Chapter Text
Night in Yokohama is a bitter affair.
Kunikida wraps his wool coat tighter around himself to keep out the bitter chill blowing off the water. Smoke-like fog rises from the asphalt, covering the scene in a blanket of opaque mist.
Abandoned buildings stand around him, their doors ripped off their hinges and windows smashed in. They stand around him with their insides stripped as a silent vigil. This isn’t his domain any longer; the time of day is not arguable as dusk. This is solely the territory of the Port Mafia.
Of course, the Port Mafia is mostly comprised of scoundrels that like to feel powerful and have emotional constipation to rival Dazai’s. It’s not anything he can’t handle. He wonders briefly if they’ve had a fog machine sent in to set the mood. Kunikida wouldn’t put it past them.
There’s a sudden swish of fabric. Something moves in the shadows, or rather, the shadows themselves move. With a hiss from the pavement, a man stands in front of Kunikida.
“What,” Akutagawa says, the cape around him writhing to blend in with the darkness, “do you want?”
Kunikida nods genially. “I’ve come with a proposition that I believe could be mutually beneficial to the two of us. All our attachments and loyalties aside.”
Akutagawa takes a step backwards. His leg is hurt. It’s not obvious, or even perceptible at all, but Kunikida spends so much time making sure Dazai doesn’t ignore his mortal injuries that he notices.
“Listen. If you need to dispose of a body, Rashoumon doesn’t destroy things so much as it transports —”
“My colleagues seem to have decided that we are soulmates.”
Akutagawa’s eyes widen. He makes a noise like a strangled chicken. Kunikida doesn’t bother trying to decipher the emotion behind it.
“I was in a discussion with Ranpo and Dazai the other day—“
“Dazai told you this and you believed him?”
Kunikida waves a hand through the air. “See, that’s the thing. Dazai has been trying to ruin both of our lives for years— the first of many points I think you’ll find we have in common.”
He takes Akutagawa’s ensuing silence as a cue to continue, pulling a list from his coat pocket. “Here are the remaining fifty-three traits which you encapsulate. Or rather, which I am told that you encapsulate.” He glances up at Akutagawa. “I don’t know that we’ve ever had an interaction in which you weren’t trying to murder me like a rabid beast.”
“That’s how I like it.” Akutagawa glares at him. His voice is petulant.
“I also don’t think Yosano has it out for me, and she seems determined to give us her blessing. Maybe it’s just so she can see your sister more. I’m not sure.” Kunikida rolls up the list and mulls over this concept.
Akutagawa resembles a wet and angry cat. “I kill people for a living. How does that match with your ideals?”
“See, you —” Kunikida bops him on the nose with the rolled up paper; he looks positively apoplectic “—promised not to kill anyone for a year. Which gives me the perfect amount of time to court you until you murder my protegee.”
“I am not forming any attachments to members of the Agency,” Akutagawa insists, backing up a few steps.
(Akutagawa is fairly certain he’s incapable of any sort of romantic aptitude. If he were, Higuchi surely would have weaseled it out of him by now.)
“See, I have it in good faith from Chuuya that you’re quite the lover.”
Akutagawa makes another horrified sound which humans have never before been capable of making.
“Flowers and everything. Remembering anniversaries.”
“Chuuya,” he growls, “is in on this?”
“I hear you’re a big fan of mint chocolate chip.”
“It wasn’t even dating! It was one really weird month—“
“And you have an extended family to visit on holidays— I’m counting Black Lizard for that— and you like to be taken care of when you’re sick, which is often, which is perfect.”
“I don’t like to be taken care of —” Akutagawa says. No man has ever been closer to and more capable of murder.
Kunikida continues to hold up fingers. “And you’re passionate about hair products. Ideal for any time we spend together after work. I have a lot of hair and I am not opposed to you styling it. You seem to be quite practiced.”
He turns red with something that might be a blush as easily as it could be rage. “Did you get my sister in on this?”
Kunikida holds up a recorder and presses play. Gin’s voice echoes through the street. “He helped style my hair for years! You should have seen it. We even dyed it once. He’s practically an expert. If it weren’t for the job as a hitman, he could have gone to cosmetology school—“
Akutagawa lunges for Kunikida. He steps out of the way easily and lets Akutagawa fall to the pavement, angry and bewildered.
Kunikida sighs. “Please don’t try to injure me. I need to get home at a decent hour, and a trip to the hospital would impede upon that.”
Akutagawa stares at him for a minute, mouth open, before growling. A black tendril of Rashoumon races towards Kunikida’s chest.
