A man goes insane because of a ceiling fan

original author:orphic_hawk

note from Kana - hello! This work is (sadly) currently just a big block of text without hardly any grammatical symbols, this because I am currently facing major formating issues, along with trouble getting symbols to not fuck up the text, I'm sorry! I hope to get the figured out soon, but until then this will have to do.

Creak. Creaaak. Creeaaakk. Staring at the ceiling Doppo Kunikida listens sleeplessly to the rhythm of the ceiling fan. He counts the seconds between each blade of the fan passes over his head each pass punctuated by a drawn out creak. His head is full of repetitions. That is what he is made of: routines sameness ideals. He is much like his ceiling fan. Fatigued but ever steady. Faltering yet predictable. A staple of everyday life easily overlooked. To loosen up would be a detriment to his person. Each pass of the fan blade has a purpose. As do his actions. Steady reliable. Necessary. He d like to think he s necessary. Last summer his ceiling fan broke in a spectacular three day cacophony of squeaking ending in a peaceful and inevitable silence. The motor no longer turned. The heat pervaded his dormitory down to his better senses. It nearly drove him crazy. His fan was necessary for daily functioning. Kunikida then had a surprise visit from his co-workers to install a window unit. It was ten times as effective in cost and cooling as his ceiling fan. Kunikida protested its installation until they gave up. He spent the next week sweat drenched until he could buy another motor with his salary money. Kunikida is terribly afraid of window units. The ones that outperform old fans. Window units are so much more fun than decades old ceiling fans that are stuck going around in circles. People prefer them. Today at work Kunikida made a mistake. He had submitted incomplete paper work. It was well past nine in the evening when he had been notified of his mistake via email from Fukuzawa. Hysterically he had checked his temperature. Average. It had escalated then to perhaps he had something in his system. He went to the med-bay to complete poison analysis for toxins relating to his symptoms. They came up negative. Apparently his affliction was one of personal failing. Blame could not be settled in any place other than his own shoulders. His motor was grinding to a halt. His mistakes were his own desperate last squeaks of a broken ceiling fan. Case in point; he wakes up the next morning late for work. He had set an alarm as he always has. Sleep had pervaded him most of the night thus resulting in him sleeping through his alarms. He wakes to it s frantic ringing an ambulance too late to the scene. In these moments he s overcome by dread. There is a decision to be made. Has the day been ruined already or is it salvageable? In his ideals he s written down that the man he is is one of unfailing determination. Though he has failed he should supposedly march ever onward. Kunikida s body feel pinned into his bed by an unmovable force like the grip of gravity on an object in freefall. Terminal velocity is approaching. His ideals don t account for personal character flaws. The person he should have no flaw. What then when he is inherently a flawed person? What conclusion does that leave for him to draw? He wills his limbs to move desperately. Feet on the floor he resolves. He does not move. Sitting up in bed he amends. His head feels like a block of cement on his pillow. Despite himself a hysterical despair wells up in his chest. In manifests itself in the way he tugs at his hair helplessly and tears fill his eyes. He has not missed work for things unrelated to physical health in years. Even then he had managed the gumption to send a formal email excusing his absence. Kunikida is not sure of how his condition has deteriorated so quickly and unexpectedly to the point where sending an email is a Sisyphean task. His alarm only ceases as his phone dies. Peaceful and inevitable silence. Kunikida tracks the phases of the day by the sun s slow creeping across his walls and ceiling. It begins in a pool of daylight at his windowsill. By midday the sun is hidden by clouds drenching his room in hues of gray. The sun peeks out at the evening in a brilliant burst of bright orange then dissipates quickly as it sinks below the horizon. Outside his windows become black as an inkwell. He spends most of his day immobile. He is a statue draped in heavy silence. His head is static and its buzz climbs over the creaking of his fan. The buzzing mounts and mounts and becomes deafening. It is broken only after Kunikida assumes is dinner time. It is his