Work Text:
Kunikida watches as Dazai pauses in front of the store window, staring idly into the glass.
The wind catches his hair in a way that makes it hide his eyes from view, and it pulls his coat around him dramatically. The sun strikes him like that’s where it’s always meant to be, a way to accentuate Dazai’s natural good looks. Kunikida stands and stares for a second, which turns into two, which pulls him far, far off schedule.
Trust Dazai to always trip him up.
“Oi, Dazai,” he grumbles, and Dazai turns to reveal his brown eyes to Kunikida again, crinkled at the edges with a grin. Kunikida taps his foot. “We have to go, you can let your mind wander off on your own time.”
Dazai shoves his hands in his pockets and keeps smiling, an infuriating grin that sticks to his face and almost never lets go.
“Ahh, but Kunikida-kun, I was just thinking of what I’d want a woman to wear when we commit suicide together. Do you think a suicide dress is a proper gift, hm?”
“Definitely not,” Kunikida sighs sharply. Dazai begins walking next to him again, with only a small glance back at the building. “You have work to get done too, so if you’d stop degrading the Agency’s good name right about now, that would be much appreciated.”
“So cold,” Dazai clutches his heart.
Kunikida makes a noise, more an acknowledgement than anything else. Dazai, when he looks over, is staring at his shoes as they walk. Kunikida watches him again, but this time he’s not going off schedule, which means that he can take time, breathe, and notice.
Dazai is good looking, has always been, within the infuriating guise of humor. But Kunikida knows more than that.
He knows that Dazai gets drunk in his room with the door locked and laughs off the texts he sends Kunikida during that time. He knows that his face turns icy when reminded of the mafia, something Kunikida only noticed after he had learned about Dazai’s past. He has bandages stored in his desk at the Agency, and though he never lets Kunikida see what’s under the ones he wears, he always gets Kunikida’s attention before he changes them in the office’s bathroom, so that someone knows where he is, just in case.
He knows enough about Dazai to know that he doesn’t pay attention to things for no reason. He knows enough about Dazai to understand that staring at nothing isn’t a normal pattern in his behavior.
He takes his Ideal out of his pocket, making a quick note on his schedule to look into it or ask about it later, though he almost certainly wouldn’t get any answers for his questions unless absolutely necessary. They know each other well enough to know that asking rarely goes well. They’re partners, after all.
Dazai’s hair glows amber in the warm setting sun. Kunikida stashes his Ideal again, glancing at Dazai’s quiet smile in the uncharacteristic silence.
Dazai sleeps on Kunikida’s couch about twice per month.
There’s no surprise on Kunikida’s face when he opens his door to find Dazai sitting cross-legged on his couch, he makes sure, only muted annoyance that doesn’t betray how Kunikida has, somehow, begun to look forward to Dazai’s visits. It means that Dazai is getting looked out for, at least.
Kunikida couldn’t stand it if one of the Agency’s best (and worst, simultaneously) agents actually got hurt or drunk or dead, or so he tells himself. He ignores the fact that he chases Dazai down whenever he disappears. He also ignores the fact that concern beats in his heart whenever Dazai locks himself away. And he ignores the little things he’s noticed so far, including the warmth that he finds blooming in his chest when he realizes that he wants to notice more.
“You’re so boring,” Dazai whines, draping himself over Kunikida. “You wrote in your notebook something about today’s dinner, right? You’re going to make some for yourself, it’s going to be just how you wrote it, and it’s going to be boring.”
Kunikida furrows his eyebrows. “It’s not going to be boring. It’s practical to plan things out.”
“Hmmm,” Dazai smiles at Kunikida, who starts thinking that maybe he should care more about his schedule getting ruined by Dazai’s visits, because Dazai is definitely scheming something. “Oh, oh, I know! I’ll make something! A special surprise, just for you!”
Kunikida’s heart stutters in his chest, and it’s not helped by the fact that Dazai’s bandaged hands are resting on his shoulders, his head just a few inches from Kunikida’s own.
“No,” he replies, forcing himself to frown. He doesn’t trust Dazai in his kitchen.
