Archive of Our Own ^beta

Konpeki Doppo had followed a strict schedule his entire life. His father had made sure of it, and he didn’t know anything different. One of his earlier memories was sitting in a chair, gripping the edges with his soft little hands, as his father ran the electric razor over his head. It hurt. None of his hairs were allowed to be longer than one inch long.

At school, his best friend Rokuzou would ruffle it and talk about how it felt like stiff little strands of dried grass, and his other best friend Katai rolled his eyes and told him to knock it off, that it wasn’t nice to compare people to dead plants. But in the nature of twelve-year-old boys, quiet, grave Katai’s requests were ignored in favor of teasing and scuffling and running around waving toys like chickens with their heads cut off, as twelve-year-old boys are wont to do. Of course, Doppo always kept a careful watch on the clock. His father had drilled into him the importance of every second, every minute, every hour, and if he found him wasting time playing with his friends instead of studying, Doppo knew that he would be in huge trouble, and he didn’t want to lose his bed again. When the clock hit exactly fifteen minutes before his father arrived, Doppo would retreat to the bathroom and carefully clean up, to Rokuzou’s amusement, and then start doing his homework so that it wouldn’t seem like he was wasting time. Of course Rokuzou teased him, and he would tease him right back about his video games and all the time that went down the drain with them, and Rokuzou would mock him for his obsession with time, and he would laugh and say it was better to know how much time there was then to lose it all, and Rokuzou would say “How can you lose a concept?” and by that time Doppo’s father usually showed up, and Doppo packed everything up and waved goodbye to his friends and got in the car, and was yelled at for wasting his time talking instead of studying, and once they were home and not breaking the rules of the road he hit him once, in the chest so that nobody would see (although Doppo didn’t understand why it was so vital that nobody ever saw; wasn’t the point of being punished and shamed that people knew and could make fun of you in a way that actually hurt, unlike the teasing he and his friends engaged him? But his father’s word was law, and anyway he didn’t want Rokuzou and Katai knowing how much of a failure he was. At least he could track the minutes. At least he could track the minutes.) and then locked him in his room to study. Dinner was at 5:00 sharp, but his father didn’t let him out, which was understandable, because he had failed to get work done while waiting in the carpool line. He sat against the wall, carefully noting down his day in his planner, as his father and stepmother ate dinner. At 6:30 he was let out to shower and floss and brush, and at 7:05 he was back in his room for forty-five minutes of reading before he went to the bathroom for his nightly drink of water and usage of the toilet, and was in bed by eight.

Doppo’s mother had left when he was five, and he barely remembered her; all he remembered was walking in one day after getting home from school, on a rare day when he’d managed to do everything right, and seeing an unfamiliar woman was sitting on the couch, flipping through a large book and taking notes. 

He looked at his father, wondering if he would tell him who the woman was, but he didn’t say anything and instead went into his basement workroom that Doppo was never, ever, ever allowed in, so Doppo went over to the woman and asked who she was.

She introduced herself as Nobuko Sasaki, his father’s fiancee, and told him he was supposed to go to his room. He informed her that he always had a snack with his mommy after school, and she told him that his mommy didn’t love him anymore, and she was going to be his new mother, and wasn’t that nice?

Doppo did not think it was nice at all. He shouted at her that of course his mommy loved him, and she calmly argued with him until suddenly she slapped him across the face and told him to stop arguing and go to his room. He started crying, and yelled that he wouldn’t, the first proper temper tantrum he’d thrown since he was a baby . Sasaki marched herself down into the basement, and then his father came up as he tore around the house looking for his mother, and Doppo didn’t really remember what happened after that, but when he got back to school, everyone was very impressed with his bike accident that left him with several broken limbs and a severe concussion.

After that, Doppo never questioned Sasaki or his father again, and strictly adhered to the schedule, which made it very strange when one day, his father didn’t show up on time. He didn’t show up for a full thirty-two minutes, sixteen minutes after Katai’s mother came, and Doppo was in the middle of a full blown panic attack when Detective Taguchi showed up to pick up Rokuzou, which Rokuzou, for all of his twelve-year-old bluster, was handling terribly. At first, he had teased Doppo about being so worried about a few minutes difference, because his and Katai’s parents varied so much when they came to pick them up, but when he put his head between his knees and dug his fingernails into his head, Rokuzou got worried. Detective Taguchi, who had dedicated his life to being an actually good cop who helped people and had, among other things, taken psychology courses and had managed to help several survivors of the Azure King’s bombings, was able to talk Doppo down, and took him home. Doppo stared at his watch and counted the seconds as Detective Taguchi told them a story about how they had managed to get a bomb set by the Azure King found and disabled before it exploded, which was really nice. 

“Usually they got off during my dad’s lunch break,” he mumbled. “I’m glad it didn’t happen today.”

“Yeah, a lot of lives were saved,” said Detective Taguchi. “What time is your dad’s lunch break, Doppo?”

“11:17 to 12:46,” Doppo said. “He and Miss Sasaki usually meet up and work on their pet project.”

“You have a pet?” asked Rokuzou. “Dude, no fair! Why didn’t you mention it before?”

“No, Dad and Sasaki have a pet project that they work on. It’s not a pet, Dad says animals are dirty and they can’t follow a schedule so we can’t have one. Besides, I’m dirty and off schedule enough for our family. Dad couldn’t train a dog and me at the same time and Miss Sasaki shouldn’t have to.”

Detective Taguchi frowned. “Doppo, did your father actually say that to you?”

“Yes, sir,” said Doppo.

“I see.” He was quiet for a few moments. “Doppo, how do you feel about coming home with Rokuzou today? I’ll call your father and tell him.”

Doppo shook his head. “I can’t, it’s 3:57, I need to do my homework in my room until 5:00, and if I’m late I don’t get dinner.”

