Work Text:
Someone in the Armed Detective Agency was gay. At least, that's what Dazai hoped when he came up with the fantastic idea of spreading that rumor because he was bored.
Morally, should he run the risk of indirectly outing someone who he works with and who, at least in some sense of the word, trusts him? Of course not. But the thing about Dazai and morals is that his moral compass is a roulette wheel, and whatever flimsy set of morals he does have can and will be thrown out at the drop of a hat if it means he'll be entertained for a few hours. So, with his scheme already down pat in his head, he strode into work.
The first person on his agenda was his partner, Kunikida, who he knew from past experience was easy to mess with. Dazai found his target, working studiously, per usual, and pulled up a chair next to him, sitting on it backwards.
"Kunikidaaaaaaaaaaaaaa," he had gotten annoying his partner down to an art form. The longer he dragged out Kunikida's name, the longer the exasperated sigh he got in response. "I heard a ruuuuuuumor."
"Did you now?" Kunikida didn't give him the satisfaction of looking up from his laptop.
Dazai huffed, "Look at meeeeee." Kunikida wanted to limit the amount of whining he'd have to hear out of Dazai, so he pushed up his glasses and complied. Happy with the attention, he continued, "I heard that somebody here is..." pause for dramatic effect... "g-a-y." He spelled it out, again, for dramatic effect.
Kunikida looked at him for a moment, then, in the most monotonous tone a human being could ever manage to have, said, "Yeah." Then he looked back down at his computer.
"What?"
"I said yeah. Someone here is gay, probably. Statistically."
"What the hell, Kuni."
Unsatisfied with how messing with Kunikida went, Dazai moved onto another target. While Tanizaki wasn't as fun to bother, he was fine enough. Dazai didn't have nearly as much practice getting under his skin, though.
"Heyyyy, Tanizaki!" A very strong start from Osamu Dazai; How will his coworker respond?
"Hey, Dazai." A very ordinary response from Junichiro Tanizaki.
"Rumor has it, somebody here is gay..." Dazai delivered his line with a sly smile, hoping for an entertaining reaction. Instead, what he got was...
"Are you trying to hit on me?"
"What?" It was safe to say he was caught off guard. Why would he have been hitting on him? That would've been gay.
Tanizaki shook his head, "You're cute and all, but this isn't an open relationship," he vaguely gestured over to Naomi. "Sorry."
Dazai ran his hands through his hair. Was Tanizaki implying that, had he not been in a relationship, he would've flirted with him? What in the hell was THAT supposed to mean?
"Wait, you said I'm what?"
Later on, Dazai found Ranpo desperately trying to avoid doing any work. Dazai sat on his desk and struck up a conversation, hoping that both of them would get some entertainment out of it. After a few minutes, he tried out his newly modified line.
"Have you heard the rumor that's been going around here?"
Ranpo nearly jumped out of his seat, he was so excited for the juicy details. "No! What, what is it?"
"Someone in our midst is gay."
Ranpo sat back down, a little disappointed. "Are you talking about me?"
Dazai was completely taken aback, and if he were feeling more melodramatic in that moment, he would've thrown himself off the desk. "What, no, you're not gay."
"I mean, I've been dating Poe for like a year and a half," Ranpo shrugged. "I think. What day is it?"
"WHAT?"
"I asked what day it is," He repeated, rummaging through his bag in search of his planner that he used exactly one time.
"No, no- The other part!"
"Oh, Poe? I'm dating him. You know Poe. Edgar. The American. The cute author from the Guild. He's tall, carries around his pet raccoon with him. You know him, he's been here plenty of times. I thought it was obvious that I was dating him." He flipped open his planner and pointed to a date. "Aha! Yes! It'll be exactly a year and a half in three days."
"I can't believe this."
"So if it wasn't about me, who was the rumor about?"
"I don't know!" Dazai was almost too shocked by the reveal of Ranpo's gayness to be upset that his rumor-spreading wasn't working the way he'd wanted.
