[ Well, that's not surprising. It's a fairly obscure story. ]
The title says it all. There was once a wise man; an old safe who believed that he had no love for his fellow man and wished to be left alone with his studies. He turned away the poor, the widowed, and the orphans, irritated by them; and when he buried his father, he solemnly wished he had no heart.
Thus, he sought and later summoned Fortune, and when asked what he wished for sad, "Perfect happiness. Fortune herself is my desire."
He considered Fortune a force of nature and could not be found in money, nor good eating and drinking, and instead clarified that he wished to have no heart. After that, he was able to see the greatest want and distress without feeling troubled. He thought himself happier than all others for this.
One day, he was visited by a prince who who had been sent to the neighboring kingdom along with his brother to find a wife. The prince pitied him for being a person who had no wife and no children; who found no pleasure in nature or the blessing of living with others.
But the old sage said, "I have never married, and I never shall. My time is too valuable to be spent in the careless world, which seems to live only for idle pleasures and trifling pursuits. I live for a grand purpose," and, "I have thought and studied for many years, but perfectly happy I never was until I lost my heart. I have lost that, and do not wish to have it back."
The prince promised to find the wise man a wife. He found in the neighboring kingdom two princesses. He visited the old sage with them in tow, and proclaimed that they were not suitable for him. Enraged, the old sage turned two into stone, and kept the remaining princess to use as a slave - a "wife." You can imagine her distress, but her tears meant nothing to him and her pleas for mercy fell upon deaf ears.
One day, the elder prince came looking for the younger one. After feeding an eagle and saving a mole, he he was granted their kindness in finding the philosopher's heart. He returned it to the man, who pleaded to have his heart and his youth returned, that he might live like other men.
There now, the prince and princesses were freed, and by the philosopher's chair there stood a small boy. This man had found his heart again, and was to begin life afresh.
"For none of God's creatures can live without a heart," is the ending and the moral.
[ It could be mistaken as being about Dazai, but it's not. After all, Dazai never had any particular inclination to study, nor does he reject companionship; quite the opposite in fact, where it seems as though he was born without a heart and thus incapable of having what he wants most. Likewise, he finds that age has yet to make him worse rather than better. It seems unlikely to him that it could.
So, what's the point of sharing this story? Well, it's just one of his whims.
Dazai pauses, allowing his companion to take everything in before asking, ]
[Odasaku listens dutifully, as he always does. He takes in the story, attempting to play through the scenes in his head just like he would while reading a book. He always does better, trying to visualize things like that. He finds there are some pieces missing - questions he has that only reading the tale himself might answer; still...]
I think I get it. It's not quite the same as ignorance being bliss, but...
[He takes a drag on his cigarette, withholding the smoke as he considers; he lets it out slowly, straight up into the air.]
Someone could give away their heart. When you can't tell the difference between something terrible and something beautiful, then neither can affect you. There's strength to it...
[That would be an empty life; painless, but empty. Is that a worthy trade? He doesn't know. If one never has, then they can never lose; it's a seductive thought.]
Seems to me he lived just fine without a heart. I'm not sure you can say that happiness was false if there was no alternative, but...
[Blue eyes glance at Dazai. It's one of those moments where he's not quite sure he's getting things right. He feels unmoored, and who could blame him? Dazai has sent him adrift in the sea. Nothing makes sense. But Odasaku's heart is open.
[It aches.
[It bleeds.
[It hurts, but...]
I'm glad he got his heart back. Seems it was waiting for him all that time, wasn't it?
Dazai, who has never been anything but himself, has no ability to see the appeal of having neither. In truth, it seems to him no better or worse than any other. But he's never seen much difference between those dichotomies that humans draw.
Odasaku must have been lonely though. It would be easier back home where he had the orphans and the restaurant owner too, his own mock-family unit, but here and now it's just the two of them. That's why Dazai concluded that he needed others.