Dazai laughs, and Kunikida whips his head around when Dazai leaves him, the soft pressure of his fingers on Kunikida’s shoulders suddenly missing. He strides lightly towards Kunikida’s kitchen, which Kunikida absolutely cannot allow. So Kunikida is forced to follow Dazai, chasing after him like he always does.
Dazai’s already shuffling through Kunikida’s carefully organized recipes. Kunikida glares at him, nearly leaping across the counter to slap his hands away from the cabinet with the pots and pans.
Dazai pouts at him in a show of over exaggerated sadness. “I’m not that bad at cooking, have a little faith in me!”
Kunikida feels like pressing his fingers to his temples, just from dealing with him. He knows that Dazai is bad at cooking, because he’s been witness to Dazai showing him the burnt remains of something that Kunikida couldn’t even recognize. He can't believe how transparent Dazai's lie is.
Kunikida pushes Dazai to the side, leaning down to get out the supplies for the meal that he’d originally planned. “If you’re so desperate, you lazy freeloader, I’ll make food for you, too.” He turns to Dazai with a glare that gets exactly zero reaction. “You can watch me. Not help. Watch.”
Dazai ends up leaning on the counter as Kunikida cooks, chatting aimlessly.
“I ran out of food again, so when I saw that all I had was alcohol and water—don’t look so concerned, Kunikida-kun, I’m not drunk—I thought, hey, Kunikida-kun goes shopping! He probably has something!”
Kunikida looks over at him with narrowed eyes. “Why is that your first thought? Get yourself food at the store, with your own goddamn money.”
“I just didn’t have the energy to go anywhere else but here, the store’s way too far,” he whines, arms stretching out over the counter space. “And I know that you wouldn’t want me to drink instead of eating, so.” The second sentence is stated quietly, seemingly as an afterthought.
Kunikida doesn’t pause in making food, but he looks back down, stirring without thinking about it. If what Dazai says is true, it means that he noticed how Kunikida feels about Dazai's care of himself, and got Kunikida to help him.
And, more than that, Dazai admitted that it’s true. Offhandedly, sure, but for Dazai, the idea of him changing for someone else is practically unthinkable already.
Kunikida wants to acknowledge it, but he doesn’t want to scare Dazai away. He swallows the thought, opening his mouth. “The store that you’re talking about is just a few blocks away,” he says, but can’t help meeting Dazai’s brown eyes with his own as he looks up again. “Stop being lazy for once.”
Dazai laughs. It’s a warm sound, and in the middle of Kunikida’s usually dull kitchen, he thinks that he’d always prefer this to Dazai not being there.
Absently, he notices that Dazai seems to be looking at him with a look that says he’s grateful for Kunikida not pushing him. It might be imagined, but Kunikida takes the warm feelings it invites and locks them inside his heart. He’ll think them over when he’s alone and not occupied with his life, however far away that time may be.
One of the things that Dazai notices about Kunikida is how hard he works, to the point of hurting himself.
Inexplicably, it makes him feel sad. Or, rather, not inexplicably, because Dazai cares about Kunikida a lot more than he bargained for. He might care for him in a different way than the rest of the Agency, even. There’s a part of his brain that echoes back that he has a crush, but that’s a bit too much for Dazai to handle, so he doesn’t focus on it.
Either way, there are a few reasons that Dazai comes over to Kunikida’s place so often (just often enough to not be a nuisance to him, really.)
First, he goes there to escape from himself, something that Dazai feels Kunikida come closer to figuring out each day. He’s seen the notes in his notebook about ask Dazai about this and look into what Dazai was doing then, but he rarely mentions it outright. Dazai always avoids questions, especially about his recent plans to meet with Ango again. Kunikida doesn’t need to know about that, not until Dazai himself decides to tell him.
Even with Dazai not answering anything, Kunikida still looks out for Dazai both in and out of missions, and at first it felt weird, but now it feels safe.
That’s the second reason; Kunikida makes everything feel more orderly. He’s stabilizing, something that Dazai simultaneously hates and loves. So he injects just enough chaos to feel secure.