Ranpo donned his glasses, in order to, of course, activate his Ultra Deduction ability. He looked around the room with a good 'hmm', tapping his chin with his finger and everything. He turned back to Dazai and looked him up and down, which sort of made Dazai start sweating. Ranpo asked in a hushed voice, "Is it about you?"
"What."
With this new information now in his grasp-- you know, the information about Ranpo being gay with his boyfriend, Poe the cute American author from the Guild-- well, Dazai couldn't be expected to just not talk to someone about it.
"Yosanoooo! Did you know that Ranpo is gay?"
"Yeah, of course. He and I are mlm/wlw solidarity."
Dazai wasn't sure how she had said that out loud with her mouth. He also wasn't sure what it meant. "You're what?"
Yosano raised her eyebrow at him. "Are you... not gay?"
Dazai paused, looked down at his hands, then looked back up to make eye contact with Yosano. "Are... Are you?"
"Yes... I figured that's why you were excitedly telling me that you found out Ranpo is gay."
"I wasn't excited."
"Sounded excited."
"Wait so you're... You're a lesbian..."
"Yeah."
"Why?"
Dazai was beginning to get frustrated. No one was reacting to his rumor in a way that entertained him. All he learned was that two of his coworkers are definitely gay, both of his gay coworkers think that Dazai himself is gay, and that one other coworker might have gay tendencies. He decided to go to the top of the chain for some answers. He was tempted to kick in the door of the ADA President's office, but in a moment of self awareness, he opted to just open it like a normal human being.
"Alright, I'm going to cut straight to the chase here," Dazai draped himself over the chair opposite of the desk the President was sat at. "Are there ANY OTHER gay people here that I need to know about?"
Fukuzawa peered over his tea at a hilariously distressed Dazai and gave a shrug, "I don't pay attention to any of that stuff," He took a sip as he watched Dazai throw his arms in the air and groan. "But if you're really that curious, I'm gay."
"Are you kidding?"
"Why would I be kidding about that?"
The work day had come to an end and everyone was eager to go home and get some rest. The sunset cast a soft yellow glow over the office, someone had shut off the light, everyone had their belongings gathered; No one was prepared, emotionally, for Dazai to hoist himself up on one of the desks and make his announcement.
"Alright everyone!" The office was small enough that he didn't have to raise his voice to be heard by everyone, but he went ahead and raised it anyway. All eyes were on him, but he was too frustrated with how his day went to be excited about that fact. "I've noticed there have been some rumors going around the office today."
Ranpo piped up with a "Yeah, started by you." Prick. Dazai avoided acknowledging that comment.
"THERE have been rumors... And I just need to know the truth. Can everyone in this room who is straight please raise their hand?" He raised his own in a very flamboyant matter, then scanned the room to see no other hands in the air. Kunikida did a little "kind of" motion with his hand, but otherwise, everyone had stayed still. What. The. Fuck.
After what felt like hours, Atsushi hesitantly raised his hand into the air.
Dazai looked at him proudly, like he was Atsushi's father and he'd just won a baseball game for him- even though Dazai doesn't know anything about baseball- and exclaimed, "YES, thank you! Finally!"
But Atsushi shook his head, shooting some glances around the room. "No, no, I... wanted to clarify... You wanted bisexuals to keep their hands down, too, right?"
"BI WHAT!!!" Dazai rubbed his temples, still holding one hand high in the air. This was honestly so crazy to him. How could he be the only one?
Atsushi spoke up again, though he seemed nervous. Overdramatic Dazai was not a force to be reckoned with, he knew, but he still managed to ask what everyone seemed to be thinking. "Dazai-san, why is your hand up?"
Dazai blinked a couple times as he processed the question, then answered with a very unconvincing, "Because I'm straight..?" Everyone just sort of stared at him for a minute. For once, the feeling of everyone looking at him was supremely embarrassing.
Yosano asked, carefully, "Are you sure?"