“If you came over, you could eat with us!” Rokuzou exclaimed. “We’re having pizza tonight, and we could finally play Fortnite together! Katai and I play it all the time, you need to join! Oh, and I can show you my fish, too, I got a new angelfish last week!”

“Cool!” said Doppo, his worries momentarily floating off, only to slam back down hard. “But Dad might get mad. I’m not supposed to go to a friend’s house without asking him first, at least two weeks and three days prior.”

“I’ll call him,” said Detective Taguchi. “Maybe you can even sleep over.”

“Yes!” exclaimed Rokuzou. 

“I don’t want Dad to get mad,” said Doppo.

“I’ll sort everything out with him, I promise,”  said Detective Taguchi said, pulling over and calling Doppo’s father. “Hello? Yes, this is Taguchi. You didn’t pick up Doppo from school today, and carpool was about to close, so I picked him up, and I was wondering if I could take him home for dinner. Really, it would be no trouble. He’s a very good kid. Yes, he mentioned that, and I would make sure to have the boys do their homework. Are you sure? Really, I think it would be a good idea to have him come home with me for now. I see. Well, hopefully the boys will be able to play together soon. I’ll see you soon.” Detective Taguchi hung up and sighed. “I’m sorry, Doppo, your father said you can’t come over today.”

“That’s ok,” said Doppo. “A playdate wasn’t part of today’s schedule, anyway.”

Detective Taguchi frowned as he pulled back onto the road and started driving towards Doppo’s house. “You know if you need anything, you can come to me, right? Anything at all. If something bad happens with your father, or if you just need a place to stay for a few days, just tell me, ok? I will come get you and help you out immediately, no matter what.”

“Um. Ok. Thanks,” said Doppo, who really didn’t know how to respond. He couldn’t really imagine a situation where he’d actually need to call Detective Taguchi for help, unless the Azure King decided to come after his family, but the sentiment was nice.

The rest of the car ride home was uneventful, but when he got inside, his father was furious. He hit Doppo for being late, and for talking back when he asked if he would still get dinner, since it wasn’t his fault he was late. He hit him for riding with Officer Taguchi and when Doppo mentioned that the police had been able to disarm one of the Azure King’s bombs, in hopes that it would cheer him up, he yelled at him to never mention that again and shoved him into the stovetop, where he slammed into the pot of soup Sasaki was cooking for dinner and it spilled all over his arms. He screamed, and, to his faint horror, buried somewhere deep under the pain and fear, started crying. His father glared down at him.

“Clean that up,” he said, and left the kitchen, slamming the door behind him.

Doppo sobbed on the floor for longer than he cared  to admit to himself, before he finally managed to calm himself long enough to hear his father and Sasaki shouting at each other in the living room. 

“--just because you failed in setting off the bomb, doesn’t mean you can take it out on him! He’s twelve, for Christ’s sake!”

“He should know better than to question me!”

“Jesus Christ, he’s your fucking son! If we want him to become the next Azure King, you’re going to have to shape up your act or he’ll end up hating you or taken by CPS or both!”

“Are you saying I’m a failure as the Azure King?! I can assure you, I am not!”

They continued yelling, but Doppo was no longer paying attention, his foggy brain repeating the last two sentences again and again in his head...Azure King...Azure King... his father was the Azure King ?

Detective Taguchi was hunting the Azure King, with his other policemen. Detective Taguchi had said that he could call him any time, no matter what. Detective Taguchi was nice. He was Rokuzou’s dad. He would help. He might help. Right?

Doppo pushed himself up, whimpering at the pain in his arm, and picked up the kitchen phone with his non-injured hand, carefully poking each digit of Rokuzou’s home phone number.

“Hello?” said Mrs. Taguchi.

“H-he’s the Azure King,” Doppo sobbed. “He’s the Azure King, and, and, he’s the Azure King, he’s the--”

“Hang on, I’m going to give you to my husband, ok?” she said, but Doppo barely registered, the sentence pouring out of him, over and over like a mill pushed by the river of his pain and fear.

“What happened?” Detective Taguchi asked, but Doppo couldn’t say it, could only repeat what he had heard as if by repetition it would begin to make sense. “Doppo, breath for me. Breath in for ten, out for ten, ok? One...two...three…”

He counted all the way to ten, and Doppo did as he was asked, breathing in and then out, in and then out. When he was calm, Detective Taguchi asked him what happened again, and Doppo was able to tell him.

“Dad was...he was really mad because I was late, and so I t-tried to tell him about how you stopped the Azure King from setting off a bomb today and s-saved a bunch of people’s live, and--and he pushed me and I knocked over the soup on the stovetop, and he s-said to clean it up and left, but I’m bad and I stayed on the f-floor for a while, because my arm hurts, and I heard him, I heard Dad and Sasaki yelling, and they-they were yelling about him being the Azure King, and…” Doppo trailed off, crying again.

“It’s ok, Doppo. Can you get out of the house? I can pick you up.”

“No, I’m not--I’m not allowed to leave the kitchen until it’s all clean, and my arm hurts, and it’s g-going to take a while.”

“If your dad really is the Azure King, it’s not safe for you to stay there,” Detective Taguchi said.

“He’s n-never hurt me,” Doppo pointed out, reasonably he thought.

“He pushed you into the stove, Doppo. That’s not ok, and you’re probably injured.”

“I’m ok, really,” said Doppo, making an effort to steady his voice. “But, but he’s the Azure King, and you should arrest him maybe. And Sasaki too. Cause she knows. She said he shouldn’t take out his failure on me. But. That means she knows.”

“Doppo, listen to me. For me to arrest them, I need you out of the house, ok? So if you have a way out, you should take it. Can you open a window? Is there a door leading out from your kitchen?”