Third is that Kunikida needs to be helped himself. Sometimes Dazai will tap on Kunikida’s window with a grin in the middle of the night, and Kunikida will still be in work clothes, squinting into the darkness with a glare that’s probably only a small portion of his anger. On those nights, he’ll watch as Kunikida, bathed in the lamplight, yells at him about safety, because apparently it’s “too dangerous” for Dazai to be climbing through Kunikida’s third floor window.
At least afterwards, though, Kunikida will wear himself out, and Dazai can grin at him and tell him to sleep, and Kunikida will listen.
Kunikida does everything he can to help the Agency, but sometimes he does too much: Dazai notices how often Kunikida writes and writes, until his fingers are stained with ink and Dazai is scared that he’s going to hurt his hands. Though, if that happened, he supposes that he’d be able to help him, being the superior partner at wrapping bandages.
The thought fizzles out. Kunikida is fun to mess with, but he wouldn’t allow Dazai to get so close, no matter how much Dazai wishes he would.
He stares up at Kunikida’s ceiling in the darkness. He’s had his share of sleepless nights, or drunken nights, or nights too painful to get anything more than fitful bursts of sleep, but Kunikida’s probably on the verge of a stress-induced fever whenever Dazai comes around each few-weeks-or-so, most of the time. How tragic.
Kunikida, in the next room, is sleeping peacefully, after their perfectly cooked, perfectly scheduled meal. Dazai looks to the side, where Kunikida’s door is. Would he hate Dazai if he knew how much Dazai tries to help him, no matter how halfheartedly?
But no, Dazai thinks, turning over again and pulling the spare blanket around himself. Kunikida is a man of ideals, who tries to help others until it hurts himself. He wouldn’t hate Dazai, but he would want Dazai to use that energy on himself. What a lost cause.
He closes his eyes, breathes in, and realizes, in a moment between sleeping and being awake, that the blanket smells like Kunikida. His heart softens. He should’ve known it wasn’t just another spare blanket, because Kunikida only has a certain number at a time.
Dazai is sitting at Kunikida’s table with a smile and sipping some of Kunikida’s coffee when Kunikida walks in the door. The man pauses, adjusting his glasses. He’s still wearing the t-shirt that he wears to sleep.
“You’re usually gone by now,” are the first words out of his mouth.
Dazai’s heart drops slightly. “Maybe I would be,” he shrugs, not letting his prior hopes of Kunikida saying something cliched, like good morning, show. “But I needed coffee,” he holds up his mug and grins. “I need energy to work, and I also need energy to commit a good suicide!”
Kunikida turns away sharply, going to the coffee machine and muttering “Good suicide my ass,” to himself.
Kunikida, Dazai observes, is grouchy in the morning, but not cruel. Never cruel. He won’t even kick Dazai out. Dazai breathes a sigh full of the smell of coffee and smiles at the man as he sits in front of him. It feels casual, between them, as Kunikida pulls out his notebook. It feels domestic.
Kunikida starts writing quickly in his notebook. Dazai almost wants to lean over, but he knows that Kunikida’s just writing out a schedule in his slightly messy but easily readable handwriting. Instead he leans back and stares at the man across from him. He has a sharp gaze and a nice face. It’s no wonder that Dazai would be so drawn to him.
“Why are you really still here?” Kunikida asks. He doesn’t say it unkindly, but more resigned.
“Is it too much to believe that I want to spend more time with you?” Dazai pulls a mock hurt face. He weighs his honesty against his feelings for Kunikida, the want to be something closer, and speaks more. “You’re a good person, Kunikida-kun, and I’d hate for something bad to happen to you.”
Kunikida’s cheeks color themselves pink, and he snaps his book shut. “What do you mean, something bad?”
Dazai meant that Kunikida works too hard, but he grins, unable to resist from poking fun at Kunikida’s doubt. “If you spend enough time with me, I’ve been told that bad things happen less!”
Kunikida doesn't look like he believes him.
Dazai leans forward onto his elbows, setting down his coffee cup. “We’re partners, aren’t we? I’d protect you both inside and outside missions.”