He reaches his hand out, letting it brush up against the back of Oda's wrist before he draws it up to his chin. It's a small token of acknowledgment. ]
He had no concern for welfare of others, so he never made those miraculous discoveries that were at his fingertips. He studied for years to gain perfect happiness, but perfect happiness was being without a heart.
[ With or without a heart, then, he hadn't achieved that happiness he wished for. ]
He did retrieve his heart in the end, but he never obtained what he had spent all that time seeking — the nature phenomena known as "Fortune." [ He ponders this for a moment, ] Or maybe he did.
"Fortune" is a force of nature, like lightning or gravitation, which brings about "perfect happiness." The "Fortune" he summoned could only grant a singular wish - removing his heart; but not completely, just hiding it away. You were right, Odaskau, to just have it hidden is just to be awaiting its return...
[ Dazai nods, certain of this. It must be correct, as the story itself promises that no living being can exist without a heart.
But that does not define what the sage was looking for. It does not speak of the Fortune that he wished for. Nor should it. It's a fairy tale with a simple moral. No one ought to look that deeply into it, and no one does, and Dazai does not either - rather, he searches for something in speaking of it, something that which cannot be found, ]
The age despaired after despairing at the state of the world, and after losing his father... He was just in a state of a despair...
[ Despair of a world that showed him only beggars, widowers, and orphans. Despair of a world that only left him digging his father's grave. Does that touch him? Does it matter? There's not a single thing that hints at is, for Dazai remains with his hand held up to his chin, thoughtful.
Then, suddenly, his shoulders shake and he covers his mouth to stifle a laugh, ]
Yes... I understand. I know what "Fortune" is...
[ A single glance at Odasaku, that slight opportunity to offer his opinion, though Dazai is ever happy enough to go on without. ]
[Hearing Dazai laugh like that, proclaiming he's found the answer...Odasaku really can't stop to offer his opinion. He wants to know what comes next too badly.]
[ He does think to press the other. He wants to hear what Fortune is, but in the end it's the same as always; Odasaku speaks, and Dazai speaks more. That's why they can interact like this.
Odasaku can listen to him, and Dazai can watch him - can listen to him, can do so much more, as only Dazai can, and so they can understand each other. ]
"Fortune" is what can take your heart away, and is what can replace it... "Fortune" is what can erase who you were, that which can make you afresh... It can do all of that. It is a force of nature, like lightning or a hurricane, yet you can never catch it except for but a moment...
[ He exhales softly, ]
It's an age old riddle, isn't it? Ah, it's so generic that it bores me... It is "time." It is "time," because if you remove those years, those nightmares of years of only seeing human suffering will disappear; he can be reborn at the end because he has forgotten the loss of his father and will never know it again... Isn't that better?
[ But Dazai's frown deepens as he folds his arms, his eyes closing as his chin tilts down. There's this uncertain look, like he truly does not know what is the better option, before his eyes flutter open and he looks back to Odasaku.]
"Fortune" is as simple as "ignorance," wouldn't you say? Or at least, "time."
[ Ignorance is bliss, or so the saying goes, but that's not quite what Dazai means either - it's something more nebulous than that. It's ignorance of the horrors of the world. It's ignorance of everything save what's important. Those personal secrets, those lost loves, everything that one can hold near and dear.
Everything that time claims with the same proficiency as the Grim Reaper's scythe.
And so "Fortune" must be time itself. That desire to not only be young, but dumb and curious, interested in only other men.
[Isn't "time" what Dazai's just been afforded? Odasaku doesn't necessarily think that the man is speaking of himself, but it fits, doesn't it? Although he seems aware of all that's come to pass since they first arrived here, his mind is surely in an entirely different place. He's ostensibly had years of pain removed (there is some dissonance, here, that Dazai is as he was in the past, Odasaku's present, but not the future he'd known). It has to be a balm, doesn't it, given all that Dazai has lost? Odasaku might not have considered his own death all that significant before it came to pass, but he remembers that terrible look in his beloved friend's eyes...
[He watches him now, and Odasaku's expression has only just barely shifted, but on a face like his, it looks half-broken open. He nods his head. He gets it, he thinks. Maybe he's wrong. Maybe he's always been wrong, never right about one thing in his life - he's not sure anymore. He's not sure of anything.