“Yes, the garage door, but…”

“Use it, Doppo. You need to get to safety, ok? I promise, you’re going to be ok.”

“But...the schedule,” he said. “I already broke it today. I need to follow the rest of it.”

“Is cleaning up the kitchen part of your schedule?” asked Detective Taguchi.

“Not usually but it’s my fault it’s dirty, so I need to clean it up.”

Detective Taguchi sighed. “Alright. When will your schedule let you go outside?”

“When I go to school tomorrow. If I’m allowed. Usually when I’m this bad I have to stay out of school for a while so nobody sees how bad I am, like when I’m so bad Dad has to hit me so hard I fall asleep.”

He heard a sharp intake of breath from the other end. 

“Detective Taguchi? Are you ok?” he asked.

“Doppo, how often does your father hit you?”

“Like that or in general?” he asked. Answering questions was nice. Answering questions was easy. He didn’t have to think about the Azure King or how bad his arm hurt when he was answering questions, when he was being good.

Because he was never told not to answer these questions. His father had never told him not to talk about him being the Azure King. And he’d never told him that he couldn’t say anything about him hitting him. Doppo really couldn’t think of any reason why he wouldn't want people to know that Doppo was a bad kid. 

“Both,” said Detective Taguchi.

“Um, well, he hits me a little every day so I don’t mess up, but he doesn’t hit me like that very often, because it’s really bad to miss school and I don’t do things so bad that I miss school a lot.”

“Shit,” muttered Detective Taguchi. “Do you think you’ll be allowed to go to school tomorrow?”

“Um. I think so maybe. If I get everything clean.”

“I see.” Detective Taguchi sighed. “If you aren’t allowed, let me know, ok? I will work things out.”

“Ok,” said Doppo. He hung up the phone and looked around the kitchen, holding his arm close to his side. He needed to get everything clean.

The next day, Doppo was not allowed to go to school. He wasn’t allowed out of his bedroom, actually, and so he wasn’t able to call Detective Taguchi, which was really bad. If he didn’t call him, his father might blow more places up. He might blow himself up. What would Doppo do without a father? Would he still live with Sasaki? She was really nice, sometimes, but she was also really scary, sometimes, and unlike his dad she could be scary when doing things other than yelling and hitting. She could make herself scary just by showing him how to fold laundry, or putting dishes away, or reading or watching TV. But he didn’t want to go live with people he didn’t know, either. And his father’s schedules had never said anything about living with other people, ever, and if ghosts were real and he died and Doppo was sent away, he’d know every time he broke the schedule, and…

Doppo stayed, worrying like that, for hours. He heard a faint explosion at 11:21, and wondered if that meant his father had blown something else up; he hoped nobody got hurt. He didn’t know what to do. 

He wasn’t let out of his room. Neither his father nor Sasaki came home that night, and his door was locked, and his arm hurt too badly to try to do anything else, even sleep. He was so thirsty and so hungry and so tired, though, and as time dragged on, unmoored from clocks and schedules and fathers and stepmothers, Doppo sunk slowly into a daze, and then into a deep, dark, pain-free sleep.

He woke up in a hospital bed. There was an IV in his arm, and it was bright out, and his arm was all bandaged up and hurt a lot less, but the clock on the wall said that it was 10:27, which wasn’t good, because he was supposed to wake up at 6:15, and school started at 8:30, and so he’d missed chores and breakfast and school. His father would be so angry!

And why was he in the hospital anyway? He couldn’t remember anything after...after…

His father was the Azure King and he had blown something up. His father was the Azure King and he had blown something up. His father was the Azure King and …

Doppo screamed.

Adults rushed in, none of them familiar, and tried to calm him down, but all that Doppo could think was his father was the Azure King , and he screamed it again and again until his throat was so raw he couldn’t force the words out anymore, and he fell asleep again.

It was three days before Doppo was able to calm down enough to learn what had happened. Detective Taguchi and four of his coworkers had managed to corner the Azure King, and he and his accomplice, Nobuko Sasaki, had been captured, but when Detective Taguchi went into the building with a few other policemen to check that it was cleared of hostages, the Azure King has blown it up. And Detective Taguchi had died. And the other policemen had died. And the Azure King had survived and was going to go to trial. And Sasaki had survived and was going to trial. And Doppo could testify, and put them in jail forever, and wouldn’t that be nice?

Doppo agreed, because he didn’t know what else to do, and he didn’t want them to blow up anything else, and he needed to do what he was told, because they were the ones in charge of him now. And what was the schedule of the hospital, anyway? Doppo needed to follow a schedule. He itched with it.

As it turned out, though, he wasn’t going to be staying at the hospital long. He was discharged into Mrs. Taguchi’s care, and at first he thought maybe things would be ok. Because Rokuzou was one of his best friends. Because after everything, Doppo was still an optimist and genuinely believed that, if he was staying with his best friend, everything would have to turn out ok. It would have to.

He was wrong, of course.

Mrs. Taguchi was quiet and sad and ignored him a lot, and Rokuzou pretended he wasn’t there for a week until finally he got tired of Doppo following him around, trying to rekindle their friendship, and snapped.

“Stop following me!” he shouted. “I hate you! I hate you and you aren’t my friend anymore, don’t you understand! My dad is dead because of you and your dad! It’s all your fault!”

“Oh,”said Doppo. That...that made sense. A lot of sense. “I’m sorry.”

“You should be!” Rokuzou snapped. “Stop talking to me.”

And Doppo was nothing if not obedient.

Katai still tried to be friends with both Doppo and Rokuzou, of course, because Katai was really nice and even though it was Doppo’s fault that Rokuzou’s dad was dead and Doppo was a bad boy and everything he didn’t want to cause a fight. But it was Doppo’s fault that Detective Taguchi was dead and so he started avoiding Katai, eating lunch in the boys’ bathroom, reading the definition of the work ideal again and again and staring at his hair in the bathroom mirror, which for the first time in his life was longer than one inch exactly. His father would be so angry.