landline. An antiquity of times passed. His corded phone hangs mostly forgotten in his kitchen. It rings out for a moment and then ceases. It rings again haunting his quiet house. He knows graduates of his class are at home having dinner with their wives and kids. Some are out drinking with their friends. Others perhaps out with their significant others. What has he to offer for his life? He thinks of Dazai and of phone cords wrapped around necks. The phone goes mute once more. It does not ring again for the entire night. The second morning he wakes up two hours earlier than his alarm with a smidgen of energy fueled by self-self-reproach. Nobody wants a broken fan or an obsolete phone. They become replaced and forgotten as relics from archaic times. Kunikida preforms his morning routine mechanically. He charges his phone to full battery life. He has no messages. His breakfast turns his stomach so much he gets sick. He brushes his teeth but he can still taste his stomach acid when he arrives to work. He is the first person there and finds his way to his desk like a boat to an island in a lonely dark sea. He begins on his work firstly apologizing for his absence through a group email. Kunikida flounders for an explanation for something he does not understand himself. Sorry all I was out of office due to my debilitating mental health crisis. He tsks opting to chalk up his disappearance to the flu. It was in season after all. When that is filed away he religiously works on what was piled up from yesterday. In total he had very few forms to file and finished before any of his co-workers arrived even after triple checking each form for mistakes. It leaves him as a bundle of anxious energy with nothing to do but think. Like this lamenting over agonies and regrets is too easy. Each critical thought slices through the static of his head like a hot knife. It as incessant as the ticking of the wall clock. A second passes in the agency signified by a small tick. A second passes in his head with a progressively disturbing thought. Tick. I m a failure. Tick. I wish I wasn t myself. Tick. I don t want this to be my life. Tick. I want these thoughts to stop. Tick. I want to disappear. Tick. I want to die. The clock chimes the hour. Any minute his work associates would be here filling up the office with life. He could go home. He should go home. He s caught at the door by Fukuzawa. Shit— Sorry. Kunikida s voice is hollow to his own ears. Fukuzawa looks taken aback not only by the foul language. Have you been here all night? The elder asks gently. He looks so polished and put together. He smells like fresh laundry and cologne and Kunikida can only cringe knowing he is in unwashed clothes and his hair is frizzed and greasy. Absolutely unideal. Yes well— no. Kunikida stumbles through his answer. His superior arches a well-groomed white eyebrow. Which is it Doppo? He resists the urge to pull out his hair. I came in early. To do the work I missed yesterday. Because I was sick. With the flu. A frown locks into place on Fukuzawa s face. Kunikida nearly flinches back at the touch of a cool hand to his forehead. You seem to be physically recovered. Fukuzawa deems. Kunikida does not miss the implication. Fukuzawa s eyes skip past him to his abandoned desk then to Kunikida s empty arms. The realization hits him like a semi-truck. He s forgotten his notebook at home. Heart pounding in his ears Kunikida scrambles for a semblance of a normal expression instead of the horrified guilty one he is sure he s sporting now. The cold sweat on his neck makes him shiver. Yes well. I apologize for my absence. It should not happen again. He hates the glimmer of concern in Fukuzawa s eyes. He must be disappointed in him. It stings. It s perfectly alright Doppo— I have to go. Kunikida chokes out I m sorry. He can t breathe. His vision is spinning. Fukuzawa hates him. Hell he hates himself. Deliriously he thinks he needs a drink. It s perfectly alright Doppo. It replays in his head. Had he meant that? Fukuzawa had addressed him by his first name. His disfunction was showing as plain as day infecting the air around him. He pushes past people and in a dissociative state finds himself at the check out register of the liquor store with two bottles of vodka. He doesn t drink. Not in this way. Not for this reason. Still he purchases the alcohol like some sort of degenerate who can t get anything right. Day drinking out of misery? Abhorrent. Self-loathing curdles sour in his gut. When he makes it to his dorm it is blissfully empty. He shares a living space with Dazai but most times his partner is not here. It was a miracle he wasn t here yesterday. Kunikida