"Yes..?" But honestly, he was feeling less sure. In fact, with every passing second, he was growing more and more unsure. He looked to Kunikida desperately.
Kunikida did not reassure him. "I thought this was your convoluted way of coming out." The others nodded.
Dazai was exasperated at this point. "What? How many of you thought that?" He was met with vague noises of agreement, shrugs, and nods. "You guys seriously all thought I was gay?" The second wave of vague noises of agreement came and went, and Osamu "I have no such taste in men" Dazai had never been more appalled.
Not that there was anything wrong with being gay, he just couldn't believe what he was hearing. Because Osamu Dazai was NOT gay. He hadn't been gay even once in his life. Right...?
Well, okay, there was that one time... And that other time... And all those times with Chuuya... And his infatuation with Oda... And the crushes that he's had that could be deemed as not exclusively heterosexual, which technically would be most of them, if not all... And perhaps some of his mannerisms and the way he presents himself could be perceived as pretty gay... And there's the fact that every woman he has been attracted to or feigned attraction for was not straight, but that's another can of worms entirely... And all of this is to say that maybe, maybe, Dazai is the last person on the planet to realize that he isn't straight himself. Maybe.
So, as he's recounting these thoughts and experiences in his head, his hand is slowly lowering. His coworkers could see the realization (and possibly the dread) on his face, but everyone stayed silent for a moment. Dazai clambered down from the desk he'd been perched on. He mumbled a half-hearted apology to his coworkers, who would most certainly not like him anymore after this whole debacle, and made his way out the door.
Outside, he wandered around aimlessly until he found somewhere to sit and be alone with his thoughts. Had he really not considered before that he was gay? It had just never crossed his mind, somehow. Dazai did whatever felt right whenever he wanted, and apparently men felt right. Interesting. He fished his phone out of his back pocket to make a call.
"Who is this?" The voice on the other end of the line spat.
"Hey, Chuuya," Dazai said, sounding oh so sad.
"Ugh, Dazai? How the hell did you get this number?!" Dazai knew that Chuuya changed his number every couple of weeks, but Chuuya didn't need to know that.
He ignored his question again in favor of asking his own, "Do you think I'm gay?"
There was only about half a second of silence. "Yes, Dazai. What kind of stupid fucking question is that? Yeah. Yes, I think you're gay, because you are. Is that seriously what you called me for? Like, are you being serious right now? Are you fucking kidding me? After everything we've been through, my god, you know what? I'm going to kill you. I'm tracking you down and killing you right now. How could you be so fu---"
Dazai cut him off by hanging up. He sighed loudly. Even his ex boyfriend thought he was gay. What was he supposed to do?
He looked out at the river in front of him. He was half tempted to jump in and never see the light of day again, but he felt a presence beside him. He turned to see Atsushi and Kunikida standing to his right.
"Hey," Atsushi sat down beside him. "We all talked, nobody hates you."
"Everyone unanimously agreed that if we were going to hate you, we would have already," Kunikida added.
"Yeah, we know you were just being a little stupid," Atsushi continued.
Kunikida corrected him, "Majorly stupid."
Dazai sighed loudly again.
Atsushi and Kunikida gave each other a glance. Atsushi leaned against Dazai's right side while Kunikida went to stand on his left.
"Literally no one cares that you're gay," Kunikida said, flipping through his notebook. Dazai looked up at him, maybe to make sure he hadn't fabricated that sentence. The three of them sat in silence for a few minutes, after that. They watched the sun finish setting together.
Dazai stood up with one more sigh, less dramatic than the previous ones. Atsushi looked up at him expectantly, knowing he would probably say something. He expected something long-winded and overacted about coming to terms with his sexuality after a long 22 years of living. Or maybe he'd reach deep down and find something about internalized homophobia or transphobia. Maybe he'd go on a spiel about self acceptance and give Atsushi and very dad-esque lesson about it, as if he knows anything about the subject.
Dazai put his hands in his coat pockets, and to everyone's surprise, said "Cool." Then he walked off.