Good . 

“I’m never making him happy ever again,” Doppo whispered. “I’m never cutting my hair ever again.”

He locked eyes with his reflecting and imagined his hair long enough to cover his entire head. Long hair, showing that he was free from his father’s--free from the Azure King’s --influence. That was good.

That was Ideal.

Doppo ran away three weeks later.

He had told a bunch of lawyers all about the Azure King, and how it had been, being his son, and they talked among themselves about getting him arrested for child abuse and endangerment, along with homocide, terrorism, and matricide--

“Matricide?” asked Doppo. “That’s killing your spouse, right? But Sasaki’s still alive.”

The lawyers looked at him and then they looked at each other. One said, almost gently, “They found your mother’s corpse in the basement, Doppo.”

“What?” he asked, feeling like someone had punched him in the chest. His mother? He didn’t remember his mother. He only remembered that she left him. That she didn’t love him. That’s what the Azure King had always said. What Sasaki had always said.

“I’m sorry,” said the lawyer.

Then Mrs. Taguchi came to collect him. He stared at her, a real live mother: pale, drawn with grief, unable to look him in the eyes. She tried not to blame him for her husband’s death. She had told Rokuzou to try to make him feel welcome, because it wasn’t his fault that Detective Taguchi was dead, only it was, because he had called him and told him about the Azure King. If he hadn’t been such a coward, Detective Taguchi would still be alive. He wondered if his mother was anything like her. He wondered if he was a bad son for forgetting.

He followed Mrs. Taguchi out to the car silently. She unlocked it.

“I’m sorry,” he said. Then he whirled around and sprinted out of the parking lot, into the trees, trying to get as far away as fast as possible. She shouted after him, and she might have chased him, but he didn’t know for sure.

Doppo was on the streets for four days. He had his schoolbag with him, notebooks and pencils and textbooks, and tried to do his schoolwork when it was school time, and scavenged for food when it was food time. He also had a worn dictionary, and he took it out and stared at that word: Ideal .

When the social workers were discussing what to do with him in the hospital, they had said that the situation wasn’t ideal . He had asked his teacher what an ideal was, and she had said it was a strongly held belief. When he looked at the dictionary, it said that an ideal was 1 : a standard of perfection, beauty, or excellence, 2 : one regarded as exemplifying an ideal and often taken as a model for imitation, 3 : an ultimate object or aim of endeavor . It was a noun. Like a name, names were nouns, only ideal wasn’t a proper noun, like a name, unless he made it one. Unless he named something Ideal. He could do that. Nobody could stop him. He was all alone in the world now, he couldn’t trust anybody other than himself. Nobody, he was rapidly coming to realize, had ever truly taken care of him. He wasn’t any more alone when he was shivering on the streets than when he was in his bed back home or when he was living in Rokuzou’s spare room. He could only trust himself, and he hated it. He never wanted anyone else to have to live like this.

...That was an Ideal. That could be his first Ideal.

He could make his own schedule, full of his own Ideals, that the Azure King had never touched! That was genius! All he needed was a fresh notebook.

He still had some lunch money in his backpack, so he slipped into the Dollar Store and bought himself one, and sat himself down on a park bench and wrote IDEAL in block letters on the cover. He flipped to the first page and wrote down his first Ideal. Then he paused and bit the top of his pencil, something the Azure King had never let him do and that he was delighting in now. What next? Did he think of another Ideal or write a goal for it? A goal would probably be easier. Once he had his Ideals and goals written he could get started on putting together a schedule, after all. He thought for a moment, before deciding on his first goal.

I will find someone who’s alone like me, and I’ll protect them forever, and we won’t be alone anymore . 

Perfect.

Doppo stayed on the park bench, puzzling out Ideals and goals, for a good couple of hours before a tall man with silver hair sat down next to him.

“What are you writing?” the man asked.

Doppo slammed his notebook shut. “Nothing,” he said.

“I see.” The man fell silent, staring off into space. 

Doppo watched him out of the corner of his eye before the silence became too much to bear and he spoke up. “What are you doing?”

“The sunset is beautiful here,” the man said. “Don’t you agree?”
Doppo squinted at it. It was bright and hurt his eyes. “I guess,” he said, because you were supposed to agree with adults, but the Azure King was the one who told him that, so he wasn’t sure if he should agree completely or not.

“Each sunset is unique,” the man said. “You’ll never see it again. The beauty is there, for each person, and then it is gone forever--just like a life.”

“Lives are worth more than just some light,” Doppo said.

“Yes, but it’s a good metaphor. Just like every sunset is beautiful and unique, every person is important.”

Doppo glared at the ground. Yellow light swam over it. “The Azure King killed them, not me,” he said. “I didn’t know. The only one that was my fault was Detective Taguchi, because I told him that he was the Azure King and he got blown up. But I didn’t know. I couldn’t do anything about it.”

“I know,” said the man. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

“What did you mean, then?” asked Doppo.

“I mean that you’re no less important because of who your father was. You deserve to have as good a life as any other child, no matter what.”

Doppo frowned up at him. That didn’t make any sense. He was a bad kid. He deserved to be hit. He deserved to be all alone. He wouldn’t be good until he fulfilled his Ideal. “Who are you?” he asked.

“Fukuzawa Yukichi,” said the man, “and I’d like you to come live with me.”

There wasn’t really much Doppo could say in response to that, so he just nodded and let Mr. Fukuzawa take him home.