places the bottles on the coffee table and sits on the couch. He stares at the bottles until his eyes go dry then stares some more. It s perfectly alright Doppo. He grits his teeth and knocks his fist into his head. It s perfectly alright Doppo. With shaking hands Kunikida opens his phone. His stomach swoops as he realizes he s had his settings turned to do not disturb. A terrible choking feeling overcomes him as he taps it off only to be flooded with notifications. Several missed calls. Plenty of texts asking him if he s okay and what s going on. A smug text from Dazai asking if he finally learned how to relax. Kunikida s screen times out leaving him staring at his own reflection in the black. He does look disheveled. His ponytail is sloppily done and his tie is crooked. Dark rings of purple underline his dull eyes. There s a certain pallor to his face. He blinks at himself wondering how the hell this has happened. Kunikida eyes the vodka. He brings his phone back to life and eyes the worried messages. He puts the bottles in the back of his and Dazai s shared freezer. The next week Kunikida vigorously returns to his book of ideals. He follows his notes religiously. There is nothing any more exciting than office work allowing for a perfectly seamless execution of his ideals. Still his food tastes like cigarette ash in his mouth and he gets no more than a few bites in. Ranpo and Yosano organize a luncheon that Kunikida barely manages to squirm out of. The food in his fridge slowly goes bad without anyone to eat it. Sleep evades him night after night leaving him quick to lashing out and further from his ideals. In his sleep he has nightmares of the ground rushing up to meet him and his broken fan hanging dead from his ceiling. One night he wakes up from another restless dream to the sound of his fan which has grown louder each day. He thinks the motor is dying again. When he wearily makes his way to the kitchen his vodka is sitting on the table a silent accusation. Dazai is drinking from one of the bottles but has clearly retained his soberness. His expression is unreadable rather than the affable goofy one he wears for show. Vodka? His question hangs in the air. Irritation builds in Kunikida like calcium deposits. He hasn t even been to work the past week yet he manages to make his grand return only to question Kunikida s sanity? Has he catalogued his own? Vodka. He affirms hoarsely. He thinks he has been screaming in his sleep. In mutiny he swipes the bottle from Dazai hands. Perhaps the brunette thinks he s going to stow them away back in the fridge or perhaps even throw them out. His shock is delicious when Kunikida takes a deep swig. It feels like the seconds of drinking stretch as he downs mouthful after mouthful. It burns in his throat and upsets his stomach but his head becomes delightfully fuzzy. Dazai s shock faded until he was looking at Kunikida only with keen suspicious eyes. Glaring Kunikida brings the bottle to his lips once more greedily drinking. It brings a spinning quality to his vision leaving him bracing against the table s edge. Sometimes he thinks he and Dazai hurt each other more than help each other. Are you done? Dazai asks seriously. Kunikida grips at the edge of the table his nails digging into the false wood. I could ask you the same thing. He shoves the vodka back to Dazai. Silently Dazai takes his own gulp of it before setting it back down on the table. It sits between them a mutual poison. Kunikida grabs for it but Dazai s hand rests atop his when he grabs hold of the vodka stilling him. Silence encompasses the two. He can hear his ceiling fan from the kitchen in desperate creaks. Dazai releases his hand with slow intention. Kunikida can feel his heart drop to him stomach. A look of devastation unable to be hidden fast enough crosses Dazai s face as the blonde scoops up the vodka bottles. It quickly transforms into relief when Kunikida drops them into the trash. I m going back to bed. Kunikida declares. Dazai watches his back looking dazed. Despite the noisy fan Kunikida sleeps. The next month supplies many instances wherein Kunikida wishes he hadn t thrown away the alcohol. The comes the worst week yet. It begins with his inability to prevent injury Atsushi in a fight with ability users. The kid reaffirms that it s alright that he had done his best. The keen of pain as his ribs broke haunts Kunikida still. Then he runs out of groceries. After throwing out all the spoiled food and spending all his salary on keeping the electricity and water on there s not much left to be spent. This culminates to his current predicament. His landline had rung only for it to be news of