Kunikida looks up through his glasses, and for a moment Dazai thinks that Kunikida looks almost touched by his declaration. Kunikida’s green-ish eyes stare into Dazai’s, and he forces himself to not look away in embarrassment. He should be over these nerves, after all, but Kunikida is someone who helps Dazai more than he knows, and unintentionally flusters him as well.
“I’d help you, too, dumbass,” Kunikida says, eyebrows furrowing again as he turns back to his notebook again, scribbling something and now avoiding Dazai’s gaze.
Something warm spreads through Dazai’s heart, and he doesn’t think it’s from the coffee. If he was tempted to put words to the feeling, he might piece it together like romance and good people and ideals. Dazai really is lucky to know someone so determined to pull Dazai out of both rivers and bottles of alcohol.
“So tsundere, Kunikida-kun,” Dazai singsongs, instead of voicing it out loud.
Kunikida notices something about himself before he notices more things about Dazai.
After the realization that Dazai is accepting Kunikida’s involvement in his life, which is strange in and of itself, he figures out just how much all of Dazai’s comments get to him. Because Dazai is somehow making Kunikida feel something heart-pounding, as childish as that sounds, and he isn’t lost about what exactly that means.
He glares down at the page in his Ideal dedicated simply to questions to ask Dazai, when he has the time. When did those go from friendly concern to him smiling down at the page and thinking about Dazai in his house the night before, under one of Kunikida’s blankets that he’d been using due to the approaching chill but given away for Dazai’s comfort, or Dazai looking gorgeous in the sunlight and staring into the middle distance, or-
Dazai doesn’t fit into his Ideal. And that’s a problem, because while he’ll always chase his ideals, some of them are, intrinsically, impossible. It's something he knew he’d someday have to face, but it's strange that it's Dazai who makes Kunikida try and figure out a solution.
He swallows, remembering Dazai’s grin over the table, leaning forward to look closer at Kunikida’s face.
And, thinking back to those words, well. Dazai helping Kunikida outside of work is a strange thought, because Kunikida works diligently both in and out of missions. He takes specified breaks, because his life is structured, and the least Dazai could do to assist would be to do his goddamn paperwork.
“Oi, Dazai,” Kunikida says, across their desks, and waits for Dazai to turn his head towards him with raised eyebrows. “Either do your paperwork, or tell me what’s been distracting you lately.” He asks because he's curious, not anything else. Dazai staring at nothing is weird to see, and Kunikida would appreciate an explanation.
But it’s so unlikely that Dazai will give an answer at all, just as unlikely as it is for him to actually do his work.
Dazai sighs loudly. “You really are cruel to me, but I suppose I’d rather answer your question, out of the two options! The truth is, Kunikida-kun, that I’ve been distracted by a few things. One of those,” his eyes narrow as he grins, “is you.”
Kunikida’s breath catches in his throat. He knows his eyes are wider than normal as he stares at Dazai. Despite his ruined ideals, hope lights up inside him. Dazai, meanwhile, seems confident for only a moment longer. After that, he deflates, leaning on one of his palms and picking at a loose strand of bandage.
“But I have drinking plans for tonight with a, ah, friend of mine, of sorts, if you really must know.” Dazai suddenly springs back and spreads his arms wide, grinning as he does, his closed off demeanor changing in just a second after it quietly appeared to Kunikida. “Now, I have no work to do! You’ll do everything we need, right?”
Kunikida breathes out harshly, heart beating fast from Dazai’s almost (not really) confirmation of returned feelings. Instead of letting it show, he stands up and grits his teeth, leaning forwards over Dazai's desk and ready to chew him out for avoiding everything so much, when he should’ve taken the right option and done his work in the first place.
Dazai laughs, and despite his anger and raising volume, Kunikida can’t help but feel glad that Dazai told him something.
Kunikida gets a call from Dazai around midnight.
That’s the next thing that Kunikida notices about Dazai: Dazai’s voice over the phone is unbelievably cheerful, as always, but what stands out is that he’s whispering to Kunikida.
