Let me talk about Dazai Osamu.
Dazai has an extraordinary mind, which already sees all possible outcomes before the incident has even happened, or rather, he sees one conclusion and pulls the strings so that the event plays out to the conclusion he sought. He sets the destination before the journey has even started and steers the vehicle to that point. Inevitably.
Many a times, it's seen that Dazai walks into situations knowing that things aren't going to turn out well for him (reference to Dead Apple, and Season 3 of the anime, where he risks his life knowing fully well he might not make it out alive if the tight-rope of calculations and predictions he walks on even so much as sways).
He's already predicted that outcome as a possibility, and when it happens he isn't fazed.
That is his resting state. Not being surprised by anything. The pain of knowledge is heavy on his shoulders.
He is indecipherable in anger and in sorrow, in victory and in defeat, in sincerety and in sarcasm, in gravity and in jest.
For me, the most valuable time to look into him, is in the rare moments when he's shocked. Surprised. Taken aback. The most precious hint he spares, because those moments are very few and far between.
It's in those moments where I can really see into him, it's in those moments when he accidentally drops his guard and displays emotion. That's the only time he expresses unadulterated emotion, the rest is all practiced, the rest is a facade.
[Sure, he does voluntarily let his guard down sometimes. In the Season 1 Ending, he tenderly rests his hand on Atsushi's head, when Atsushi is apparently asleep standing next to him.
In Season 2 Episode 9, he mutters a soft "I got you, buddy" after Chuuya has passes out from the exhaustion of using corruption.
Calculated and planned and expressed only when the recipient can't respond.]
(and of course, with Odasaku. that's a topic for another day.)
That one equation outside his calculations, one possibility he hadn't predicted.
A reply that he hadn't expected, an action that he hadn't anticipated.
It's in these moments that you get to see the purest kind of emotion that's stored in that funny little heart of his.
It's in these moments that you see that he cares. It's in those moments that you see he's trying. It's in those moments that you see he's hurt and broken and he's grieving, maybe he still hasn't let himself acknowledge that he is grieving, but he is.
It's in those moments that you see he's human.
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