an old friend s death. A friend of his with a wife and kids. A deathly cocktail of envy and despair kicks up in his stomach. Distantly he agrees to attend the funeral. He falls into a chair at the kitchen table numb. His friend shouldn t be dead. He tries to summon tears but they do not come. It should be me his mind chants. Kunikida tries thinking back to the worried text messages when he misses work and to Dazai s devastated expression. They slide off of his shoulders like water. He could— he could change the narrative. His fingers tremble as they grasp at a pencil. What if he does it wrong? Can you kill yourself wrong? Kunikida bites at his lip. Could you practice killing yourself? He recalls the bandages always snaking across Dazai s body and decides that yes such a thing is possible. In wobbly unsure letters he writes razorblade in his notebook then taps it. It appears before him its metal glaring maliciously. It s cool to the touch when he picks it up. When he presses it softly to his skin it lightly pinches. Rousing his courage he drags down the blade into his forearm. It takes a second for the sting to hit and when it does it elicits a surprised hiss from him. A second later the blood wells up from the laceration. Kunikida watches it with fascination. Encouraged now by curiosity he begins to slash his arms. The blood begins to drip down onto the tabletop where it will no doubt stain. He feels wonder at the surge of energy and endorphins flooding his system. He can t stop. He s panting by the time He has run out of rooms on his arms. The razorblade clatters to the table and he admires his work with both fear and awe. His arms have become numb. A part of Kunikida worries he s going to lose too much blood. He banishes the razorblade and does his best to clean the table then heads to bed. He sleep miraculously well. The next morning he rolls his sleeves down to his wrists a little embarrassed. His arms are entirely scabbed over but too much friction would rip the scab right off. He feels regret like a bad one night stand but it wears off as soon as he gets to the office. If Dazai came home last night to a bloody table it doesn t show. His co-workers had been braced against his bad moods as of late and seemed pleasantly surprised to see him chipper today. Fukuzawa pulls him aside during lunch looking emotional. Kunikida it s nice to see you doing better he says softly. Kunikida shudders at the sentimentality. He doesn t know he thinks of the secrets tucked beneath my sleeves. He musters a smile anyway. Dazai finds a moment alone with him too. He s been looking healthier and happier. Not in his façade but in genuine reality. He s optimistic in the way he speaks but there is trepidation in his voice. It s nice to have our normal uptight Kunikida back he jokes. For a while there I thought… anyway I have a pile of work you ll love to do. It continues innocuously like this. He comes home and mutilates himself and appears chipper at work. It s wonderful. It works. Up until it doesn t. It s becoming not enough to satiate him. The adrenaline rushes are what s keeping him functioning so he stoops to energy drinks and increasingly risky behavior. Monday he speeds taking corners at breakneck speeds. He arrives to work wind whipped and grinning like a maniac. He goes home without doing all of his work. Tuesday he becomes careless in a fight with an ability user. He gets a fist to the face and returns to the office with a bloody grin and a broken nose. Yosana catches glimpses of the marred skin of his arms. Wednesday his antics increase as he schedules a skydiving session and considers not pulling the cord. That day his friends start considering his positive attitude as something more sinister. Thursday he gets absolutely wasted and skips out on work instead parading around the streets with people he meets as he bar hops. Dazai spends an hour scrubbing out the blood stains around their shared dorm that night. Friday the adults at the ADA arrange an emergency meeting. That afternoon Kunikida wakes up with a terrible hangover in a public park being cajoled by police officers. Saturday the ceiling fan breaks. Dazai waits for Kunikida to come home surrounded by his friends. Kunikida never does. Saturday night they all split up and look for Kunikida throughout Yokohama. Fukuzawa remains at the dorm in hopes Kunikida will return. Sunday at midnight he does. The door to the dorm slams open sending all of Fukuzawa s senses on edge. He braces himself for the bad news expecting for a raging Rapo or furious Dazai to turn up saying they found Kunikida in a local hospital. He can t tell if he feels better or worse that