The trial was horrible . It dragged on and on and on and on, and every time Doppo even considered trusting Mr. Fukuzawa and his other two children, Edogawa Ranpo and Yosano Akiko (who were both fifteen and weirdly nice to Doppo, although it was pretty clear that they preferred each other’s company), he would have to go to the courtroom and see the Azure King, and sometimes he wasn’t able to escape talking to him, and he was viscerally reminded of why, exactly, he couldn’t trust anyone. Anyway, a few months in, Mr. Fukuzawa got two toddlers and a lot of attention was taken off of Doppo, which was good. He needed the time to adjust his Ideal, anyway. On the one year anniversary of Mr. Fukuzawa taking him in, though, he couldn’t take it anymore. He took his suitcase and his clothes and his Ideal and started packing. He had to leave. He had to. He was starting to really believe these people might actually take care of him, and that was bad, because he was a bad boy and didn’t deserve to be taken care of. He needed to take care of somebody. That was the only way he could start to be good.

“Hey, Doppo,” Ranpo said, leaning against the doorframe. Doppo’s head swiveled to the older boy.

“Please don’t tell Mr. Fukuzawa,” he begged. “I can’t--I have to go. I have to.”

“Yeah, I know, and don’t worry, I’ll take care of Shachou for you,” he said. “I just wanted to tell you--you’re going to find what you’re looking for, out there. And when you do, you should come back here, because you won’t be able to help him all by yourself, but we can help you help him. Shachou loves helping kids, I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“Thanks,” said Doppo. He frowned at his suitcase. “Where should I go? To find the person I’m looking for.”

“Don’t worry,” said Ranpo, “you’ll find him.” This really wasn’t very helpful at all, but at least Doppo knew that he would find the person he could help and protect, because Ranpo was never wrong. That was the first thing he learned after coming to live here. Ranpo was never wrong.

Living on the streets was much worse than Doppo remembered. He chalked it up to growing used to Mr. Fukuzawa’s house, because before it had been bad, but he hadn’t been used to being allowed to sleep in a bed every night, and eat dinner every day, and his hair had been short enough that it technically didn’t need to be washed every day. But after a year of staunchly refusing to cut it, it fell down around his ears and into his eyes and got all gross and greasy when it wasn’t washed. 

But he didn’t deserve the luxury of a bed and dinner every single night, and buying him shampoo was probably a drain on Shachou--on Mr. Fukuzawa’s resources, so it was good for them that he wasn’t there too, because kids cost money. Even if Ranpo had told him that he should bring back the boy he found. Or girl. Doppo wasn’t picky. Ranpo had said “he”, though, so Doppo guessed that it would be a boy that he found. Assuming Ranpo was right. And Ranpo was always right, so that was a good assumption to make.

He found the boy two and a half days after leaving Mr. Fukuzawa’s house. 

It was late afternoon, and crumpled inside a Dumpster was a boy his age or a little younger, wrapped in old, dirty bandages, mumbling to himself, eyes wide and a little bloodshot. He wore a threadbare hoodie that used to be a bright red but was now a dull brown color, with the word Buraiha emblazoned on the front.

Doppo crouched in front of him. “Are you alright?” he asked.

“Odasaku?” the boy mumbled. “Ango?”

“No, I’m Doppo.” He considered saying his last name, too, but if this was the person he was going to take care of, he didn’t want him to know about his relation to the Azure King.

“They’re gone,” the boy muttered, “gone gone gone, it’s my fault, it’s all my fault, Odasaku, come back, Ango, I’m sorry, I’m sorry …”

“Hey, hey, it’s ok,” Doppo whispered, leaning forward and helping him up. “It’s ok. I’ve got you now. You’re safe now. You’re not alone.”

“Odasaku?” the boy mumbled, his head lolling onto Doppo’s shoulder.

“Doppo,” he corrected. “I’m Doppo, and I’m going to take care of you now, ok?”

“Doppo,” the boy said. “Ok.”

Doppo and his new brother made it back to Mr. Fukuzawa’s house at around two in the morning. The lights in the kitchen were on, which was odd and not Ideal in the slightest, since it meant that someone was awake, and it was Ideal to be in bed, asleep, by 9:00, except in extenuating circumstances, like the ones Doppo had found himself in. The front door was unlocked, though, which was good, because it meant that they wouldn’t be sleeping outside. Now that Doppo had acquired a brother, he didn’t want to make him sleep out in the cold. That would be a terrible way to take good care of him. He deserved better.

Doppo carefully brought his new brother up to his bedroom and sat him down on his bed. He was filthy, but that was ok because Doppo could just wash the sheets. It was a small price to pay, especially since this boy was his brother and he was going to take care of him now. He could be a good brother. He would be a good brother.

As soon as he was placed on the bed, the boy immediately curled up on top of the blankets. Doppo patted his head.

“I’m going to get you some food now,” he said. “I’ll be right back, I promise.”

The boy didn’t say anything, but that was ok. He was probably sick or something. Doppo snuck down into the kitchen, which was quiet although the lights were still on, and saw Mr. Fukuzawa asleep on the kitchen table, some sort of note in his hand. That was weird, but at least it meant nobody was awake to see him taking food, which he shouldn’t be doing. Stealing was against his Ideals, but his new brother was so thin . Surely it wouldn’t be so bad if he just got him a little food. So Doppo cracked open the fridge and took out two apples and poured a cup of water, as quietly as he could.

It was not quiet enough.

As Doppo carefully poured a glass of water for his new brother, Mr. Fukuzawa stirred and woke up.

“Doppo!” he said.

Doppo flinched and spilled the glass.

“I’m sorry,” Mr. Fukuzawa said, standing and getting a towel. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I was worried.” He started wiping up the water, carefully making sure that Doppo could see exactly what he was doing and where his hands were. Doppo stared at him, clutching the apples. He was...worried? He wasn’t...mad? What ? 

