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Sectioned in between the many folders that find themselves scattered throughout the office, the Armed Detective Agency—yes, them, the alleged terrorists in charge of a sundry of violent crimes of which they were totally framed—happily resume their work as prestigious detectives. Well, somewhat happily, getting back to business as they usually are takes some getting used to. The aftermath is still being dragged out from right under them.
Atsushi’s gaze sweeps over the office. Having been thoroughly searched and prodded at by the government during their investigation, more than one thing was misplaced or even completely absent. Even so, after a few days trying to get back into it, it looks the part of an office that’s actively used.
(At times, Atsushi believes their office truly reflects the people that work there. No matter what happened, after all is said and done, it would still stand. It would stand and be in the process of fixing, healing. Again, and again, together. Bullet marks on their walls and support pillars—their skin—serve as a reminder.)
They’re doing better, much, much better.
Atsushi still spends the afternoon with an insistent pull on his heartstrings.
He looks at his own desk, black and white because of all the files collected atop it. Kunikida’s is somewhat the same, although much more organized. Force of habit, probably. Atsushi’s not sure what’s become of his ideals, if Kunikida himself knows. Ranpo’s desk is littered with empty candy wrappers and Kenji’s desk sees brown and green from all the potted plants. Tanizaki’s lucky that Naomi takes such good care of his desk.
And of course, the desk of the man who’s lacking is lacking in content. It’s wiped clean completely and its surface is gleaming from the polish. Atsushi wonders where its contents are. If it was still in possession of the government all he could do is wait for it to be returned.
The shining days after their victory are spent in waiting, it would just have to be.
Atsushi chews on his lip and clicks a map open to lay a few more folders in. Contact with Dazai had been scarce and Ango had mentioned it could take weeks before he could be seen in the flesh. Perhaps the sting of this is mostly because when they’d finally proved their innocence to the world, he’d expected that Dazai would’ve been there to rejoice with them, or a day later.
He’s really the instigator of his own unhappiness with such unrealistic expectations. Of course, Dazai wouldn’t be there with them in person immediately, or a day later for that matter. He was probably across the world, and surely there would be formalities and paperwork regarding his release that simply needed time.
He’d wait, yes, patiently. Dazai would come back, and he would greet him, and Atsushi would greet back and then they’d slip into old and new schedules alike.
Atsushi closes the map and slips it back into its place on the shelf. Re-organizing the agency isn’t necessarily hard work, but it was tedious and repetitive work and some people probably wouldn’t stand two minutes of it. He chuckles at the frown or pout that Dazai would wear at the mere mention of it.
Atsushi shakes his head as if to shake the persistent reminders of Dazai away. It’s not going to help him if he’s going to be wistful about it all the time. He wasn’t this caught up with Dazai during their days as fugitives, although admittedly they did have more contact with him, and Atsushi’s mind wasn’t as empty as it is now.
He’s starting to feel like a forlorn lover anxiously awaiting their spouse’s return from overseas at this point, unsure if or when they’d arrive. Which is absolutely ridiculous because the last thing they are is that. Dazai is his co-worker and mentor, thank you very much.
He walks home alone—Kyouka’s out with Kenji, Tanizaki and Naomi, who’d take her to a nice little garden and dinner afterwards—staring up at the reflection of the sun in a tall, glass building. It’s not quite sunset yet and Atsushi lingers a little, slowing down his pace so that he might catch a glimpse of the tableau of orange, yellow and purple when he gets home in a bit.
Or maybe he shouldn’t. It wouldn’t be the same anyway. A half-sun at the skyline with a ring of orange and purple around it is always accompanied by something, someone else.
He’s half looking over his shoulder when he ascends the steps, fingers pensively toying with his dorm keys as he goes.
At the top of the stairs, when he levels his gaze to the front again, he freezes.
It’s Dazai who straightens from where he was leaning over the handrails. Windswept brown hair and tan trench coat and a blue pendant on his bolo tie. “Hello, Atsushi-kun,” he greets him, levelling his smiling eyes—smiling eyes, smiling mouth—towards him. Leave it up to Dazai to catch him off guard.
Dazai would come back, and he would greet him, and Atsushi would—stand and stare, eyes as big as saucers until the truth of it—Dazai’s back, Dazai’s here—jolts him into moving after seconds, hours. He barely pays any mind to the oh that escapes Dazai when Atsushi practically collides with him and wraps his arms around the man’s neck, pulling him in.
“Dazai-san,” Atsushi gasps, ignoring his muffled voice what with being pressed against Dazai’s collarbone, inhaling the mild scent of laundry detergent with a sharp note of alcohol. “You’re… You’re back.”
