Work Text:
Kunikida sighed and looked over at the man standing next to him.
Osamu Dazai, the new agency member Fukuzawa had partnered him with just short of two weeks ago. In that short amount of time the slim brown haired man had annoyed Kunikida to no end, wrecked every schedule he could, proved to be far more intelligent than he let on, and jumped off a bridge.
The last he had played off as nothing, saying he knew he wouldn't actually drown and was just doing it to throw off schedule. While the man insisted he was fine, there was a moment before he put up those walls. Just a moment after Kunikida dragged him out of the river that such a jarring , desolate look was visible in his eyes before he blinked it away.
That look, along with the bandages covering at least his neck and arms, told a much different story from the one he painted with his words. Of course Kunikida couldnt know what the bandages were for but he wasn't that clueless. He was a detective after all, idealistic sure but not naive.
The tall blond had no idea where Dazai had come from before he joined the agency. But from how his new partner acted he could only guess it was nowhere good. He seemed momentarily caught off guard by normal acts of kindness and friendship the members showed him. He'd given Yosano a wary look when she asked to look at an injury he'd gotten, but hadn't even reacted when Kunikida himself had snapped a bit and yelled at him.
He seemed strangely unaffected by or just very used to violence. When Kunikida had first joined the agency he had to take time off on multiple occasions to handle casualties and violence he'd seen and been a part of. Even now it still visibly affected him. Dazai on the other hand just met it with a somewhat grim demeanor and carried on. Not like he didn't care exactly, but more like it was something he'd long since accepted.
It was strange and worrying that he seemed so used to such things, after all they were still very young, sure at 20 they were both definitely adults but, well, Kunikida dreaded to think when his partner would have had time to become so accustomed to violence.
He definitely did worry about Dazai, despite not knowing him for long. At the current moment his brown haired partner seemed unfocused, staring at either the buildings in the distance or nothing at all. He wondered just what went on in his mind sometimes, maybe he'd be able to help if he knew.
"Dazai, are you doing alright?" He asks in his normal firm and sort of strict tone but the look he gave his partner was softer and more concerned. He hardly expected an honest answer but he could at least try.
Dazai was lost in thought, he'd overheard a passerby saying something to their friend, nothing that really meant anything, something about how they should go wander around and explore in the dark that night. But those words had indirectly sparked a memory that lived in the back of Dazais mind, just waiting to torment him at any given opportunity.
𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘺.
The dying words of one of the first people Dazai had learned to truly trust echoed in his head, it had replayed time and time again in the past two years and he felt it would never stop haunting him. Maybe a few days would pass when he didn't think about the memory, but sure enough it would always pop up sooner or later. He just wanted it to go away he didn't want to think about it but he couldn't stop.
As soon as he remembered it a huge part of him wanted to linger on it instead of distracting himself. So what if it hurt he deserved the pain anyway, his blood was mafia black there were just some things you couldn't come back from. He was merely living a charade to honor a dead mans wish.
It's not like it mattered anyway Oda was right nothing would help him, he'd wander the darkness for eternity no matter what he did. He couldn't have been wrong about that, Oda knew him better than almost anyone. He'd said with his dying breath that he knew what he said was true because he was his friend. He wouldn't have lied, he couldn't have lied.
Those thoughts were cut off however when Kunikidas words reached his ears.
"hm?" He immediately looked over at the blond with a questioning expression, hiding anything other than that had become second nature.
The previous mafia executives instinctive reaction was suspicion. A main thing the mafia had taught him was that people you could trust were very few and far between, and that letting your guard down often meant death. As an executive there were many people who would kill him and take his place if they thought they could get away with it so showing any sort of weakness was an extremely bad idea. Anything that could be used against you in the mafia, was used against you.
Was this some sort of trick or test to see how easily he trusted people? It was a stupid one if so, he wasn't dumb enough to fall for that. Kunikida had known him for a few days short of two weeks he had no reason to actually care. That wasn't even close to a long enough time for loyalty ties to form. If he'd fall for that this easily he'd have been killed in the mafia years ago. They'd have to try a lot harder to trick the likes of him.