“I think that I’d rather talk to you than Ango,” comes Dazai’s quietly happy voice. Kunikida feels his heart in his throat.
“Dazai, why are you calling me?”
“Ango brought at least two guns to our meeting, even though he says he’s not angry at me for being angry at him… ahhh, why did I agree to this…”
“Ango? As in, the government official you said you have connections to?” Kunikida stands up to pace along the wall, his paperwork and Ideal sitting still on the desk. His eyebrows furrow with concern.
“Yeah, and he said something about self defense. So I can’t even blame him, which makes it worse because I’m trying to be better.”
Dazai doesn’t sound happy anymore. Kunikida thinks it might’ve been a front the whole time. No, he knows that it’s been a front, because Kunikida notices and worries about Dazai. They’re partners.
“Were you drinking?” Kunikida asks, because it’s easier than acknowledging the parts of Dazai that he’d hate Kunikida to get close to.
Dazai laughs, quietly, and next to Kunikida’s ear it sounds almost strained. “Why would I go drinking with Ango again if I didn’t intend to drink?”
“So, why are you calling?” Kunikida asks, annoyed. “I don’t care if it was Ango you were drinking with, if you’re drunk I can…” Kunikida trails off. He stops in place, shoes stopping on the wood floor.
“Kunikida-kun?” Dazai’s voice comes to him. Kunikida’s hand brings the phone slightly away from his ear to look down at the picture of Dazai, grinning, that Dazai had put on Kunikida’s phone. “Kunikida-kun, pleeease talk to me. I like your voice,” Dazai jokes.
Kunikida coughs into his hand, distracting himself from his overly warm face with the fact that Dazai is drunk and still won’t give any information. This time, it’s not over text messages, and Kunikida doesn’t know where Dazai is.
“You don’t want me to help you, do you?”
There’s silence for a minute.
“Whaaaaat?” Dazai has a smile in his voice, something clear in his tone. Kunikida’s heart sinks. “You try to save me too often. Why would I need your help now?”
“Dazai.” Kunikida pushes every note of urgency he can into his voice, and even to his own ears he sounds so, so tired. For Dazai, who knows Kunikida so well, he must sound awful and desperate.
There’s a shaky breath on the other side of the phone. “Damn. This was a bad idea.” Dazai’s voice shifts to something low and serious, now. “I’m trying to be more honest with you. I think that would make me just a little better, don’t you? Being a good person is hard, but Ango just, he just… He said something that brought up memories. Hey, Kunikida-kun, do you know what it feels like?”
“I know what it’s like to remember things that hurt, yes,” Kunikida replies.
“But you want to remember them, right? You bring flowers to graveyards of people you watched die. I'm not like you... You’re- you’re good and safe. Ideals are…”
Dazai stops talking, and Kunikida realizes that he needs to find Dazai, that he definitely needs to help him. Dazai doesn’t want Kunikida to find him, but here he is, telling him everything. Telling him about the world that flits through his thoughts. And st the same time, he's complimenting Kunikida, even as he speaks of things that he’d probably rather Kunikida not know about.
“Ideals are important to me,” Kunikida swallows, “but they’re never perfect, as it’s been shown to me time and time again. But I won’t ever let that stop me, and you know that; you’ve seen me at my lowest.” Kunikida grabs a jacket, seeing the light rainfall outside his dark window. “…Where are you?” he asks, more forcefully.
Dazai rattles off the answer almost as if he’s unaware of himself, having trailed off before.
Kunikida can’t sit still, because Dazai is important to him, despite everything. How can he say that he sticks by his ideals if he won’t chase after what matters to him?
Dazai wakes up with a headache. Not one strong enough to stop him from sitting up, but it pounds along with his pulse nonetheless.
Kunikida’s couch is comfortable, and the same blanket from the last time he was here is draped over him. It should’ve been something Kunikida would be using, he thinks, but dismisses the thought as he slides out from under it, heading towards Kunikida’s kitchen with one hand on his head.
He remembers everything perfectly. He wasn’t that drunk, after all.
