Chapter Text
Here's a fact that no one else knows about Dazai's ability: Powers aren't the only thing he nullifies. No Longer Human, who is always active, shuts down and reduces, or completely disappears, every emotion Dazai feels before he can fully feel it. All the physical sensations of pain he retains, but his ability takes away his hunger, the taste of things, the desire to live. It makes him, just as the name of the skill says, into something not human enough. And since he's always been active, this is how Dazai has lived his entire life, wishing for death because whatever it means to be alive he can't have.
Of course he could feel, he was not a robot. That's why he preferred to refer to himself as not human enough instead of just plain non-human. It's just that it was much more like having the idea of the feeling than the feeling itself.
If he had to describe it with an example, he would have said that it was as if everyone else carried their feelings and sensations inside them, while Dazai's were inside a very deep cave and all he could reach were the echoes of these. With hunger or sleep it's especially tricky, it's not that he doesn't want to take care of himself, it's that he doesn't really feel either that things, however his body still needs both eating and sleeping, so it's especially counterproductive.
Dazai feels in echoes. Sometimes, when the feeling is strong enough, there is a burst, but it soon fades, leaving behind, again, only the echo of what it was.
It happened with Odasaku. Dazai knew that he loved his friend, even if he only felt the echoes of that adoration, he knew that he cared for him more than anyone else, he knew that he could feel warm next to him (which was partly why Oda caught his attention in the first place). And when he died, the pain had exploded in his chest like a thousand blades. It only lasted an instant, not even long enough to cry, but it was the most heartbreaking thing I'd ever felt. Afterwards, only the echo remained, the feeling of emptiness, of lack. Dazai thinks that this is worse than pain because if all you have left of a person when they die is what you feel for that person, what did Dazai have left of Odasaku? The answer is only one: His absence in every way.
It is for all of the above that Dazai lives from his mind, from calculations, probabilities, analysis and predictions. His intelligence is and has been, in many ways, his main weapon for survival since he set foot on the world. He is intelligent like few and does not feel like many. He observes, predicts and advances, he learns everything he lacks, how hunger seems to be seen in people, or joy. He imitates, a little over the top at times, but he learns quickly that a clown goes unnoticed, so that's okay. And deep down, deep down, maybe he's just acting like the person he wants to be: Someone who is undeniably human.
Dazai had never told anyone the true extent of his ability, except of course Odasaku, and that was only after a suicide attempt left him particularly vulnerable. It was the reason that Odasaku, dying, had been able to say with such certainty that Dazai did not care about good or evil, because he knew that Dazai was, because of his ability, unable to feel strongly enough to feel passion with one side or the other.
What even Odasaku didn't know was that Dazai deeply hated this about himself, the side effect of his ability. As much as he could hate something in echoes without real force.
Mori was the only other person who knew. Not because Dazai had shared it willingly with him, but because they had pretty much figured out together the source of Dazai's inability to feel like other humans, studying Dazai and his layered ability back in the days when Mori liked to play that Dazai was a insect in his microscope. Mori loved this characteristic of Dazai that was granted to him by No Longer Human. He made him, in his words, the perfect subordinate: Dazai could carry out any assignment without remorse, he could endure tortures that no one else could, he could spend weeks in captivity without food and sleep, he could see and experience the most horrible things because he didn't care. They caused no emotional damage in him.
Dazai, although he could admit that it was very useful for all those aforementioned cases, did not share Mori's idea that it was something wonderful. He felt more like a hollow doll, always wanting to die, but only because he couldn't live.
In fact, the brunette used to envy Chuuya (although he would die painfully before admitting it), because the redhead always seemed to be feeling too much, exploding and also getting emotional over the smallest things. It was like an overflowing river and Dazai longed for that, the ability to be able to live life instead of just being an outside observer of it.
It made him want to die so bad. And he tried, many times.
Obviously he was unsuccessful.
The thing with his obsession with suicide is that, ironically, nothing made him feel alive except being on the brink of death. At that moment, he was just like any other human being, and death simply represented the end of his torturous incomplete life.
Death made him human like nothing else did.
Dazai sometimes wondered what his teammates would think if they found out. What would Kunikida, or Atsushi, or Yosano say, if they found out that the person they are working with is not human?
What would Chuuya have said if he had known? Well, Chuuya probably would have laughed victoriously, considering how many times he questioned whether Dazai was actually human.
Dazai also sometimes wonders if he really likes his teammates. He knows, very mentally, that he cares about them and he wants to keep them safe, because they are good and they care and they are who Odasaku would have wanted him to be with, but Dazai can't know how he feels about them, or if he has feelings for them at all. Do you really care? He desperately wants to believe yes and acts on it, sometimes there are even bits of moments, sparks that have made him think yes, but he doesn't know for sure, he can't know for sure, and that's horrible, he's horrible...
Perhaps, he thinks, it's better not to know, not if the answer would end what little humanity Dazai pretends he retains.
It was easier when he was in the Por Mafia, because there everyone was trying not to show any emotion that would make them look weak and Dazai not showing emotion was more admirable than strange or suspicious. He didn't need to pretend then, not the way he does now.
Even with Chuuya, who aroused Dazai's particular interest, it was easier. Chuuya didn't expect anything from him, the Slug wouldn't even have been surprised if Dazai had explained what his power did to himself. Still, he did come to think on a few occasions, before Odasaku's death and before he left the mafia, that maybe he cared a little for Chuuya. He didn't know, and then he assured himself that it wasn't like that, but there were moments, when Chuuya's blue eyes showed longing and something akin to sincere care and concern when he looked at Dazai, that made the brunette want to reciprocate to at least a little bit of all those feelings, or at least to know if he have. But he can't know that, not for sure, no matter what he think about it.
Chuuya still doesn't understand (and will never know) that Dazai did him a favor, that he made him hate him so that all that caring, worry, and longing would disappear from his eyes, so that he would understand that Dazai was, and always would be, nothing more than a lost cause, just a worthless undertaking.
Despite everything, he prefers the life he has now, with the agency, because it is the life that Odasaku wanted him to have.
In the end, it's useless to worry about what ifs? His ability will never fade, so he will never know the answers to any of those questions that constantly torment him, he will never feel hunger, or the taste of food, or enjoy the warmth of the sun on his cheeks, he will never know what is to be passionate about something, and a million other things. He's learned to live with it until he's finally allowed to die, always too far from others even though he's with them, always off the board.
Dazai sighs and gets up from where he was sitting with his back against a gravestone. He brushes the grass off his pants and looks at the headstone.
"I'm trying, Odasaku" he murmurs, "can you see me trying?"
Later, when he leaves the cemetery, he leaves with the same thought as always: It will never be enough, it will never be different.
In the end, you can replace what's broken, but what do you do with what's never been there?