He grabs Akutagawa‘s elbow and flips him on his back, then looks him over. ”Hirotsu’s right. You rely too much on your Ability and ignore your exposed areas in favor of brute strength. I could help you improve that.”
Akutagawa lets out a wordless yell and storms off in the other direction. Kunikida takes this to be the end of their interaction.
He glances down at his watch; it’s a few minutes past three. He hums a pleasant tune to himself as he starts the trek back to his apartment. As with few other things in life, the meeting went perfectly according to schedule.
About three years into the job, Kunikida stopped expecting to be dead every time he opened his eyes. After being blown up, and cut up, and run over by cars and trains, and stabbed, and poisoned, and losing eyes and limbs every other week, Kunikida will only accept that he’s dead when he wakes up in heaven. Maybe not even then.
So, it’s no surprise when he opens his eyes and immediately shuts them again as a shield against the amount of dust and debris swirling through the air around him. A small ray of light slips through a crack in the concrete above him. Blood runs down the side of his head, and he coughs a few times, too hard to be healthy. One of his hands is pinned beneath a beam; a few fingers feel broken.
“Great,” he says to no one. “I’m under a building.”
Someone groans next to him. Kunikida glances over to see a familiar black coat flattened under a small pile of stone and bricks and insulation. He sits up slowly, not seeming to register anyone else’s presence. His eyes are a bit foggy, or maybe it’s something wrong with Kunikida’s glasses. Both are equally plausible.
“Gin,” he says, “status?” Gin must answer, but Kunikida can’t hear her.
“Great,” he says, still more for his own benefit, “I’m trapped under a building with Akutagawa Ryuunosuke.”
Akutagawa’s eyes slowly inch over to meet his when they hear his voice. Kunikida raises one eyebrow. Akutagawa turns determinedly away and stares at nothing.
“Tanizaki. What’s happening on the surface? I seem to be under—”
“Yeah, a building, got it. It was evacuated earlier when we got news of the planned bombing, but it was assumed that a bank next door would be the target—”
“Kunikida,” comes a grating voice over his comms. He wishes he had a free hand (or even just a functioning one) to adjust the volume. “Tell Akutagawa I say hello.”
“He’s ignoring me,” Kunikida informs him, but says, “Dazai says hello. What are our options for getting out of here?”
“I’ll use Rashoumon to—” he starts, at the same time as Dazai says, “Tell him he can’t obliterate his way out of this one, because if he tries then all forty stories are going to come down on his head with no backup, and if my predictions are correct he’s sustained considerable injuries to his legs and ribs already.”
Kunikida relays this information as well. Akutagawa turns red, then pale, then crosses his arms as best he can with half his body encased in pieces of plaster and turns around.
“I think we can take this opportunity to have a little bonding moment!” Dazai coos. He must have hacked into Akutagawa’s comms as well, because he shifts uncomfortably in the corner.
“That is a Cosmopolitan magazine,” Yosano tells him from a distance. If Kunikida could put his head in his hands, he would.
“The most scientifically accurate.”
“Twenty questions to test your compatibility with the man of your dreams… or is he?” Ranpo reads, barely holding back laughter.
Dazai, on the other hand, is dead serious. “So grab your lover, answer these questions – then check your answers with each other. The results just might surprise you.”
“Was this strategic?” Kunikida says with a dawning sense of horrified realization. ”Did— did you plan to drop this building on me?”
“No. Of course not,” Poe tells him. It is not reassuring.
“The building was already going to fall,” Dazai says. “It’s not like we’re the ones who cracked the foundation. We just seized the opportunity where we saw it.”
“You did what?”
“Dazai,” Akutagawa says, obviously trying very hard to stay calm. “Get me out of here.”
“Yeah, yeah, Kyouka’s working on it with Atsushi. Number one: favorite chip flavor?”
“This was not my fault,” Kunikida says, turning to look at Akutagawa. “I want you to know that I am as pleased about this concept as you are.”
“Favorite. Chip. Flavor! Or I’m not getting you out of there.”
Kunikida takes a deep breath. “Plain.”
Akutagawa mumbles something.
“I can’t hear you!”
“Salt and vinegar. Who picks plain chips, did someone strip you of the ability to enjoy things as a child?”
“Yes,” Dazai assures him. “Next: would you rather your partner be completely hairless or hairless as a gorilla?”
“Dazai,” Tachihara says. Kunikida isn’t sure how he’s accessing the comms. This mission wasn't even supposed to involve the Port Mafia. “That is someone’s fetish, and I don’t think it’s Mr. Plain Potato Chip’s.”
Akutagawa makes a strangled noise low in his throat. Kunikida agrees.
