Chapter Text
A few weeks changed things.
Not dramatically.
Not explosively.
Just enough.
Atsushi no longer flinched every time Dazai walked too close.
He didn’t jolt when Baykko flickered out on accidental contact.
He learned the distance. He had gotten used to it,
Across the office, Dazai was upside down on the couch.
Again.
Kunikida didn’t even look up anymore.
“Blood will rush to your head.”
“Bold of you to assume it isn’t already there,” Dazai replied lazily.
Kenji laughed.
The Agency was steady.
Normal.
Like last weeks shenanigan's didnt happen,
Like Fyodor hadn’t stood in their doorway with that polite, terrible smile. Like Dazai hadn’t nearly cornered Atsushi between desk and breath. Like abilities hadn’t flickered in and out of existence in the span of a heartbeat.
Paper shuffled.
Tea steamed.
Sunlight warmed the wooden floorboards.
Atsushi adjusted the stack of reports in front of him.
Baykko was sprawled across the back of his chair, tail hanging lazily down his shoulder.
“This is boring,” she declared.
“It’s peaceful,” Atsushi corrected.
“This is suspiciously peaceful,” Baykko amended, tail flicking once.
Atsushi chose not to dignify that with a response.
Across the room, Dazai rolled off the couch with all the grace of a falling coat rack and landed on his feet.
Kunikida paused mid-sentence in his notebook. “…I’m not even going to ask.”
“You wound me,” Dazai sighed. “Where is the admiration? The applause? The awe?”
“You tripped over nothing.”
“It was dramatic nothing.”
Atsushi tried not to smile.
It had been weeks.
Weeks since Fyodor’s visit. Weeks since the air had felt like glass about to crack. No follow-up message. No threats. No explosions. Just assignments, paperwork, mild chaos, and the ADA being the ADA.
The city outside moved on.
Cases came in.
Cases went out.
Tea was brewed.
Arguments were recycled.
It should have meant safety.
(It didn’t)
The city outside kept moving. Sunlight shifted across the wooden floorboards, dust motes dancing lazily through the warm beams.
Atsushi picked up his pen. Paper stacked neatly before him. He worked carefully, deliberately.
Atsushi’s fingers paused over the paper.
Behind Dazai, No Longer Human shifted slightly, a shadow within shadows, watching. Not tense. Not aggressive. Just… present. Waiting.
Atsushi exhaled slowly. Maybe boring wasn’t dangerous.
Atsushi forced himself to finish the line he’d paused on. Ink pressed cleanly into the paper. Controlled. Measured.
The page filled steadily beneath his hand.
Across the room, Dazai sighed with theatrical suffering.
“I’m bored.”
Kunikida didn’t look up. “That’s because you refuse to do your work.”
“I delegated,” Dazai corrected, spinning slowly in his chair. “Leadership.”
“You abandoned it.”
“Strategically.”