[Whenever Shaw follows the location ping from that picture, she'll eventually make her way to a little hole in the wall bar tucked into an alley, lit by a neon sign, a stylized logo of the famed gentleman thief.
Jazz music plays through an old gramophone in the corner, and for all the place has freshly appeared in Etraya, it bears all the hallmarks of a well-worn, well-patronized establishment. Dazai himself can be found by the bar, halfway flopped against it. He's running his thumb over a scratch on one of the barstools, while his drink sits on the counter, already mostly drained. Another glass, untouched, sits nearby. Flowers float on top of it. At first, it seems like he hasn't noticed Shaw come in, but then he speaks up .... notably less lively than in that first text he'd sent.]
There was a cat who would often come into this bar. We called him Sensei. One of the customers had accidentally sat on his tail, and got several scratches for his oversight, but his claws left a mark on the stool, as well.
[....]
And see that tiny dent with the brownish mark over there? I had too much to drink one night and tripped and hit my head. I hadn't actually been trying to kill myself that time, but it was funnier to say I was, especially when I definitely got a concussion from it. Odasaku believed me, though. He cleaned up all the blood and carried me to our boss, since he was a former surgeon. I needed eighteen stitches. Ango-kun yelled at him for "enabling me".
[. . . . .]
That crack over there by the pool table, that's from the time a belligerent drunk tried to pull his gun in the establishment, but Odasaku had foreseen it with his ability, and knocked him out before he could aim or fire. A lot of people would've probably died that night, otherwise.
[He reaches for his drink, rolling the melting sphere of ice around in the now mostly empty glass.]
I was curious what would happen when requesting a location from our worlds, but I hadn't anticipated she could replicate it down to the very last detail like this. It's truly unsettling how much of our minds Echo and Aurora have access to.
[Shaw mutters, her eyes roaming the room rather than settling on Dazai. When she does take a seat, though, it's just down the counter from him at the bar, only one empty stool between them.]
Not that I'm not happy for your nostalgia and everything, but this is a classier joint than I was hoping for. A jazz club? Seriously?
Mm, the proprietor was fond of the classics. It makes sense when your bar is themed around the famed gentleman thief, I suppose.
[Skipping a seat from him is strangely appreciated in its own way. Odasaku used to sit next to him, after all, with Ango on the man's other side. It feels somehow natural to sit arranged in this way, in this bar.]
If it's not to your taste, I won't ask you to stay, though.
[And perhaps that's a little bit telling, too, for someone who otherwise seems to take so little seriously.]
[It's almost a shame, that Aurora couldn't bring along the elderly gentleman who tended the bar. He rather misses not being able to engage in the usual banter about his unwillingness to offer him a glass of detergent and such things like that.
Even so, he wants to keep everything about this bar exactly the way he remembers it from those days. It feels like a way of keeping Odasaku alive in his heart, even as he's forced to go on living in his absence, trying to carry on his will.
Dazai slides his way off the barstool like his body is more liquid than solid, head tilted at Shaw like a bird's.]
[She raises an eyebrow at him, leaning languidly against the bartop.]
It's not like I'm paying, right?
[Shaw is, on the whole, not a fan of the bizarre, not-really-an-economy that this place has going on, where everyone just assumes that basic supplies and stockpiles will be provided indefinitely, and more specialized things will always be acquirable with points. It's not that she necessarily thinks that they're wrong. It's that it's weird, and the way everyone seems to have just accepted it is weird, too.]
[Dazai might have ordinarily been up to having an entirely theoretical conversation about the nature of of Etraya and the ways in which he suspects Echo has been luring its residents into a false sense of security. It's the sort of thing that's regularly at the forefront of his mind in this world, after all. But then Shaw chooses whiskey, and Dazai's mind goes blank.
Three glasses of whiskey would be poured into glasses on these very stools, for a few years. Dazai has preserved that time capsule inside him for the last four, sharing it with nobody. When he goes out drinking with the Agency, it's always sake, never whiskey.
Shaw is sitting in Ango's stool. There are two glasses of whiskey on the table already. A third is unacceptable, because it's Ango's, but that's not possible, because Ango is a traitor. Ango is a traitor and Mori allowed him to live to advance the Port Mafia's interests, and because of them there will never be three glasses toasting here ever again.
Dazai doesn't look at her. He doesn't seem to be looking anywhere, doesn't really even seem to be home inside his eyes. He's not there when his voice answers, almost as if by rote, an away message from an auto-responder:]
[Empathy is a funny thing for Shaw. She doesn't feel it in the truest sense of the word, in that the feelings of others don't affect her own emotional state in the slightest - but she can still recognize emotion in others perfectly well, to the extent that she's actually quite good at reading people. There's no mistaking that reaction, particularly combined with the unattended glass of flowers - clearly a memorial of some sort. She may not know the details, but it's still obvious that she's stumbled into something here.
