Chapter Text
The silk of his new kimono whispered with every rigid step, the slate-gray fabric and deep green hakama feeling like a foreign skin. At his hip, the familiar weight of his katana was the only comfort. Kunikida Doppo, nineteen and newly ascended to the personal guard of the Crown Prince, stood before the ornate shoji door, its rice paper glowing with the soft light from within. He could hear the faint, discordant pluck of a koto string, then a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of the entire imperial estate.
"Enter," a voice called, melodious and utterly devoid of interest.
Kunikida slid the door open with precise, formal motion, stepped inside, and immediately dropped into a low, respectful bow, his forehead nearly touching the polished floor. "Your Highness. I am Kunikida Doppo, assigned as your personal guard by order of the Imperial Guard Captain. It is my honor to serve."
The silence stretched. The only sound was the rustle of fabric.
"Mm. How stiff. You’ll crack in the spring rains."
Kunikida looked up, and his ideals of royal dignity took a direct, devastating hit.
Prince Dazai Osamu, twenty-one, heir to the Chrysanthemum Throne, was not seated on the dais. He was sprawled inelegantly near the edge of the veranda overlooking the private garden, his royal garments—layers of exquisite cream and russet silk embroidered with cranes—in a state of artful disarray. One sleeve had slipped, revealing a pale bandaged forearm. His dark hair was tousled, and his eyes, when they finally slid from contemplating the koi pond to Kunikida, were pools of liquid amber, holding a boredom so profound it felt like a physical force.
"The last one resigned," Dazai said, idly tracing a finger along the wooden beam beside him. "He said I gave him existential dread. And calluses from constantly fishing me out of things. Do you dread existence, Guard Kunikida?"
Kunikida straightened, pushing his glasses up his nose. "I have a perfectly optimized plan for my existence, Your Highness. It does not include dereliction of duty."
"Ah, a planner!" Dazai pushed himself up in a fluid, boneless motion. He drifted closer, and Kunikida caught the faint, clean scent of sandalwood and something else—the sterile sharpness of antiseptic, layered over the bandages he now saw peeking from his collar and wrists. "Tell me, does your plan account for thwarting a royal suicide attempt before afternoon tea?"
Kunikida’s blood ran cold. The rumors were true, then. He’d heard the whispers in the guard quarters: the Prince’s "hobbies," the hidden ropes, the suspiciously deep koi ponds, the confiscated bottles of expensive sake mixed with dubious substances.
"My plan," Kunikida said, his voice tight, "is to ensure you live to fulfill your historic role, Your Highness."
"How dreary." Dazai had circled him now, looking him up and down with an appraising gaze that felt more clinical than curious. "You wear duty like another layer of hakama. So serious. Tell me, Kunikida, what is your ideal?"
"To protect the nation and its people," Kunikida answered automatically, part of his personal creed. "To uphold order and justice."
"How noble. My ideal," Dazai said, leaning in suddenly, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "is a double suicide with a beautiful woman. Though a painless, poetic method by oneself is acceptable too. I was considering the aesthetics of seppuku last week, but the mess is so… disorderly. It clashes with the garden's beauty
Kunikida’s jaw clenched. This was the Crown Prince. The future Emperor. A man who discussed ritual suicide with the same tone one might discuss the weather. "Your Highness, such talk is—"
"Irreverent? Unroyal? I know." Dazai turned away, his gaze drifting back to the pond. "But you see, Kunikida, when your entire life is a series of predetermined steps—ceremonies, treaties, bows, silk so heavy it could drown you—you start to wonder about the exit signs. The rope, the river, the poison… they have a certain… freedom."
A surge of frustration, hot and unfamiliar, burned in Kunikida’s chest. This man had everything—purpose, respect, a nation’s future—and he treated it like a poorly written play he was desperate to leave. "Freedom without responsibility is not freedom. It is chaos. And my duty is to prevent that chaos."
Dazai glanced back, a faint, unreadable smile on his lips. "We shall see. Your duty begins now, loyal guard. I wish to walk to the western pavilion."
The walk was a lesson in controlled terror. Dazai moved with a catlike indifference, constantly drifting towards potential hazards. He paused too long on a narrow bridge over a deep, rocky stream, sighing about the "lovely, rushing finality" of the water. He examined the sturdy branches of a centuries-old pine with a calculating eye. He asked a gardener about the toxicity of the lovely white *dokuzeri* flowers blooming nearby.