“Sorry,” Doppo mumbled, screwing his foot into the floor.

“Why did you run away?” Mr. Fukuzawa asked.

Doppo shrugged one shoulder. “You were nice to me and I didn’t deserve it. I don’t deserve nice things unless I’m fulfilling my Ideal, and the first thing I wrote down is I need to help someone, which I wasn’t doing. And then Ranpo said that I was going to find the person I would take care of, and to bring him back here, so I did. He’s, um, upstairs in my room right now. My new brother I mean. I’m bringing him food and some water.”

“...Right,” said Mr. Fukuzawa. “And where, exactly, did you find your new brother?”

“In a Dumpster behind a gas station,” said Doppo. “He’s dirty and covered in bandages. I’m going to give him some food, and then I’m going to clean him and also my sheets.”

“...I see.” Mr. Fukuzawa finished cleaning up the water. “How old is he?”

“Dunno,” he said. “Around my age, maybe? He hasn’t said much. He keeps asking for people named Odasaku and Ango, and then saying that they’re gone and apologizing. I think he might have a fever.”

Mr. Fukuzawa frowned. “Can you take me to see him?”

“Uh, sure. But he’s my brother, not yours, so you can’t hit him if he’s doing something wrong,” Doppo warned. Mr. Fukuzawa had never hit him , or Ranpo or Yosano, but his new brother was really dirty, which the Azure King had hated and was against the Ideal, and Mr. Fukuzawa hadn’t expected him, and adults always hit you eventually. Always.

“I won’t,” Mr. Fukuzawa promised, looking grave. “I promise, I ever won’t hit any of you kids.”

Doppo just shrugged, filled up the glass of water again, and led Mr. Fukuzawa up to his room. His new brother was right where he’d left him, laying on the bed, staring vacantly into the room. Doppo crouched in front of him.

“Hey,” he said. “I brought you some water and some food.”

“Odasaku?” the boy asked. “No...Dop...po?”

Doppo grinned widely. This was the first time his new brother had actually remembered his name without being prompted! Was this what being loved felt like? “Yeah,” he said. “I brought you food.”

His new brother just blinked at him. His eyes were bloodshot and ringed.

“Doppo, we need to take him to a hospital,” Mr. Fukuzawa said.

Doppo gaped up at him. “Why? What happened?”

“It looks like he’s on a drug overdose,” said Mr. Fukuzawa. “If we don’t get him to a doctor, he might die.”

Doppo froze. He might...die? His new brother? Die? “Is it...is it my fault?” he asked, his voice shaking.

“No, not at all,” Mr. Fukuzawa said. “In fact, you’ve probably saved his life by bringing him back here so that we can take him to the hospital.”

“But he will live? He’ll be ok?” Doppo hated how his voice wavered, but Mr. Fukuzawa didn’t comment on it, only smiling at him and patting his hair.

“He’ll be just fine.”

Mr. Fukuzawa woke Yosano and told her to watch Ranpo and the two babies while he drove Doppo and his new brother to the hospital. The boy leaned on Doppo’s shoulder, staring absently in front of him and murmuring to himself, the same two names again and again: Odasaku, Ango, Ango, Odasaku .

Doppo found himself hating whoever it was who had owned the names, who had abandoned his new brother into this empty shell of a person. Why would they do that to him? What sort of depraved person tossed out kids like garbage? This was why Doppo couldn’t rely on anyone other than himself. This was why Doppo had to protect himself and his brother with everything he had, because there were monsters out there who loved to prey on children and the good people who would help them--like Detective Taguchi--got blown up into a thousand tiny pieces. As Doppo sat in the waiting room with Mr. Fukuzawa, his new brother being cared for in one of the many hospital rooms, he opened his phone and scrolled through his old texts from Rokuzou. So many apologies. So many various forms of go fuck yourself in response. The last text was four months old.

He typed out a new text and sent it. I got a brother today. I’m going to take care of him . There was no response, but that was ok. So long as Rokuzou knew. So long as maybe, maybe if he was good enough, and let Rokuzou know about it, he might get his friend back.

It was two days before Doppo was allowed to officially meet his new brother. In that time, Mr. Fukuzawa brought him home and he got cleaned up, and Ranpo, who (Doppo learned) was very, very, very extremely grounded for letting Doppo run away, grinned at him and snuck him a chocolate bar and told him that he was glad he’d found who he was looking for, now all he had to do was to build a relationship with him and learn how to let people in. Yosano hugged him tightly and told her off for worrying him, and the Tanizaki siblings, who were too small to have completely understood where Doppo had gone but, for whatever reason, missed him nonetheless, followed him around until Mr. Fukuzawa let him go back to the hospital, because his new brother was awake and allowed to receive visitors.

He went in alone. The boy was his brother, not Mr. Fukuzawa’s, and besides Mr. Fukuzawa said he would work on where the boy had come from and see if they could legally adopt him. 

When Doppo entered, the boy was sitting on the hospital bed, holding a small CD player. A song was playing, unfamiliar to Doppo. Home again, so won’t you close the door...stay here, with me, and we’ll forget what’s gone before…

“Why did you do it?” the boy asked.

“What?”

“Why did you bring me here? What’s in it for you?”

“Nothing. I just...I want to help you. It’s Ideal to help people.”

The boy rolled his eyes. “And, what, you always do what’s Ideal? That’s a load of horse shit.”

“I do! Or, I try to, at least. And...and you looked like you needed help. You looked really sick.”

“I was high, actually. And it was great .”

“You didn’t look like it was great,” Doppo said. 

The boy shrugged. “Well, it sucked less than not being high does, so that’s great in my book.”

Doppo frowned. “But what if not being high didn’t suck?”

