It's just not something that really came up in the time he spent with the Port Mafia, in those formative years. When you made a mistake in the Mafia, you were forgiven or you were dead, and as Mori's right-hand man, he was more often than not the one making those calls. He wouldn't have been able to walk away if he hadn't been who he was, in the end.
Even so, he can recognize when he has, in fact, gone too far. In Yokohama, it wouldn't trouble him overmuch -- his coworkers were used to the way he is, ultimately, and he holds no loyalties nor obligations to anyone else still-living in that world. Whether or not others could handle him wasn't something he considered especially his problem inasmuch as it didn't interfere with any of his plans or goals.
Here in Etraya, though, things are a bit different. He doesn't have resources or contacts, here, and even with Fukuzawa (and Chuuya, ugh) newly arrived, he's essentially starting from scratch. Gorgug is as interesting a young man as he is potentially useful. It would be foolish to let him get scared off when he needs allies more than anything, in this world.
So Dazai scopes out how best to find him over the next couple days, before ultimately settling on the rec room where Gorgug can occasionally be seen sketching and playing his music, and then he just appears one day, with a box of pastries. A little like a cat that brings you a dead mouse after having clawed up your rug, except hopefully a little less disgusting than the mouse corpse.]
I picked up more than I could eat, [he offers, by way of explanation, without preamble] and this kind doesn't keep very well.
[Does it matter if food goes bad in a place where it is both unlimited and free? That's a philosophical ponderance for another day. It is, transparently, a peace offering.]
Pinky promise that there's no glue, sand, or shaving cream in these.
[ Gorgug only sees Door guy come in because of where he sits. The music from his headphones is creeping out from beyond the padding, his head bobbing and eyes down on his sketchpad over ideas of potentially cool animal companions. And matching ideals to said animals. Dogs: fast, aggressive, protection. Scorpions: cool tail and pincers. Look cool. Snakes: slither I guess.
But when Gorgug spots Dazai, his head stops bobbing, and he pretends like he didn't see him. Security detail, he scribbles to the side, and starts circling out an oblong shape with no clear thought of where to take it. Unfortunately, distracting himself doesn't make the outside world ignore him.
Unfortunately, Dazai is upon him. Possibly waiting for Gorgug to move off the headphones before he speaks, which Gorgug will do.....reluctantly, if given enough time. And then he looks at the box...and continues to stare at it with the reassurance. Even if his appearance seems sceptical (more so, after that reassurance), Gorgug will take the box if it's held out.
Slowly. ]
...You're sure? [ His brain is ticking, and a frown spreads on his face as he looks at Dazai warily: ] Are these eggs?
[ He asks it with a whine, like he knows the prank that's about to be played on him. He's getting duped because he didn't like Dazai's response about the egg eating him, right! Is he about to get made fun of!! ]
[There's a beat in which Dazai blinks owlishly at Gorgug, once, then twice, before he suddenly laughs. Gorgug certainly never bores him, that much is for sure.]
I admit, that would've been hilarious. But these really are pastries!
[He'll even open the box so the other can see what's inside before he has to touch the box at all. See? He comes in peace. No pranks under the hood here.]
[ No eggs...and not even egg custards! Gorgug's wary (honestly, teen-ish sulk, his tusks poking up through his grimaced mouth and brows furrowed close to his white pupils) expression doesn't lift away, but he doesn't hand the box back...even if there's a tinsy part of him wondering about tricks. But if Dazai didn't think about that joke on him, then maybe they're okay.
Still, he's not sure why the other brought them to him, and he looks back at the other. He's not a naturally suspicious person, not good at reading people. Did Dazai just happen to wander in and see him by chance? Probably, right? It's not like he'd seek him out. Why would he?
Gorgug's still wondering if to take a bite of one of the pastries--not out of caution, but awkwardness, but he sits the box on top of his open sketchpad page. ]
You didn't lose your head.
[ So there's that. ]
blanket cw for depression/death/grief/SI related topics likely throughout from here
[In literally any other circumstance, Dazai might have quipped that it hadn't yet hatched, though, so there was still time, his hopes weren't dashed quite yet. Except given the circumstances under which he's offering this olive branch of sorts, that isn't really an option at all. Contrary to appearances, Dazai does have some sense of propriety; he simply doesn't care most of the time. Honestly, he hadn't come here with the intention of talking about it. He'd meant to deliver the pastries, perhaps eat a couple together if the moment called for it, and carry on as though nothing had happened. A little left of an apology, more of an acknowledgment of his awareness that he had trampled upon some feelings. He hadn't anticipated those, either; Dazai has found existence burdensome and painful for as long as he can remember. He is so used to wanting to die it's just as natural as his traitorous lungs breathing in defiance of that desire, part of the natural background radiation of who he is. He puts it off, wants a reason to change his mind, and doesn't find one, and puts it off to keep looking. He has somehow reached twenty-two, in this fashion.