Each time, Kunikida was there, a slate-gray shadow, his voice a firm, relentless counterpoint. "The stream is too cold, Your Highness, you’ll catch a chill." "That branch is unsound, allow me to have it inspected." "Those flowers are for viewing only, not for consumption."
By the time they reached the secluded western pavilion, Kunikida’s nerves were as taut as his katana’s strings. Dazai sat on the veranda, legs dangling over the edge, watching the sunset bleed into the sky.
"You’re more persistent than the last one," Dazai mused. "He lasted three days. I wager you’ll last four."
"I will last as long as required," Kunikida stated, standing at a perfect parade rest a pace behind him.
"Boring." Dazai leaned back on his hands, his gaze on the darkening sky. "But… perhaps slightly less boring than the absolute void."
He stood up abruptly. "I’m retiring. You will stand guard outside my chambers. All night, of course. One never knows when the midnight melancholy will strike with a convenient length of obi sash."
Back at the prince’s chambers, Dazai slipped inside without another word. Kunikida took his position beside the door, back straight, senses hyper-alert to every sound from within: the rustle of silk, the pour of water, then… silence. An unnerving, long silence.
Against protocol, Kunikida shifted, straining his hearing. A faint, rhythmic creak. Not a sob, not a movement. A… creak
His ideal of procedure shattered. He slammed the shoji open.
Dazai stood on a lacquered stool in the center of the room, a long, embroidered ceremonial obi tied in a complex knot around a heavy ceiling beam. The other end was looped around his neck. He was testing the beam’s strength, making it creak by putting slight pressure on the noose.
Their eyes met.
Dazai’s were wide, not with fear, but with something like startled curiosity. Kunikida’s were blazing behind his glasses.
For a moment, neither moved. The scene was grotesquely elegant: the prince in his fine silks, posed against the beautiful tragedy he’d crafted.
With a roar that was entirely unbecoming of a royal guard, Kunikida crossed the room in three strides, drew the *wakizashi* short sword from his belt, and in one fluid motion, sliced the obi clean through above Dazai’s head.
Dazai stumbled off the stool, the cut silk slithering down around his shoulders like a shedding snake. He landed in a heap, coughing lightly, a wild, unhinged laugh bubbling from his lips. "Oh! So decisive! You ruined a perfectly good obi, you know. Imperial silk."
Kunikida stood over him, chest heaving, the short sword still in his hand. The terror of the last few seconds—the image of his charge, the future emperor, hanging from a beam—congealed into a white-hot fury. "You… you irresponsible, selfish, fool!"
Dazai looked up from the floor, his laughter dying. He saw not the stiff, protocol-bound guard, but a young man, trembling with adrenaline and outrage, his perfect hair disheveled, his glasses slightly askew. He saw, for the first time, a real, unfiltered reaction.
"Huh," Dazai breathed, his smile fading into something more thoughtful, more genuine. "That's new."
Kunikida sheathed his blade with a sharp click. He forced his breath to steady, his posture to straighten. The ideal guard would apologize for his outburst. The ideal guard would call for a physician and report the incident.
But Kunikida Doppo, at that moment, was just a furious, frightened young man who had almost failed the most important duty of his life.
"Get up," Kunikida said, his voice low and rough. "The floor is unbecoming of your station."
He extended a hand. It wasn't protocol. It was human.
Dazai stared at the offered hand, then at the fierce, uncompromising face above him. The boredom in his eyes flickered, replaced by a spark of intense, bewildering interest. Slowly, he reached up and took it.
His grip was surprisingly firm. And as Kunikida pulled him to his feet, the bandages on Dazai’s wrist slid, revealing not just the pristine white, but a glimpse of older, scarred skin beneath.
"Four days, Kunikida-kun," Dazai murmured, not letting go of his hand immediately. "I revise my wager. You might just last a week."
Kunikida retrieved his hand, the ghost of that grip burning. He looked at the prince, at the cut obi on the floor, at the stool. He adjusted his glasses, the lenses flashing in the lamplight.
"This is not a game, Your Highness," Kunikida said, but the rigid formality was gone, replaced by steely, personal resolve. "And I do not wager on my duty. I execute it. From this moment, your existence is part of my ideal. You will not find your freedom in death while I draw breath."
Dazai tilted his head, the ghost of a real smile touching his lips. It was a strange, fragile thing. "How terribly burdensome… for both of us."
Outside, the moon rose over the palace. Inside, the standoff had just begun. The planner and the poet of oblivion. The bandage and the blade. And in the space between them, something new and unplanned had just taken its first, precarious breath.