[But if fortune is "time," then they've both been given it - Dazai has had time removed, and Odasaku has had more added to the clock. He's grateful. He is...
[And he can't say that he wouldn't allow himself to be robbed, had he the choice. The memories he holds of those children that he loved so deeply are cherished, but, then again, they can't be; holding onto them for even a mere second is so painful that he can't cope. Wouldn't it be better to have that pain removed entirely?
[The truth is, Odasaku's entire life has been built from pain. He's just not good at admitting it - to himself, to anyone. He's not all that good at feeling pain, really. He coped with it for a long enough time, but when all is said and done, twenty-three is awfully young to burn out...
[His throat feels thick and tight. He puts his cigarette between his lips in an effort to control his expression, slowly breathing in. He speaks without exhaling, at first.]
You're right.
[He breathes out the smoke. When he talks, his voice sounds the same as it did when he was still holding it in.]
Anyway you look at it. You're right.
[He looks at Dazai-- He...can't stop looking at him.
[Dazai.
[He realizes all at once that he loves him. Of course he loves him. How couldn't he love him? He always has. He always will.
Hmm... Though wouldn't you say that what he did is also a form of suicide? He killed himself, and he killed his father for the second time.
[ Everything always loops back to that, but there is a gravity to those words, something dark that doesn't quite sync up, like he's suddenly displeased with his own conclusions.
He doesn't entirely mind it. If he didn't like the outcome, Dazai would have no qualms about killing the person that he was; everything about them, every last part of their existence, every single remainder that another person might find, subsume it, replace it, but it's only himself that he wants to die. It's only that future self, who should be replaced.
That story could be about him, but it's not, because sometimes pain is a precious and treasured thing too. It's a poison that he thinks he might willingly swallow down and refuse the antidote if only it served some purpose.
Those are feelings he's had often here, ones which are a natural extension of who he is, so he can't entirely ignore them as he can so many others.
Still, whatever complicated feelings might lay beneath that statement are quickly lost, locked away as his expression warms, his smile reappearing. Dazai is ever oblivious to his own feelings, but that shift in Odasaku doesn't go unnoticed. ]
... Well! That has nothing to do with you or I though, Odasaku, since we're both still alive. Isn't it nice? It needs some adjustments, but we have our very own fountain of youth! We have "Fortune" at our fingertips!
[ He does laugh now. That is lucky, isn't it? Though this seems to be more like a rubberband. He'll snap back into place eventually. ]
[Dazai has always talked about suicide - easily, casually, even flippantly.
[It started feeling different after Odasaku, himself, failed to die.
[He wonders how many times he'd give everything away for the sake of selfish relief. They've been given time - "fortune". He might not have thought he wanted it, only three short months ago.]
What is it? [Odasaku's voice is quiet. He leans down to stub his cigarette out on the ground, then tucks the spent filter back into his pack.]
[ Dazai folds his hands behind his head. The stars are in the sky, the same as ever. The same sky he's ever seen. It's not all that hard at all to sift through his memories, his thoughts and emotions, as they all just come with the dull sense of something being wrong.
There's a slight pause, and whatever he might have originally said is gone, locked away. Instead what he says is, ]
I say that he was looking for "fortune," but it's a bit different. It was something that doesn't exist in any world.
[ As to what that something was, he doesn't seem willing to elaborate any further. ]
... Well, sorry for worrying you. You have to wait at least a couple weeks though, you know? I've let myself get kidnapped, faked my own death, been hospitalized for days...
[ The list goes on, and as it does he points to his index finger first, then the other four. ]
I always show up eventually though, don't I? So, you shouldn't worry... Ah, are you done smoking? I've been told that whiskey goes well with cigarettes, though we'd be doing it backwards...
[ There's a soft laugh, but he doesn't seem all that concerned. ]
[It was different. Dazai was gone. Odasaku knew that he was gone, as certain as a real death. Maybe he should have thought that Dazai's absence was intentional, or that he'd turn up again, but he didn't. He really didn't.
