Carnation

They had a little tradition, which was seemed to be unknown, beside them. They were united by carnations. Every week, at the place of their first meeting, two flowers appeared alternately, tied with a satin black ribbon. Both of them knew that each of them came every Sunday and replaced the wilted flowers with new ones, but no one spoke about it, preferring only to nod on Monday mornings as a sign that the flowers were placed. But nevertheless, their relationship did not change. From the outside they looked like a dog and an owner. Extremely careless owner. After Dazai left the mafia, the flowers continued to change. Both Akutagawa and Osamu remained true to their own tradition without any questions asked. * Ryunosuke had been realizing lately that something was wrong. It wasn’t all that way: all the missions that began to appear after the victory over the Dead House's Rats seemed to be some kind of production. All conversations, all events, all days felt like they were long ago. The feeling of suspicion, and with it anxiety, grew. Paranoia, he thought, until the postman delivered a letter in the middle of the night, on the envelope of which a sweeping “先生” was written in half-smudged ink. It contained only a couple of simple sentences. Two dried carnation buds were enclosed with the letter. Or rather, to the note. His soul became terribly cold, and it seemed that Akutagawa himself was standing in the coldest fridge in the world. But Ryunosuke woke up when the coughing fit overwhelmed him again. “In the same place, at the same time,” the burnt note preserved only this fragment, but it was enough to understand that everything was serious. Having familiarized himself with it for the last time, Ryunosuke crumpled up a piece of paper and, as if spellbound, watched as the paper burned in the saucer, warming his somehow chilled palms over the weak flame. Today will be his last peaceful night. But he only guessed about this as he sat on the windowsill and looked at the constellations in the night sky, trying to fill the gaping emptiness in his head. It was terribly scary. The unknown. The abyss and darkness of the mind. Akutagawa was afraid of losing his mind, control over the situation and his train of thought. He was afraid to plunge into the palaces of his subconscious, which, having nothing to do, painted such pictures that even an experienced mafioso like him sometimes had a stomach ache and the urge to vomit. Sometimes his mind led him to such questions that even the seemingly omniscient Dazai probably could not find an answer to them. But it seems that today consciousness decided to give Akutagawa a day off, and for some reason Ryunosuke himself remembered the times when he just turned seventeen. Ryunosuke closed his eyes and, with a smile longing for the old days, sipped his chamomile tea, muffling the incipient razor lump from his cough. * Today is an even Sunday. It's Ryunosuke's turn to put flowers. As always, tied with a dark ribbon, two red flowers remained on the stump. Only now next to them there was some kind of mechanism, the essence of which Akutagawa didn't want to know. “Do you understand where all this can lead?” Akutagawa asked, as if he couldn’t believe his ears. "Of course, my dear friend. Might you doubt my genius plan?" Dazai just chuckled and crossed arms on chest. The proposal to fight Fukuchi sounded so-so. Ryunosuke winced, for some reason feeling pain in his neck. "Do I have a choice?" After a pause, he asked, squeezing part of his shirt sleeve in his hand. Osamu smiled softly and shook his head. "Of course, no. Peace in the world depends only on you, Ryunosuke-san. Is that clear now?" The detective stepped towards him, and Ryunosuke felt a cadaverous cold from him and his hands trembled. Osamu touched him, smoothly running his bandaged palm over his cheek. Despite everything Akutagawa felt, the sensei's hands were warm. Warmer than a few years ago. The detective looked into the gray eyes of the former colleague. “I will wait for an answer, Akutagawa.” Osamu nodded and walked past without even saying goodbye. Ryunosuke was left alone in the clearing. His cheek was still hot from his touch. If so many destinies depend on his decision, you can step over yourself. Taking a moment to process it, he turned around and shouted. "Dazai-san! I agree." The departing Osamu paused for a moment, and then answered contentedly over his shoulder: “I couldn’t expect anything else from you.“ * "Run, fool." The blade touched Akutagawa's neck as Atsushi fell through a hole in the floor of the ship. It's an odd Sunday. But Dazai was not in the clearing. He was in Meursault when the clock hand reached seven, and the mechanism slowly lowered two tied carnation flowers onto a tree stump. Today their tradition will cease to exist. The plan has begun.