small frown tugged briefly at the corners of Fyodor’s mouth. “I hate feeling dirty.”

There was a lot underneath that statement, years buried under layers of memories and secrets, but Dazai would try to unpack all of that later, when he wasn’t so exhausted and when he didn’t keep getting distracted by the sight of bare skin and the heat beneath his palm, resting now at the small of Fyodor’s back. There was another critical issue facing him at the moment. His brow furrowed in serious contemplation as he confronted this most pressing of decisions. He really did not want to move. He wanted to just lay here for the rest of eternity—or at least until he fell asleep. But the idea of the shower was a very tempting one. Specifically, the idea of Fyodor in the shower was a very tempting one.

“All right,” he announced, just as Fyodor was starting to get up. “The shower isn’t made for two, but we can make it work.”

Fyodor appraised him dubiously, eyebrows raised. “Are you going to shower with the bandages on?”

Ah. Well, here was another conundrum.

With a grunt, he pushed himself up into a sitting position. Amusement settled across Fyodor’s expression, and he pulled his knees up to his chest, tilting his head to the side slightly in that way he did. Watching Dazai under his lashes, an impish edge to the languid curve of his smile, waiting for Dazai to retreat from the obvious challenge or to rise bravely to meet it. Dazai, for his part, considered both options carefully, but in the end the urge to kiss that infuriatingly smug smile and take back the upper hand was too strong.

He started to remove the bandages himself, but surrendered to Fyodor’s deft fingers to finish the laborious effort of unwrapping himself. The bandages piled around his waist; he pushed them off. Fyodor’s hands settled on his now exposed chest.

“You’re beautiful,” he said, and kissed Dazai, softly, lingeringly. Dazai closed his eyes again, the harsh, cold edges of the world fading out once more against the brush of silken hair across his face and the delicate pressure of a hand over his heart.

“I thought maybe you were covering scars, at first,” Fyodor continued. “Marks of your past attempts to free yourself from this nightmare of life you despise so profoundly. But then I realized that you do it not to shield yourself, but to deceive others. The bandages are a lie, as everything about you is.”

“This isn’t a lie,” Dazai whispered.

Fyodor laughed, a small, tired sound. Dazai kissed him with sudden force, pulling him in close and holding him almost painfully tight. He did not let go until Fyodor half-dragged him into the tiny shower, the taste of a smile sweet on his lips.

…

Sleep had not cradled him in its succoring arms for very long before a cry—not his own—woke him with a small start.

Fyodor was sitting up. Outside the window, the moon had begun its descent over the city, and in the dim silver light Dazai could only see the curve of Fyodor’s back, hunched over slightly. The harsh sound of his breathing filled the darkness.

Dazai placed a hand in the hollow between his shoulderblades and felt that he was trembling. He felt terribly fragile beneath Dazai’s palm, too thin, too frail, like he could shatter in another moment. And what a sight that would be, to watch him crack and finally break, every façade crumbling away to dust. Dazai almost wanted to see it. Instead he held his hand, bare, without the bandages, there pressed to Fyodor’s back, to hold him together.

“Who is it?” he asked in a whisper. “Whose grave would you have gone to instead if you could?”

“There is no grave.” His voice frayed, a thread unraveling. “It doesn’t matter. The saints of this world must always spill their blood for the sake of the sinners. That is how it is.”

Dazai lifted his hand to curl around the back of Fyodor’s neck. A small comfort, perhaps, as insubstantial as the matchbook he carried in his pocket, but under his touch the tension uncoiled from Fyodor’s frame. He took in a deep breath, and it was steady.

Nightmares, Dazai thought, are a very human thing. I wonder if that’s ever occurred to you. Probably it hadn’t.

“Come back here,” he said.

Fyodor did. Dazai circled an arm around his waist and tugged him close, back to chest, burying his face in luxurious black hair. He did not fall back asleep until he knew Fyodor had, too.

#fyozai #Bungou Stray Dogs #Fyodor Dostoevsky #Dazai Osamu #Fyodor #Dazai #otp: cat and mouse #OHHHHH BOY #have part one of this #also all the notes about the references are on the notes on AO3 :3 #*fics

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