[He turns back toward their cottage. It wasn't meant to be theirs originally, but it's become theirs. Odasaku likes it that way.]
Yeah. Let's have a drink.
[He puts a hand on Dazai's shoulder and squeezes.]
[ But he says it with that sort of boyish grin that suggests that they weren't talking about anything serious at all. Dazai is ever like that, and if he twitches slightly at the squeeze of his shoulder - tensing, puzzling, releasing, he's at least able to pull at Oda's arm next to start dragging him along.
Not renewed, not reborn, not able to live among his fellow man at all, but Dazai can happily pull at him like this; they can have this sort of dynamic. ]
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no subject
The title says it all. There was once a wise man; an old safe who believed that he had no love for his fellow man and wished to be left alone with his studies. He turned away the poor, the widowed, and the orphans, irritated by them; and when he buried his father, he solemnly wished he had no heart.
Thus, he sought and later summoned Fortune, and when asked what he wished for sad, "Perfect happiness. Fortune herself is my desire."
He considered Fortune a force of nature and could not be found in money, nor good eating and drinking, and instead clarified that he wished to have no heart. After that, he was able to see the greatest want and distress without feeling troubled. He thought himself happier than all others for this.
One day, he was visited by a prince who who had been sent to the neighboring kingdom along with his brother to find a wife. The prince pitied him for being a person who had no wife and no children; who found no pleasure in nature or the blessing of living with others.
But the old sage said, "I have never married, and I never shall. My time is too valuable to be spent in the careless world, which seems to live only for idle pleasures and trifling pursuits. I live for a grand purpose," and, "I have thought and studied for many years, but perfectly happy I never was until I lost my heart. I have lost that, and do not wish to have it back."
The prince promised to find the wise man a wife. He found in the neighboring kingdom two princesses. He visited the old sage with them in tow, and proclaimed that they were not suitable for him. Enraged, the old sage turned two into stone, and kept the remaining princess to use as a slave - a "wife." You can imagine her distress, but her tears meant nothing to him and her pleas for mercy fell upon deaf ears.
One day, the elder prince came looking for the younger one. After feeding an eagle and saving a mole, he he was granted their kindness in finding the philosopher's heart. He returned it to the man, who pleaded to have his heart and his youth returned, that he might live like other men.
There now, the prince and princesses were freed, and by the philosopher's chair there stood a small boy. This man had found his heart again, and was to begin life afresh.
"For none of God's creatures can live without a heart," is the ending and the moral.
[ It could be mistaken as being about Dazai, but it's not. After all, Dazai never had any particular inclination to study, nor does he reject companionship; quite the opposite in fact, where it seems as though he was born without a heart and thus incapable of having what he wants most. Likewise, he finds that age has yet to make him worse rather than better. It seems unlikely to him that it could.
So, what's the point of sharing this story? Well, it's just one of his whims.
Dazai pauses, allowing his companion to take everything in before asking, ]
What do you think?
no subject
I think I get it. It's not quite the same as ignorance being bliss, but...
[He takes a drag on his cigarette, withholding the smoke as he considers; he lets it out slowly, straight up into the air.]
Someone could give away their heart. When you can't tell the difference between something terrible and something beautiful, then neither can affect you. There's strength to it...
[That would be an empty life; painless, but empty. Is that a worthy trade? He doesn't know. If one never has, then they can never lose; it's a seductive thought.]
Seems to me he lived just fine without a heart. I'm not sure you can say that happiness was false if there was no alternative, but...
[Blue eyes glance at Dazai. It's one of those moments where he's not quite sure he's getting things right. He feels unmoored, and who could blame him? Dazai has sent him adrift in the sea. Nothing makes sense. But Odasaku's heart is open.
[It aches.
[It bleeds.
[It hurts, but...]
I'm glad he got his heart back. Seems it was waiting for him all that time, wasn't it?
no subject
[ His voice lowers toward the end.