it is Kunikida himself. He has slammed the door shut behind him and his sobs are carrying throughout the empty house. Fukuzawa shoots up from his seat on the couch watching in shock as Kunikida stumbles drunkenly into his kitchen. Fukuzawa feels his heart shatter in his chest as he goes into the kitchen unsure how to get the blonde s attention without startling him. This plan is scrapped when Kunikida fumbles with his notebook before a flash of green light produces a handgun. Fucking hell. Terrified Fukuzawa lunges towards Kunikida wrestling the firearm from him. What the fuck! Fukuzawa grunts out pinning down Kunikida to the cool floor tiles. Kunikida states uncomprehendingly at his boss. His eyes are glossy. What? He slurs Let me go. Fukuzawa shakes his head gagged. Kunikida s sleeves had ridden up past his elbows to reveal layer upon layer of self-harm. Yosana had mentioned it but it s worse to see it and worse than he had imagined in his head. Doppo… he breathes tears building in his eyes. His ability had flared to life to subdue Kunikida s summon of the handgun and now allowed fractions of Kunikida s emotional state to become available to him. His thoughts were sharp and jagged as broken glass. One idea persisted above all others. I need to kill myself. Fukuzawa brings his heir into his arms cringing as he begins to sob with abandon. It hurts to hear. They are raw despairing cries that crescendo into wails. Fukuzawa can only clutch onto Kunikida like it will save him from his own head. Kunikida passes out quickly and Fukuzawa moves him to his couch. He lets his subordinates know Kunikida has been found. He sits down on the couch allowing Kunikida s feet to rest atop his lap. It s both for his own comfort and for the security Kunikida wouldn t be able to attempt anything. He feels like a tired dad when his agency members all file in as one big group each one of them perturbed to a degree high enough for it to show. He was going to use the handgun. Fukuzawa says flatly by way of explanation. Yosano bursts into tears hiding her face in Dazai s shoulder. Ranpo looks dumbfounded despite Fukuzawa knowing he was preparing for that reality the most. Dazai looks angry the hand not resting on Yosano s back clenched into a tight fist. They file one by one into the living room and find anything even remotely resembling a seat. Dazai stares unbidden at the wounds painting Kunikida s arms. Yosano composes herself and speaks to Ranpo in a soft disbelieving voice. Kunikida groans awake and Dazai is the first to react flying into a rage. Of all the stupid selfish self-centered things you could have done Fukuzawa feels the waves of hurt radiating off of him. That s enough. He commands and Dazai appears torn before ultimately sitting back down. He combs his fingers through the ratty blonde locks of Kunikida until he stirs awake wincing against the light. Fuck… he mutters pressing a hand to his head with a groan. What happened? The room is so tense it could be cut with a butterknife. Before Dazai snaps Fukuzawa takes the lead. What do you remember? He prompts keeping any pity from leaking into his voice. Kunikida sits up and winces as his scabs pull tight. When he surveys the room white hot horror appears on his face. He swallows thickly. I didn t. Abject panic laces his voice. Silence is answer enough. Kunikida breaks down curling into himself. I m sorry! I don t know what s wrong with me! he hiccups. Yosano launches herself towards him hugging him tightly. Nothing is wrong with you she insists thickly. Ranpo perches on the other side of Kunikida a hand rested on his back. I was going to leave you all! That doesn t even make sense. He exclaims miserably laying his head on Fukuzawa s shoulder as if the strength has been sucked out of him. How you feel isn t going to be logical or ideal Doppo. Fukuzawa softly says. Hesitantly Dazai walks over to the group then knees in front of Kunikida. With gentle fingers he turns the blonde s head to face him. Kunikida Doppo you matter. Please never leave us like this Dazai s voice cracks and he releases Kunikida s face blinking away tears. I don t know how to not feel this way. Kunikida murmurs hopelessly. We ll help you Kunikida. You just have to let us. Ranpo offers. Kunikida nods mutely licking his lips. Fukuzawa feels a blossoming pride with his agency. It really dawns on him the next few hours how much of a family they really are. Yosano helps to clean Kunikida s self-harm. Dazai order them dinner and distributes it. Ranpo helps get to the root of Kunikida s issues fairly fast. They all help to fix the dead ceiling fan until it runs smoothly not without its signature creak.