That bastard died. To be precise, he committed suicide by hanging himself from a ceiling fan in his home.

I lonely ruminate. On the past where I always brushed off his talk of suicide as a joke. On the younger days when I thought it was only right to pretend not to notice why he wore those 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 absolutely ridiculous. That stupid mackerel bastard.

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

The voice I've imagined countless times echoes from behind me. No way, him? I immediately turn around. Dark brown hair, a sand-colored coat, and bandages covering his whole body. There's no mistake; Osamu Dazai is standing there with a beaming smile.

'...A hallucination,' I mutter to myself. I saw his corpse. His eyes were rolled back, showing the whites, and I couldn't bear to look at him like that, so I closed his eyes with my own hands. There's no way he could be alive. There's 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, my cheeks wet with tears in a pathetic display, I speak to him again for the first time in a very long while.

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