Wait.
This wasn't the mafia and the whole point was that their job was to help and care about people. Tests like that would probably be met with horror from the people here. From everything he'd observed so far they didn't work like that at all and would greatly frown upon those who did. So, in theory, it shouldn't be a trap and it should be safe to let his guard down.
But did he even want to? He was so used to hiding how he felt and never truly confiding in people. He didn't even really know his new work partner yet. All of his instincts told him that telling the truth was a bad idea. He didn't even really see telling the truth as an option honestly.
"Of course I'm okay" he answered without hesitation, lying about that was as natural as breathing to the ex mafioso.
Kunikida however wasn't so easily fooled and could be stubborn if he saw fit to be. There was absolutely no doubt in his mind that Dazai was lying to him for whatever reason. He could understand why of course, he'd hardly had time to prove he could be trusted. With what he had pieced together about his new partner, his previous situations probably hadn't been ones that taught him to trust people.
Kunikida respected boundaries of course and didn't want to force Dazai to open up to him. But he was concerned enough to ask again, it wasn't like Dazai hadn't already shown extremely concerning behavior that warranted it.
"are you sure because if-" he began before Dazai cut him off
"I greatly dislike repeating myself" he spoke in such an intense and threatening tone he immediately regretted using. He hadn't even thought about it at all he just snapped and defaulted back to that tone. That voice was one that he used with his subordinates, none argued once he talked like that or it might be the last thing they did. His subordinates would have frozen in fear when he had just spoken without a doubt.
The fact he had defaulted back to that voice scared him, he wasn't supposed to be that person anymore. He was supposed to be a good person, helping people instead of scaring them. He wasn't sure exactly who he was but he did know he was no longer the teenager that had countless grown men trembling at his feet.
The terrified expressions of his subordinates the last time he'd used that voice flashed through his mind as he tried to think of what the hell he was supposed to do now.
Kunikida however was not one of his subordinates, and he wasn't scared. He was taken aback sure, a look of surprise on his face for a moment, but the response Dazai gave him only made him more determined. Especially seeing as the man immediately looked almost scared by his own voice after he'd spoken. It was clear Dazai hadn't meant to snap like that.
"look Dazai I know you don't have much reason to trust me yet but I just want to help. I'm not naive enough to not pick up on at least a little bit of what's going on here. If you thought you could jump off a bridge and keep your arms bandaged at all times without me or the others worrying you'd be very wrong." He spoke in a very serious tone and, although there wasn't really anyone close enough to hear them talking at the moment, he still lowered his voice a bit.
Dazai just stared back at him for a few seconds, it made sense Kunikida wouldn't be scared he'd expect him to at least be as frustrated with him as he normally was now that Dazai had actually snapped at him. Probably even mad at Dazais tone. But that wasn't what happened, instead of the situation escalating the strict blond just toned down even more. It wasn't what Dazai had expected to happen and he wasn't entirely sure how to react.
His partners words made sense of course, the only reason Dazai hadn't expected all that was because he automatically assumed they wouldn't care because that's what he was used to. In the mafia you didn't care about strangers or even acquaintances, there were only three people in the mafia that cared about Dazai to any extent. Nothing had prepared him for everyone in the agency to automatically care about his wellbeing.
Of course he'd expected them to be less harsh than the mafia but still, almost two weeks was definitely way sooner than he expected them to actually care about him. He'd expected to be able to brush off what concern they might have for at least a while until they actually bonded with him. Apparently he'd been quite wrong.
Dazai wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to say now but Kunikida seemed to expect some sort of answer from him. He had snapped at the man, he owed him some sort of apology for that. Maybe he could afford to be honest for just a second?...
"No, I'm not ok"
"do you want to talk about it?"
"no"
"alright. Cmon we're gonna be late"
This was progress that Kunikida was happy with and he let the topic go without pressing any further. He turned to walk down a different direction on the sidewalk and glanced back to make sure Dazai was following him.
Despite saying they were going to be late they both knew Kunikida wasn't leading Dazai along the quickest route to where they needed to go.
But this one didn't have any bridges.