Dazai’s not yet moved from when he stumbled back at the collision, just barely being able to catch himself on the railing. “Of course, I am,” he says, one arm uselessly hovering around Atsushi’s hug while the other steadies them with the help of the fence. “You didn’t think I’d be gone forever now, did you?” He teases, although he sounds a little breathless.
“No,” Atsushi replies, wondering where he finds the strength to talk to him, Dazai. It must be the lack thereof lately that he’s had to deal with. “I’m just really glad to see you.”
Seconds pass before Dazai’s arms wind themselves up around Atsushi, too, and he squeezes him tightly, just a for moment. Because of the height difference, it lifts Atsushi slightly off the ground and if his bones pop, then that doesn’t matter at all. “I’m back,” Dazai sighs in his hair, longingly, lovingly.
Atsushi blinks the wetness in his eyes away, but he’s exploding from the amount he’s feeling at this point, akin to seeing the rest of the Armed Detective Agency when he did after their seperation. Slightly different, maybe. Dazai lifts his hand from Atsushi’s back and runs it through the boy’s hair, and repeats the motion, not letting go even when Atsushi steps back at last, cutting their embrace short.
“How are you? How have you been?” Atsushi asks. It’s unnaturally colder without Dazai, and it feels out-of-place to ask such a mundane questions, but it’s part of what Atsushi’s been dying to hear about. The fabric of Dazai’s coat is creased where his white-knuckled grip had held him.
Dazai looks around and his lips curl into a smile as he takes in the sight. “It’s good to be back,” he eventually answers, his thumb pressing lightly into Atsushi’s temple before retracting and stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I’m mostly glad to have something more to do than having conversations about the rest of the world with Dostoyevsky in a metal box.”
Atsushi winces. He’d been in jail, of course, with the mastermind Dostoyevsky himself. “And… and how was that?”
“Meh. Two out of five stars.”
“Two stars? Isn’t that too much?”
Dazai laughs, even if Atsushi wasn’t really joking to be quite honest. And at last, Dazai looked at him, eyes crinkled. “And how have you been, Atsushi-kun?” He asks, softly.
“I’ve… I’ve been a lot things. But I’m good now. Just really relieved that everything’s over and things can get back to normal. I’m glad you’re back, I missed you.” His voice becomes thick with emotion, his heart too big for his chest, and for a moment he has to avert his gaze.
Dazai reaches out to ruffle his hair again. “I’m glad to be back, too. And it’s really good to see you, too, Atsushi-kun.”
Atsushi revels in the feel of the touch when realization cuts him short. “Wait. When did you get back, Dazai-san?”
Dazai glances around the perimeter before settling his eyes back on Atsushi. “I just got dropped off the Agency dorms, ten minutes before you came, I think. I was going to make myself a good cup of tea.”
“Aren’t you tired, then?”
“Not really. They were a lot nicer to me when I got released.”
“I’m glad,” Atsushi says. And he really is. And then, peering shyly up from his eyelashes—which is funny, because he just attacked the man with a bear hug—he asks, “can I join you for tea?”
“I don’t know, Atsushi-kun. Can you?” Dazai replies with twinkling eyes. Atsushi ends up shoving him back slightly, greatly contradictory to his desire to pull him back. He indulges Dazai’s laughter with a fond little smile, following him back to his dorm.
That smile slips from his face as soon as he sees the state of Dazai’s room. Empty bottles of saké, plastic food wrappers and little cans with a crab logo are littered about the place, to not speak of the crumpled papers that coat half of the floor like a carpet. He stops in his tracks and stares, wide-eyed. “They really wrecked your room, Dazai-san.”
“Who did?”
“The government when they…” Atsushi frowns a little. It made no sense, however, he realized; professionals did not go to work like that.
“Oh, no, I pretty much left it like this,” Dazai replies cheerfully. “Although I’m pretty sure they did pay me a visit, with the investigation against us and all, but it still seems to be in good condition,”
He steps out of the way of a few cans of soda and into the kitchen that look sad with the layer of dust and Atsushi, with relatively low standards, wonders how this could be considered ‘in good conditions. “What kind of tea do you prefer, Atsushi-kun?” Dazai asks, turning on the tap and checking if the water’s still running.
“Anything is fine,” Atsushi replies, because it’s really about the amount of sugar.
At last, he’s seated in front of Dazai with steaming tea in a chipped cup before him. They spend their time talking, catching up on the bad and the good things, and if they don’t talk, they’re smiling. It takes so long the tea runs out and Dazai gets up to make them another batch, even though Atsushi insists he do it.
Dazai’s grinning as he tells him there’s no need, lingering his touch when he takes Atsushi’s cup from out of his hands, and then sets out to get them more tea.
Atsushi peers out of the window. It’s darkened considerably outside, just barely a stream of light behind the buildings. Dazai’s humming from the kitchen keeps him company. The sun finally slips below the skyline, as if to say, I can leave, because you’re okay now.
And he is.