Dazai, who has never been anything but himself, has no ability to see the appeal of having neither. In truth, it seems to him no better or worse than any other. But he's never seen much difference between those dichotomies that humans draw.
Odasaku must have been lonely though. It would be easier back home where he had the orphans and the restaurant owner too, his own mock-family unit, but here and now it's just the two of them. That's why Dazai concluded that he needed others.
He reaches his hand out, letting it brush up against the back of Oda's wrist before he draws it up to his chin. It's a small token of acknowledgment. ]
He had no concern for welfare of others, so he never made those miraculous discoveries that were at his fingertips. He studied for years to gain perfect happiness, but perfect happiness was being without a heart.
[ With or without a heart, then, he hadn't achieved that happiness he wished for. ]
He did retrieve his heart in the end, but he never obtained what he had spent all that time seeking — the nature phenomena known as "Fortune." [ He ponders this for a moment, ] Or maybe he did.
no subject
That all depends on your definition of "fortune," doesn't it?
no subject
[ Dazai nods, certain of this. It must be correct, as the story itself promises that no living being can exist without a heart.
But that does not define what the sage was looking for. It does not speak of the Fortune that he wished for. Nor should it. It's a fairy tale with a simple moral. No one ought to look that deeply into it, and no one does, and Dazai does not either - rather, he searches for something in speaking of it, something that which cannot be found, ]
The age despaired after despairing at the state of the world, and after losing his father... He was just in a state of a despair...
[ Despair of a world that showed him only beggars, widowers, and orphans. Despair of a world that only left him digging his father's grave. Does that touch him? Does it matter? There's not a single thing that hints at is, for Dazai remains with his hand held up to his chin, thoughtful.
Then, suddenly, his shoulders shake and he covers his mouth to stifle a laugh, ]
Yes... I understand. I know what "Fortune" is...
[ A single glance at Odasaku, that slight opportunity to offer his opinion, though Dazai is ever happy enough to go on without. ]
no subject
Tell me.
no subject
Odasaku can listen to him, and Dazai can watch him - can listen to him, can do so much more, as only Dazai can, and so they can understand each other. ]
"Fortune" is what can take your heart away, and is what can replace it... "Fortune" is what can erase who you were, that which can make you afresh... It can do all of that. It is a force of nature, like lightning or a hurricane, yet you can never catch it except for but a moment...
[ He exhales softly, ]
It's an age old riddle, isn't it? Ah, it's so generic that it bores me... It is "time." It is "time," because if you remove those years, those nightmares of years of only seeing human suffering will disappear; he can be reborn at the end because he has forgotten the loss of his father and will never know it again... Isn't that better?
[ But Dazai's frown deepens as he folds his arms, his eyes closing as his chin tilts down. There's this uncertain look, like he truly does not know what is the better option, before his eyes flutter open and he looks back to Odasaku.]
"Fortune" is as simple as "ignorance," wouldn't you say? Or at least, "time."
[ Ignorance is bliss, or so the saying goes, but that's not quite what Dazai means either - it's something more nebulous than that. It's ignorance of the horrors of the world. It's ignorance of everything save what's important. Those personal secrets, those lost loves, everything that one can hold near and dear.
Everything that time claims with the same proficiency as the Grim Reaper's scythe.
And so "Fortune" must be time itself. That desire to not only be young, but dumb and curious, interested in only other men.
Time, but just a bit more. ]
no subject
[He watches him now, and Odasaku's expression has only just barely shifted, but on a face like his, it looks half-broken open. He nods his head. He gets it, he thinks. Maybe he's wrong. Maybe he's always been wrong, never right about one thing in his life - he's not sure anymore. He's not sure of anything.
[But if fortune is "time," then they've both been given it - Dazai has had time removed, and Odasaku has had more added to the clock. He's grateful. He is...
[And he can't say that he wouldn't allow himself to be robbed, had he the choice. The memories he holds of those children that he loved so deeply are cherished, but, then again, they can't be; holding onto them for even a mere second is so painful that he can't cope. Wouldn't it be better to have that pain removed entirely?