The boy rolled his eyes again. “Haven’t you ever heard of withdrawal? That sucks ass. Plus, if I’m sober I’m thinking, and that’s even worse.”

“Why?” asked Doppo. 

“Because there’s some stuff I don’t want to remember. Not everyone has a perfect little idyllic life like you , you know.”

“I don’t...have a perfect life,” Doppo said. 

“Sure.”

“My father was the Azure King.”

“Oh shit. Sorry for swindling him out of your college savings.”

Doppo blinked. That was...not the response he had been expecting. 

“He was saving up for my college?”

“No, your mom was, he put it in a trust. But then Mori had me steal it. And also a lot more of his money, to keep the police off his back. He seemed like a pretty shitty guy, to be completely honest.”

“He was,” said Doppo. 

“I guess we both had shitty dads, then,” the boy said, leaning against the headboard and looking out the window. 

“I guess so,” said Doppo. “Was Mori your dad?”

“No clue. Maybe. He raised me after he lost his precious “angel of death”. So either I have a pedophile murderer or a deadbeat for a father. Dunno which is better.”

“It’s just blood,” said Doppo. “That isn’t really important for a family. What really matters is what you choose.”

“You really think so, huh?” asked his new brother.

“I do. That’s why I’m choosing you to be my new family.”

For the first time, the boy looked surprised. “Why? You don’t know a single thing about me. You don’t even know my name . And I don’t know yours either. I could be the worst person in the world, and you wouldn’t know it.”

“I’m Doppo. I introduced myself last night, but I guess you don’t remember. What’s your name?”

“Dazai. Are you seriously going to ignore everything else I said?”

Doppo shrugged. “I can get to know you. Plus, there’s no possible way you can be worse than the Azure King. And we’re both kids, so I think that if we try hard enough we can get along. And since you’re going to be my brother, I’m going to try really hard to get along with you.”

“I’m definitely worse than the Azure King. I told you, I swindled him out of a lot of money. Plus I’ve killed people. They called me the Demon Prodigy for a reason, you know.”

“Uh huh,” said Doppo, who was no stranger to other boys making up stories about themselves to sound cooler.

“They did!”

“I didn’t say they didn’t,” he assured him.

“You didn’t believe me, though.”

“The Azure King never mentioned a “Demon Prodigy” or anyone named Mori in the trial, and he used every defense in the book ,” Doppo said. 

“He’s too afraid of the Port Mafia to say anything against them, don’t worry,” said Dazai. “He’s definitely going to be convicted.”

Doppo beamed at him.

“What is wrong with you? Why are you smiling at me like that?”

“It was really nice of you to say that he’s going to be convicted,” Doppo replied.

“And...you’re totally cool with the fact that I used to be a Mafia member.”

“Well, you said “used to be”. Plus, you’re younger than I am.”

“How do you know I’m younger? When were you born?”

“August 30. You look younger.”

“I was born June 19. What year were you born?”

“20XX. What about you?”

“Same! I’m actually two months older than you! So there!”

“Two months is hardly anything. Even if you’re two months older than me, I’m still going to take care of you and protect you,” Doppo said.

“Kunikida Doppo, you’re the strangest person I ever met,” said Dazai.

Doppo frowned. “What did you call me?”

“Your name?”

“My surname isn’t Kunikida,” he said.

“Oh. Huh. I thought it was, since that was your mother’s name.”

“Really?” Doppo asked. He didn’t remember his mother. He hadn’t even thought that she might have once had another name, before she had married the Azure King.

“Yeah. Sorry. I would have thought you’d’ve changed it, since you hate him so much.”

“I’m planning on it, but I didn’t know what name I would take,” he said. “Kunikida was my mother’s name? Really?”

“I might be remembering wrong, but Mori had me research your whole family before we met with the Azure King, so I think so.”

Doppo nodded. “Thank you. I’ll check to make sure it’s right, but if it is, I’ll change my name to that once the trial’s over with.”

“Cool,” said Dazai. The same song was still playing, and he pressed a button to turn up the volume, turning and staring out the window. It was clear that for him, at least, the conversation was over.

Doppo stayed sitting on the chair by the bed for four hours, until visiting time was up, and then he smiled at Dazai and said goodbye and that he’d see him again tomorrow. Dazai ignored him, but that was ok. He hadn’t earned a response yet.

Doppo visited Dazai every day for the two weeks that he was in the hospital, and for the six and a half months that he was in rehab. Sometimes they talked; occasionally Dazai was asleep and would have screaming nightmares, and Doppo would stroke his back and hair and sing a song he’d heard in a movie, one that he had imagined his mother singing to him, even though he knew that she had died long before the movie was released. Slowly he started to hear it lapsed in with the song Dazai always played on loop: Fallen Angel and To Find You , overlapping with each other.

To Find You was a love song, Doppo knew. In the movie, the boy wrote it for the girl that was his love interest. But the song wasn’t just about romance. It could be about any kind of love, romantic or platonic or familial, as long as it was a love that waited and a love that stayed.

Rokuzou responded to his text about Dazai near the end of Dazai’s stay in rehab. Doppo had nearly forgotten that he’d sent it, but one day while he and Dazai were debating the merits of different superheroes, his phone buzzed with a text.

“Ooh, are you texting a girl ? Let me see!” Dazai teased, and Doppo handed over his phone. Dazai opened the text and his face darkened. “Who the fuck is Taguchi Rokuzou, and why the hell do you care so much about his opinion when he’s so awful to you?” he demanded.

“What? I--he’s my best friend, or he was, anyway. What did he say?”

Dazai frowned. “I thought I was your best friend,” he said.

“You are,” Doppo assured him, “but Rokuzou was my first best friend. We grew up together. His dad died because of me, so I’ve been trying to prove that I’m a better person now.”