Sympathy, too, is another funny thing. Harming people emotionally brings her no pleasure, and she's not unsympathetic enough to keep pressing on the sore spot. She is unsympathetic enough to roll her eyes. If he's going to be so melodramatically picky about what people drink in his dumb bar, why did he ask me what I wanted in the first place?]
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etraya
no subject
[haha ... ha .... friends what friends. two of the three other notable connections he's made to date have already left.
and then there's Chuuya, but -- ah. That's more complicated.]
no subject
no subject
no subject
[This is not her taking anything back, though. She'll be there.]
ACTION; dazai typical suicide cws + grief/depression likely throughout
Jazz music plays through an old gramophone in the corner, and for all the place has freshly appeared in Etraya, it bears all the hallmarks of a well-worn, well-patronized establishment. Dazai himself can be found by the bar, halfway flopped against it. He's running his thumb over a scratch on one of the barstools, while his drink sits on the counter, already mostly drained. Another glass, untouched, sits nearby. Flowers float on top of it. At first, it seems like he hasn't noticed Shaw come in, but then he speaks up .... notably less lively than in that first text he'd sent.]
There was a cat who would often come into this bar. We called him Sensei. One of the customers had accidentally sat on his tail, and got several scratches for his oversight, but his claws left a mark on the stool, as well.
[....]
And see that tiny dent with the brownish mark over there? I had too much to drink one night and tripped and hit my head. I hadn't actually been trying to kill myself that time, but it was funnier to say I was, especially when I definitely got a concussion from it. Odasaku believed me, though. He cleaned up all the blood and carried me to our boss, since he was a former surgeon. I needed eighteen stitches. Ango-kun yelled at him for "enabling me".
[. . . . .]
That crack over there by the pool table, that's from the time a belligerent drunk tried to pull his gun in the establishment, but Odasaku had foreseen it with his ability, and knocked him out before he could aim or fire. A lot of people would've probably died that night, otherwise.
[He reaches for his drink, rolling the melting sphere of ice around in the now mostly empty glass.]
I was curious what would happen when requesting a location from our worlds, but I hadn't anticipated she could replicate it down to the very last detail like this. It's truly unsettling how much of our minds Echo and Aurora have access to.
no subject
[Shaw mutters, her eyes roaming the room rather than settling on Dazai. When she does take a seat, though, it's just down the counter from him at the bar, only one empty stool between them.]
Not that I'm not happy for your nostalgia and everything, but this is a classier joint than I was hoping for. A jazz club? Seriously?
no subject
[Skipping a seat from him is strangely appreciated in its own way. Odasaku used to sit next to him, after all, with Ango on the man's other side. It feels somehow natural to sit arranged in this way, in this bar.]
If it's not to your taste, I won't ask you to stay, though.
[And perhaps that's a little bit telling, too, for someone who otherwise seems to take so little seriously.]
no subject
[She stays put on her stool, half-turning her upper body to him and raising an eyebrow.]
I thought you were the proprietor here. Does that mean someone else is serving me?
no subject
[It's almost a shame, that Aurora couldn't bring along the elderly gentleman who tended the bar. He rather misses not being able to engage in the usual banter about his unwillingness to offer him a glass of detergent and such things like that.
Even so, he wants to keep everything about this bar exactly the way he remembers it from those days. It feels like a way of keeping Odasaku alive in his heart, even as he's forced to go on living in his absence, trying to carry on his will.
Dazai slides his way off the barstool like his body is more liquid than solid, head tilted at Shaw like a bird's.]
What will it be, then?
no subject
[She raises an eyebrow at him, leaning languidly against the bartop.]
It's not like I'm paying, right?
[Shaw is, on the whole, not a fan of the bizarre, not-really-an-economy that this place has going on, where everyone just assumes that basic supplies and stockpiles will be provided indefinitely, and more specialized things will always be acquirable with points. It's not that she necessarily thinks that they're wrong. It's that it's weird, and the way everyone seems to have just accepted it is weird, too.]
cw grief/ptsd
Three glasses of whiskey would be poured into glasses on these very stools, for a few years. Dazai has preserved that time capsule inside him for the last four, sharing it with nobody. When he goes out drinking with the Agency, it's always sake, never whiskey.
Shaw is sitting in Ango's stool. There are two glasses of whiskey on the table already. A third is unacceptable, because it's Ango's, but that's not possible, because Ango is a traitor. Ango is a traitor and Mori allowed him to live to advance the Port Mafia's interests, and because of them there will never be three glasses toasting here ever again.
Dazai doesn't look at her. He doesn't seem to be looking anywhere, doesn't really even seem to be home inside his eyes. He's not there when his voice answers, almost as if by rote, an away message from an auto-responder:]
Not whiskey.
no subject
Sympathy, too, is another funny thing. Harming people emotionally brings her no pleasure, and she's not unsympathetic enough to keep pressing on the sore spot. She is unsympathetic enough to roll her eyes. If he's going to be so melodramatically picky about what people drink in his dumb bar, why did he ask me what I wanted in the first place?]
Whatever. Gimme a beer, then.