[The truth is, Odasaku's entire life has been built from pain. He's just not good at admitting it - to himself, to anyone. He's not all that good at feeling pain, really. He coped with it for a long enough time, but when all is said and done, twenty-three is awfully young to burn out...
[His throat feels thick and tight. He puts his cigarette between his lips in an effort to control his expression, slowly breathing in. He speaks without exhaling, at first.]
You're right.
[He breathes out the smoke. When he talks, his voice sounds the same as it did when he was still holding it in.]
Anyway you look at it. You're right.
[He looks at Dazai-- He...can't stop looking at him.
[Dazai.
[He realizes all at once that he loves him. Of course he loves him. How couldn't he love him? He always has. He always will.
[And he's been given more time.]
Does that make us lucky? Dazai?
It might. I think so.
cw: suicidal ideation
[ Everything always loops back to that, but there is a gravity to those words, something dark that doesn't quite sync up, like he's suddenly displeased with his own conclusions.
He doesn't entirely mind it. If he didn't like the outcome, Dazai would have no qualms about killing the person that he was; everything about them, every last part of their existence, every single remainder that another person might find, subsume it, replace it, but it's only himself that he wants to die. It's only that future self, who should be replaced.
That story could be about him, but it's not, because sometimes pain is a precious and treasured thing too. It's a poison that he thinks he might willingly swallow down and refuse the antidote if only it served some purpose.
Those are feelings he's had often here, ones which are a natural extension of who he is, so he can't entirely ignore them as he can so many others.
Still, whatever complicated feelings might lay beneath that statement are quickly lost, locked away as his expression warms, his smile reappearing. Dazai is ever oblivious to his own feelings, but that shift in Odasaku doesn't go unnoticed. ]
... Well! That has nothing to do with you or I though, Odasaku, since we're both still alive. Isn't it nice? It needs some adjustments, but we have our very own fountain of youth! We have "Fortune" at our fingertips!
[ He does laugh now. That is lucky, isn't it? Though this seems to be more like a rubberband. He'll snap back into place eventually. ]
Hey, Odasaku, do you know what else I think?
cw: suicide
[It started feeling different after Odasaku, himself, failed to die.
[He wonders how many times he'd give everything away for the sake of selfish relief. They've been given time - "fortune". He might not have thought he wanted it, only three short months ago.]
What is it? [Odasaku's voice is quiet. He leans down to stub his cigarette out on the ground, then tucks the spent filter back into his pack.]
Tell me.
no subject
There's a slight pause, and whatever he might have originally said is gone, locked away. Instead what he says is, ]
I say that he was looking for "fortune," but it's a bit different. It was something that doesn't exist in any world.
[ As to what that something was, he doesn't seem willing to elaborate any further. ]
... Well, sorry for worrying you. You have to wait at least a couple weeks though, you know? I've let myself get kidnapped, faked my own death, been hospitalized for days...
[ The list goes on, and as it does he points to his index finger first, then the other four. ]
I always show up eventually though, don't I? So, you shouldn't worry... Ah, are you done smoking? I've been told that whiskey goes well with cigarettes, though we'd be doing it backwards...
[ There's a soft laugh, but he doesn't seem all that concerned. ]
hehe lmk if u wanna wrap or if you have more <3
[He turns back toward their cottage. It wasn't meant to be theirs originally, but it's become theirs. Odasaku likes it that way.]
Yeah. Let's have a drink.
[He puts a hand on Dazai's shoulder and squeezes.]
We'll talk a while.
we can wrap here <3
[ But he says it with that sort of boyish grin that suggests that they weren't talking about anything serious at all. Dazai is ever like that, and if he twitches slightly at the squeeze of his shoulder - tensing, puzzling, releasing, he's at least able to pull at Oda's arm next to start dragging him along.
Not renewed, not reborn, not able to live among his fellow man at all, but Dazai can happily pull at him like this; they can have this sort of dynamic. ]
Let's talk about something more interesting.