Still, he let himself get too close to Kunikida. He let himself say too much, and the thought that Kunikida, who keeps his distance from Dazai anyway, would get to see too far too soon rolls in his gut unpleasantly.
Really, what was he supposed to expect? He’d never been good at being kind or close to others, not in his mafia days, and he’d bottled everything up from then until now. His meeting with Ango was a disaster, because Dazai had lashed out, verbally attacked him as always. Why was Dazai even trying to get better when Ango had hurt him so much by being involved in Odasaku’s death? Odasaku was the only person who had seen through Dazai’s countless walls, gone along with his moods, been his friend. He was the only reason Dazai was still here, wasn’t he?
Ah, how depressing. The part about Odasaku being Dazai’s only reason for still living is untrue, in any case; though Dazai doesn’t want to admit it, he’s found something almost like happiness at the Agency, a place where he can find fuel for his attempts at becoming a good person.
“You’re awake.” Dazai looks up to see Kunikida standing, one hand still on the back of a kitchen chair, pushed back from the table. Kunikida’s face is stern, eyes spelling out concern. There are heavy bags under his eyes.
“You look tired,” Dazai says, and his tone feels dull in his mouth, not betraying the concern for Kunikida’s health that lies behind all his masks.
“And whose fault is that?” Kunikida’s eyebrows furrow further, taking steps towards Dazai. “You called me at midnight.” Kunikida’s hand goes to rest on Dazai’s arm, and Dazai sucks in a silent breath as Kunikida’s hand lies next to his bandages, where Dazai’s wrinkled sleeves are folded back at the elbow.
Dazai pushes his feelings aside and grins, placing a hand on his chest dramatically. “Taking me home is an honor, I’ll have you know!” He nearly throws in a wink for good measure, but thinks better of it. He doesn’t want to give his feelings away too much, not when he doesn’t even know if they’re returned.
“Stop saying weird things!” Kunikida says sharply, and his hand tugs on Dazai’s arm tighter. Dazai sits in a chair at the table which Kunikida pushes him into, but Kunikida stays standing.
“Sit down, Kunikida-kun,” Dazai reminds Kunikida, who blinks at him for a second. He seems to not understand that Dazai could possibly be trying to help him. Dazai smiles serenely, as if the events of last night, when Kunikida came to get him, aren’t still on his mind. “You didn’t even need to bring me back here, you know where my place is.”
Kunikida falls into the other chair. He waits a moment before answering, and Dazai notices that his ears have turned pink. “…This was closer.”
Dazai laughs, because Kunikida is obviously just covering his ass with that comment. He just happened unthinkingly to take Dazai back to his own place where Dazai only occasionally spends his time. The thought warms Dazai’s heart, even as his laughter hurts his head. “How ideal!” he exclaims.
“Stop messing around!” Kunikida snaps, crossing his arms. His face is also pink, now. “I wanted to help you!”
“Did you?” Dazai quiets again, but the smile sticks easily to his face. He wants to tell Kunikida that he knows, that Dazai’s seen the way he looks at him when he pulls him away from yet another suicide attempt. He doesn’t want to say that he’s grateful, because he’s not ready for Kunikida to know that, but he thinks about it for a second.
Kunikida doesn’t seem to know how to respond to that. He pauses. “…Are you really trying to be more honest?”
Ah, what Dazai said while drunk, after Ango brought up their time in the mafia. Dazai hadn’t been an honest man when he was a mafia executive, but he hadn’t been trying, at that time, either.
Dazai pushes aside whatever feeling is growing in his chest to joke yet again, to Kunikida’s obvious annoyance. “For you only, Kunikida-kun, of course!” Dazai grins.
“You don’t have to force yourself to be honest with me,” Kunikida huffs, pushing his glasses back up his nose. He sounds almost sad under the rough tone, like he sees Dazai’s jokes as just another way to hide and not as another strange form of affection. He’s being considerate by offering a way out. “We’re partners.”
“How romantic!”
