Anonymous Fwend · 4mo
still on kouyou. one headcanon I entertain is about her helping, directly or not, in mafia dazai's defection. or they had a plan to leave together, as she had a deeply buried desire for freedom and he knew it. but she gave up last-minute out of (trauma induced) fear it wouldn't work
it would add yet another layer to letting kyouka go, and a quiet secret they share. kouyou saw her young self in kyouka, that's clear. atsushi played the role of "an older man kyouka admired", even. a LOT to unpack in here
i think this is an interesting headcanon! i wish we had seen kouyou and dazai interact while dazai was in the mafia, i'm curious what their relationship was like.
YEAH i never really see anyone talk about this bc i think it's too adjacent to ship discourse (barf) i think, but i definitely agree that atsushi being an "older man" (this feels like a silly term to use to describe atsushi given that he was a freshly minted barely adult but idk what else to use lol) was something kouyou was very aware of and i definitely think it played a role in her rage in that initial attempt to bring kyouka back especially. i think the situation would have been a little different if she had been saved/invited into the agency by like. yosano or naomi, although i think she probably still would have tried. definitely a lot to unpack wrt atsushi and kyouka that i think the fandom is just too insufferable to handle in good faith lmao.