“We established that Akutagawa is a Pisces, right?” Ranpo asks in the background.
“Yeah. Kunikida’s a Virgo.”
Ranpo makes a small noise of success and begins to read. “Both Signs dote on and adore one another. They strive for a harmonious relationship and are very accepting and sympathetic people.”
“Whoever wrote this has never met Akutagawa,” says Atsushi. The sound of muffled scraping comes from behind him.
“Virgo can help Pisces fulfill dreams and ambitions and give them the tools they need to turn ideas into reality. Virgo will provide a solid, steady base for the more emotional and intuitive Fish. ”
“What are the tools he needs to make his dreams into a reality? A knife? Some bleach?” Atsushi continues, deadpan. Gin laughs a little too much.
“You shut up!” Akutagawa tells her.
“On the other hand, Pisces offers a gentle touch, kindness and an emotional depth that Virgo appreciates. Virgo is interested in material comforts and at times cannot understand the simplistic attitude of Pisces.”
“Akutagawa has only ever felt one emotion,” says Kyouka, “and that’s anger.”
There’s the sound of a high five. Akutagawa makes a wounded noise.
“Sorry, you’re not my superior anymore. I’m allowed to bully you.”
“Letting her room with Atsushi was not our finest moment,” muses Kunikida.
“Their life’s aspirations can be very different. Once they can accept and overcome this difference, and learn to combine their energies, theirs will be a very rewarding relationship. ”
Dazai claps his hands together. “Well, there you have it! Fated by the stars.”
“Ooo, that’s an interesting question,” Yosano says.
“What is the other person’s best physical feature?” Ranpo reads, presumably still holding the compatibility quiz. “Oh, that is a good one.”
Kunikida sucks in a breath.
“Eyes,” Akutagawa says instantly.
“What?” Kunikida says, blinking a little.
“What?” says Chuuya, and apparently this is a mission they’re sharing with the Port Mafia now. That mission also just so happens to include getting their coworkers together.
“Shut up!” Akutagawa yells. From a few feet away, Kunikida can see his ears growing pink, though it doesn’t spread to his face.
“You had that answer ready!” Ranpo says with an audible grin.
Akutagawa makes a noise like a car struggling to start. “It's my job to be observant! It’s the only reason you’re not all dead!”
Dazai’s voice crackles through the small space. “Do you have my best physical feature at the ready?”
“Cheekbones, and you can quote me on that.”
There are more screams from outside. Dazai seems to have thrown his microphone to the ground.
“Okay,” Ranpo says decisively, “those horrifying implications aside, Kunikida never answered!”
He stops to consider it for a second, glancing over at the man pinned beneath a pillar next to him. Akutagawa tries to pretend he isn’t being observed. “Hair, probably.”
Atsushi hums in disagreement. “He looks like a rat.”
“A drowned rat,” adds Chuuya.
“I think it looks very nice! Besides, Atsushi, your hair is an affront to nature.”
Atsushi doesn’t grace this with a response.
There’s a renewed wave of laughter from the surface. It makes Kunikida nervous.
“Do not,” says Tanizaki.
“Favorite sex position,” Yosano says firmly.
“I’m not answering that,” Kunikida replies without hesitation, then glances over at Akutagawa. Time to shoot his shot or whatever. “At least, not in this public of a setting.”
“Don’t you dare wink at me,” Akutagawa growls.
Someone wolf whistles. Kunikida briefly considers finding a new place of employment; their influence on him hasn’t been positive, if this interaction is any indication.
“So,” Kunikida says, just to be contrary, emboldened by the fact that he can’t be killed instantly, “what’s the answer?”
“I don’t want to have sex with anyone. I’m not interested,” Akutagawa says with his face in his hands.
“Oh, you’re asexual?”
“Is that a problem?” he replies. His eyes dare Kunikida to make his own homicide justifiable.
“No,” he says, smiling slightly, “that’s not one of the fifty-four necessary qualifications.”
Akutagawa laughs then; they both look equally as surprised by it. It’s a monumental occasion: Kunikida making a joke and Akutagawa laughing at one. Later, they’ll blame it on the lack of oxygen.
With a burst of light and a bit of concrete dust, Atsushi appears in front of them. Before Kunikida knows it, he’s being swept away by Demon Snow, and both of them are standing on the sidewalk in front of the remains of an old office building.
Akutagawa tries his best to ignore him as they stand there assessing the damage and prepare to head back to their respective headquarters, silent except for the occasional cough.
“Are you okay?” he tries to ask, but receives no response.
Before they leave, Akutagawa slips him a small piece of paper. He opens it up to see a phone number printed in blocky letters.