“I- you-” Kunikida sputters at Dazai’s thrown out comment. Dazai is aware of the connotations of making a joke like that, what with Dazai’s very real romantic feelings for Kunikida, and though his heart stutters along with Kunikida, he can’t find it in himself to regret it.
“You know what I mean!” Kunikida finishes gracefully.
“Of course I do,” Dazai says, because Kunikida is never close enough for that, or at least he isn’t right at this second. Partners or not, they’re still not boyfriends. “You barely know my past, so you’re offering me something like that for my sake. But, how can you say that you know me as well as you think you do?”
“Because…” Kunikida meets Dazai’s eyes with his own grey ones, and Dazai softens ever so slightly. “Because you keep coming back and annoying me as you do now. And you’re an agent at the Agency. I know you as you are now, and you’re the same frustrating person as ever.”
“I see,” Dazi says. Kunikida only knows the version of Dazai that exists at the Agency, and he doesn’t care as much about who Dazai was before. Then, he lets a large grin overtake his face. “Well, if you really want me to bug you that much, I guess I have no choice!”
“Dazai, you-!” Kunikida yells.
“Ahh!” Dazai leans back from Kunikida’s hands as they reach for him. “You’re getting so worked up!”
“As if you didn’t know this would happen!”
“Don’t you want to know about me, though?” Dazai tilts his head slightly to one side. “You keep pretending you don’t care, but your notebook says otherwise.” His eyes drop to the book, lying closed on the table between Kunikida’s hands, which go limp and fall against the table as he stops trying to get to Dazai. Dazai wants Kunikida to know that he’s not opposed to Kunikida wanting to understand him, even if Dazai can’t give him everything he wants. “You have so many questions.”
“I was just noticing things,” Kunikida says, fingers going to move over the characters spelling out Ideal. His eyes don’t meet Dazai’s. “It doesn’t mean anything, because I knew from the start that you wouldn’t answer.”
“Noticing things? About me? I didn’t realize that you cared so deeply,” Dazai says cheerfully.
Kunikida shakes his head, eyebrows furrowing again. When he looks up again, his face is red, and he takes a deep breath before he speaks. “Of course I do.”
Closeness in this way, Dazai thinks, is alien to him. But Kunikida, too, is trying. Dazai notices it and latches onto it, holding onto it and steeling himself with it. He lets himself speak without worrying.
“I notice things about you, too. All the time.”
“What?” Kunikida says.
“You work so hard to take care of others that you never let yourself relax. Even last night,” Dazai folds his hands over one another, letting the familiar feel of the bandages against his skin keep him talking, “you stayed up to help me, because I complimented you. And because you care for me.”
“Wait,” Kunikida leans forwards, frowning. “What are you trying to say?”
“Maybe I need help being a good person,” Dazai shrugs, “and maybe you make me feel safer. But you’re the one who made it like that in the first place. It’s because you’d save me over and over again, and let me use your blankets even though you probably get cold, and you come to get me at midnight. And maybe you’d do that for any Agency member…”
“No.” Kunikida’s eyes are serious as he looks Dazai straight in the eye. His ears are still red, Dazai notices. “I would help any Agency member, but not to that extent, because you’re my partner. And you’re…” He trails off, and Dazai is left to fill in the gaps.
“‘Partners’ is a bit ambiguous, don’t you think?” Dazai asks. “I wouldn’t mind changing that title, if you wouldn’t either.” He reflects briefly on how stupid it was to try and wait until Kunikida obviously felt the same, or to wait until he was sure of his own feelings of love and honesty for his partner. “How’d you like to try on ‘boyfriend’?”
Kunikida sputters again as Dazai grins, but he still accepts.
They make a deal; if Kunikida goes to sleep earlier and stops worrying so much, Dazai will stop drinking so much. It’s not absolute, and they slip up sometimes, but somehow, they notice from underneath shared blankets, it feels warmer to try to understand each other’s concerns together. Maybe Dazai doesn’t understand Kunikida’s ideals completely, and maybe Dazai’s past is still a mystery to Kunikida in some ways, but little by little, Dazai notices that Kunikida seems happier. And Dazai notices that same happiness in himself, too.