That bastard is dead. To be precise, he committed suicide by hanging himself from the ceiling fan in his house.

I ruminate in solitude. The past, where I always brushed off his talk of suicide as a joke. The younger days when I thought it was only right to pretend not to notice why he wrapped himself in bandages. If I had acted differently back then, would he be by my side now instead of this alcohol and these cigarettes?

I close my eyes. Only darkness envelops me. I don't want to think about anything. Why did he have to die by hanging, and why did he have to write in his will that he hoped I would live well... It's utterly absurd. That stupid mackerel bastard.

I wake up to the sound of the air conditioner. My vision is slightly blurred from the alcohol. I wipe my eyes roughly and sit back in the chair. Tomorrow, I have to return to duty. My leave from the Mafia is over. I was just picking up my pen to handle some paperwork.

The voice I've conjured countless times echoes from behind me. No way, could it be him? I immediately turn around. Dark brown hair, a sand-colored coat, and bandages covering his whole body. It's unmistakably Osamu Dazai, smiling brightly.

"...A hallucination," I mutter to myself. I saw his body. His eyes were rolled back, showing only the whites, and I couldn't bear to look, so I closed his eyes with my own hands. There's no way he's alive. There is no room for doubt. Yet, my heart screams that it wants to respond one more time to this filthy illusion, to this false image that isn't him.

Finally, I open my mouth. With a voice steeped in melancholy, looking pathetic with my cheeks wet with tears, I speak to him again for the first time in a very long while.

...You idiot, I already know that much.