“For emergencies. You know,” he says before disappearing over a building in a matter of seconds.
He tapes it into the Ideal, holds it close to his heart. Maybe there’s more to this idea than he’s giving Ranpo credit for.
Of course, it takes all of five seconds for someone to harass him about it once they return to the office.
“You got his number,” Poe gasps as soon as they walk inside.
“Dazai is a bad influence on you,” he says instead of answering. It wasn’t a question anyway.
“No way,” Dazai says, stopping to look at his partner. “Guys, he’s blushing.”
Ranpo dances around him. “You got his number you got his number you got his number —”
“It’s for emergencies only,” he says primly, even though secretly he thinks it would be nice to use it for more than that. It was just an exchange between two people working towards the same goal after being trapped under a building; that has to bond people if nothing else will. It’s impractical of him to assume that the exchange meant anything else.
“I can’t believe that worked,” Tanizaki says.
“I can’t believe you owe me money now,” Yosano says.
Kunikida looks at them. “He what?”
“Okay,” Haruno says from her desk, “I know I’m not involved with missions a lot, but was someone going to inform me that we’re trying to set Kunikida up with our archnemesis, or was I just supposed to figure it out on my own?”
“I remember when two cows were compatible, we used to force them to stay in the same pen until inevitably—”
“Kenji,” says Naomi.
“—Anyway, I was under the impression that’s the same sort of thing we’re doing here,” he finishes.
Kunikida flushes a darker shade of red. “Stop comparing my love life to breeding livestock!”
“I would prefer you call it a sophisticated plot to enhance my coworker’s life,” says Dazai.
“It’s meddling,” Yosano says, “and I’m all for it.”
“I am sitting right here!”
Atsushi points at Yosano. “Okay, but I feel like we never addressed the fact that you and Gin have tea together every month.”
Kyouka looks at her. “Is that why you know so much about Akutagawa?”
“Listen,” she says, sitting on Kunikida’s desk despite his protests, “we all know Chuuya shows up like once a week to take Dazai out for pizza and fighting to the death and whatever else guys do — yeah, you’re not being as subtle about that as you think you are—so I don’t know why it’s such a big deal I’ve never disclosed any of my other friendships to you.”
“You have friends outside of the Agency?” Kenji asks with genuine surprise. He’s the only one who could ask her this and leave unscathed.
“Sigma and I are having a movie night, and we are taking over your room,” Poe says. “Felt like a good time to bring that up.”
“What?” says Kunikida.
“It has the best sound system.”
Dazai hums. “Someone besides Poe needs to be there, or else he’s going to think it’s normal to start waxing poetic over dead bodies.”
Kyouka nods sagely. “Like an imprinting baby duck.”
Tanizaki raises his hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll be there.”
Kunikida looks at him with bewilderment. “When did you start spending time with Sigma?”
He shrugs. “When did it become any of your business?”
“Didn’t he try to kill Atsushi last month?”
“Everyone in this room has been or currently is a wanted criminal,” Dazai points out, at the same time as Tanizaki says, “Akutagawa tried to kill all of us multiple times and our response was setting him up with Kunikida!”
Poe nods. “I tried to kill Ranpo and you all invited me to a party.”
“I am almost certain Dazai tried to kill me last week,” says Yosano.
He smiles at her. “That’s nothing you can prove!”
“This is important stuff,” Tanizaki continues. “Someone didn’t think Sigma needed the knowledge of Kiera Knightley’s Pride and Prejudice in order to exist in society. Obviously, they were wrong.”
“I think,” Ranpo says above the chaos, “that we brushed over the fact Kunikida has Akutagawa’s phone number.”
He crosses his arms. “So does Dazai. It’s not a big deal.”
“I don’t,” says Atsushi, “and I’m his partner. Besides, I don’t think it counts if Dazai got his number by hacking Mori’s computer.”
Kenji squints. “I thought you hated him.”
“It’s a complicated rivalry.”
Ranpo waves one hand through the air. “You have to call him.”
Kunikida shakes his head. “It’s for emergencies only!”
“A date seems like an emergency.”
”It will be with those two,” mumbles Yosano.
“Does that mean you aren’t interested in dating him?” Dazai demands.
“Well, no— I mean, sort of, but not— it doesn’t matter if—”
Fukuzawa picks this moment to emerge from the shadows. A sudden and extreme silence falls over everyone in the room.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Kunikida says, bowing low to the floor, his voice high pitched. “This is very unprofessional of me, and on behalf of my colleagues I apologize—”
“When are you going to have him over for dinner?”
Kunikida stands there, mouth open. Fukuzawa smiles slightly and closes his office door.