“Why does he get to decide how good of a person you are?” Dazai demanded. “He took half a year to respond to your text, and he said something completely awful, too!”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” said Doppo.

“Well, you can keep on being sure, because I’m deleting it!”

“What? No!” 

Doppo lunged for his phone, but he was too late; his entire text string with Rokuzou along with his contact had been deleted.

“Why would you do that?!” he asked.

“He was a bitch. I said shit like that to Ango, and he cut me off. You should have done the same to Rokuzou, and if he’s really sorry, he’ll find a way to apologize.”

“How do you know?” asked Doppo.

“Because I was the shitty one like that in my last friendship. And I realized how wrong I was and apologized, but it was too late. I had ruined our friendship forever, and now Ango is much better now that I’m out of his life. And you’ll be better with Taguchi out of yours.”

“He was my friend, though,” Doppo said, trying and failing to swallow down his anger.

“Get better ones,” Dazai said.

For the first time, Doppo left before visiting hours ended.

After that, it was like a switch was flipped. Dazai teased Doppo endlessly, poked and needled at him. Doppo didn’t know why. Was he angry that Doppo had left early? Doppo did his best to stay, then, until visiting hours stopped. But Dazai kept teasing, kept saying horrible awful things, and whenever Doppo got so angry he felt violence rearing its big ugly head, he would rush out of the room and slam his fist into the wall, again and again until he felt like he was able to be the kind of brother Dazai deserved. Whenever he came back in, Dazai would look at his hands, bloodied and bruised, and tell him that he shouldn’t have come back.

“Your Ideal is to take care of people, and yet you can’t even wrap your own hands?” he would ask, gesturing with arms forever wrapped in bandages. It would hurt, except then he’d take some bandages from his nightstand and carefully wrap Doppo’s hands. “You’re so dumb, Kunikida.”

“Not as dumb as you!” Doppo would shoot back, and for a while, things would be ok again.

It only worsened after Dazai got back to Mr. Fukuzawa’s house. He soured the milk, short-sheeted the beds, and hid the babies’ toys. He and Yosano got into a screaming match about the theology of angels and demons one day, and although they came out of it on much better terms than they’d started, he and Ranpo entered into a prank war for a week before Yosano and Doppo had teamed up to get them back on reasonably good terms with one another. It all came to a head two and a half weeks after he’d been brought home, when he shredded Doppo’s Ideal.

“Why would you do that?!” Doppo screamed. “What’s wrong with you?!”

“You hate me now, don’t you,” said Dazai, examining his scissors.

“No! What the fuck, no, you’re my brother and I love you! Why would you destroy my Ideal?!”

“So that you would hate me.” Dazai started running the blade of the scissors over his hand, and Doppo snatched them away from him. “What do I need to do to get you to hate me?”

“I’m not going to hate you.” Doppo started gathering up the pieces of his Ideal, angry tears springing to his eyes as he gathered them all together. His poor notebook had been through so much, and now it was destroyed. He swiped at his eyes, hoping that Dazai didn’t see. “I’m really fucking angry at you, because you cut up my Ideal, but I’m not going to hate you. Ever. That would go against my--my Ideal.” Oh, great. Now his voice was shaking. This was just humiliating and awful.

“Yes you will. Everyone does eventually. So what if I’m just trying to rip the bandaid off? It’s easier than getting used to your love and then losing it.”

“I already told you, you won’t ever!” Doppo shouted. “No matter if you rip up one hundred of my Ideals, I won’t stop! I’m nothing like the Azure King!”

Dazai went still. “I never said that.”

“You good as did.”

“You’re nothing like him. You’ve never been.”

Doppo wiped his eyes again. “He didn’t love me because I wasn’t good enough. I’m different. I’m not going to stop loving you, not for anything. It’s one of my Ideals, so I’m never going to break it. Ever .”

Dazai was quiet. Doppo kept picking up the pieces of his notebook.

“You swear?” Dazai asked. His voice was quiet and wavering, in a way Doppo hadn’t heard since he had first found him. He looked over. 

Dazai was picking at the cuts on his hands, eyes glimmering with tears. Doppo shoved the fragments of his Ideal into his pockets and pulled his hands away. 

“Hey. Don’t do that.”

“Do you swear you’ll never stop loving me?” Dazai whispered.

“Yeah. I do.” Doppo paused for a moment. “Hey, you ever heard of an Indian promise?”

“That’s a dumb thing kids do at sleepovers, right?” Dazai asked.

“Yeah. You cut your hands open, and press the cuts together, and then you make a promise, and you can’t break it or else you get cursed. That’s what the story I heard about it says, at any rate.”

“And do you believe it?” asked Dazai.

“Yeah.”

Dazai thought about it for a moment. “Ok,” he said. “Let’s do that, then. We can swear to never stop loving each other.”

Doppo blinked. “Wait. You love me?”

“Uh, yeah. Do you really think I would have eaten all of Taguchi Rokuzou’s fish alive in front of him if I didn’t? That was disgusting. I barfed for, like, an hour after I got back to the hospital. And my breath stank for ages afterwards.”

“You ate Rokuzou’s what ?!” shouted Doppo.

“Fish. They tasted terrible, by the way. 0 out of 10, do not recommend.”

“Oh, my God, why .”

“He’s a bitch, duh.”

“He’s not, he’s really, really not...why would you do that?”

Dazai sent him a winning smile. “Because he was mean to my brother, and I don’t let people do that. Now, can we do the Indian promise thing now?”

Well. There was really no way Doppo could say no to that.

When Doppo and Dazai were fifteen, the Azure King was finally sent to jail for good. Two days later, Doppo and Shachou went to the courthouse, to get his name legally changed. And three years after the Azure King was caught, Kunikida Doppo walked home to his family, his Ideal under his arm, and he was happy.