In one more year, he will be as old as Odasaku was, the last time that man breathed. It's unbearable, at times.
He doesn't talk about it, not like that. It's easier to joke about a ceiling beam being perfect to hang himself from, to be dismissed as an eccentric, than to try to be understood. People fear death, after all; it's like he told John. They fear the pain and the loss and so they treat it not as a natural part of the flow of life but as the enemy, give it a significance it doesn't truly merit. The ceasing of biological function happens everywhere all around them, constantly. One would go mad if they grieved every single ending, one hundred and nineteen a minute just in all-human worlds like Earth.
He doesn't talk about it. In some ways, he's perhaps not even able to talk about it, to explain the way those stupid little jokes, the thought of finally reaching an ending makes it easier to breathe when he feels like he's drowning. He's always struggled with that sense of detachment, the way emotions slip away from him when he tries to grasp for their proper shape.
The only person who ever tried to play that goldfish game with him, to hold the net steady, went on ahead and died without him.
He doesn't know how to talk about it with anyone else, and so he doesn't. At length, though, he does begin speaking again, though any trace of the usual playful singsong is gone along with his smile.]
Does it upset you, to think of people dying here, regardless of whether it sticks? Some might call our functional immortality a blessing.
[He isn't one of those people, of course, but it's undeniably a common theme, across the ages.]
There's been many a tale of men who went mad seeking even a pale imitation of what can be accomplished readily here, after all.
[ Gorgug blinks at Dazai. The expression already on him--that youthful uncertainty, sulkiness--doesn't entirely deteriorate: at least, not the confused part of it, since this topic. Because from his perspective, it's out of nowhere. Somewhat related to what he said, but he hadn't expected the other to take it where he does. There's a path here that he can't see, which isn't unusual for him.
He glances around with moving his head, an awkward motion, like he's wondering if this is actually going to lead into a prank or something else (he hasn't given up yet on being duped). Is there a serious answer here? Has he thought about death much?
Slow himself, Gorgug tries to answer: ]
...we can die and come back if you're lucky, where I'm from. I think the cost is bullshit when even we can do that, but you're some big super thing who can take anyone from any universe.
[ So it has to be deliberate, right? The cost. Even if there are other costs that Echo takes from undertaking this porject, but--that's Gorgug's initials thoughts.
...not that he's sure if it's the right answer? Did he answer it properly? ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
action!
It's just not something that really came up in the time he spent with the Port Mafia, in those formative years. When you made a mistake in the Mafia, you were forgiven or you were dead, and as Mori's right-hand man, he was more often than not the one making those calls. He wouldn't have been able to walk away if he hadn't been who he was, in the end.
Even so, he can recognize when he has, in fact, gone too far. In Yokohama, it wouldn't trouble him overmuch -- his coworkers were used to the way he is, ultimately, and he holds no loyalties nor obligations to anyone else still-living in that world. Whether or not others could handle him wasn't something he considered especially his problem inasmuch as it didn't interfere with any of his plans or goals.
Here in Etraya, though, things are a bit different. He doesn't have resources or contacts, here, and even with Fukuzawa (and Chuuya, ugh) newly arrived, he's essentially starting from scratch. Gorgug is as interesting a young man as he is potentially useful. It would be foolish to let him get scared off when he needs allies more than anything, in this world.
So Dazai scopes out how best to find him over the next couple days, before ultimately settling on the rec room where Gorgug can occasionally be seen sketching and playing his music, and then he just appears one day, with a box of pastries. A little like a cat that brings you a dead mouse after having clawed up your rug, except hopefully a little less disgusting than the mouse corpse.]
I picked up more than I could eat, [he offers, by way of explanation, without preamble] and this kind doesn't keep very well.
[Does it matter if food goes bad in a place where it is both unlimited and free? That's a philosophical ponderance for another day. It is, transparently, a peace offering.]
Pinky promise that there's no glue, sand, or shaving cream in these.
no subject
But when Gorgug spots Dazai, his head stops bobbing, and he pretends like he didn't see him. Security detail, he scribbles to the side, and starts circling out an oblong shape with no clear thought of where to take it. Unfortunately, distracting himself doesn't make the outside world ignore him.
Unfortunately, Dazai is upon him. Possibly waiting for Gorgug to move off the headphones before he speaks, which Gorgug will do.....reluctantly, if given enough time. And then he looks at the box...and continues to stare at it with the reassurance. Even if his appearance seems sceptical (more so, after that reassurance), Gorgug will take the box if it's held out.
Slowly. ]
...You're sure? [ His brain is ticking, and a frown spreads on his face as he looks at Dazai warily: ] Are these eggs?
[ He asks it with a whine, like he knows the prank that's about to be played on him. He's getting duped because he didn't like Dazai's response about the egg eating him, right! Is he about to get made fun of!! ]
1/2
no subject
I admit, that would've been hilarious. But these really are pastries!
[He'll even open the box so the other can see what's inside before he has to touch the box at all. See? He comes in peace. No pranks under the hood here.]
no subject
Still, he's not sure why the other brought them to him, and he looks back at the other. He's not a naturally suspicious person, not good at reading people. Did Dazai just happen to wander in and see him by chance? Probably, right? It's not like he'd seek him out. Why would he?
Gorgug's still wondering if to take a bite of one of the pastries--not out of caution, but awkwardness, but he sits the box on top of his open sketchpad page. ]
You didn't lose your head.
[ So there's that. ]
blanket cw for depression/death/grief/SI related topics likely throughout from here
[In literally any other circumstance, Dazai might have quipped that it hadn't yet hatched, though, so there was still time, his hopes weren't dashed quite yet. Except given the circumstances under which he's offering this olive branch of sorts, that isn't really an option at all. Contrary to appearances, Dazai does have some sense of propriety; he simply doesn't care most of the time. Honestly, he hadn't come here with the intention of talking about it. He'd meant to deliver the pastries, perhaps eat a couple together if the moment called for it, and carry on as though nothing had happened. A little left of an apology, more of an acknowledgment of his awareness that he had trampled upon some feelings. He hadn't anticipated those, either; Dazai has found existence burdensome and painful for as long as he can remember. He is so used to wanting to die it's just as natural as his traitorous lungs breathing in defiance of that desire, part of the natural background radiation of who he is. He puts it off, wants a reason to change his mind, and doesn't find one, and puts it off to keep looking. He has somehow reached twenty-two, in this fashion.
In one more year, he will be as old as Odasaku was, the last time that man breathed. It's unbearable, at times.
He doesn't talk about it, not like that. It's easier to joke about a ceiling beam being perfect to hang himself from, to be dismissed as an eccentric, than to try to be understood. People fear death, after all; it's like he told John. They fear the pain and the loss and so they treat it not as a natural part of the flow of life but as the enemy, give it a significance it doesn't truly merit. The ceasing of biological function happens everywhere all around them, constantly. One would go mad if they grieved every single ending, one hundred and nineteen a minute just in all-human worlds like Earth.
He doesn't talk about it. In some ways, he's perhaps not even able to talk about it, to explain the way those stupid little jokes, the thought of finally reaching an ending makes it easier to breathe when he feels like he's drowning. He's always struggled with that sense of detachment, the way emotions slip away from him when he tries to grasp for their proper shape.
The only person who ever tried to play that goldfish game with him, to hold the net steady, went on ahead and died without him.
He doesn't know how to talk about it with anyone else, and so he doesn't. At length, though, he does begin speaking again, though any trace of the usual playful singsong is gone along with his smile.]
Does it upset you, to think of people dying here, regardless of whether it sticks? Some might call our functional immortality a blessing.
[He isn't one of those people, of course, but it's undeniably a common theme, across the ages.]
There's been many a tale of men who went mad seeking even a pale imitation of what can be accomplished readily here, after all.
no subject
He glances around with moving his head, an awkward motion, like he's wondering if this is actually going to lead into a prank or something else (he hasn't given up yet on being duped). Is there a serious answer here? Has he thought about death much?
Slow himself, Gorgug tries to answer: ]
...we can die and come back if you're lucky, where I'm from. I think the cost is bullshit when even we can do that, but you're some big super thing who can take anyone from any universe.
[ So it has to be deliberate, right? The cost. Even if there are other costs that Echo takes from undertaking this porject, but--that's Gorgug's initials thoughts.
...not that he's sure if it's the right answer? Did he answer it properly? ]