Work Text:
To much of the amusement of the Armed Detective Agency, of the two partners, Kunikida was the one to curse while Dazai just… doesn’t.
It feels as though it should be the opposite, yes? With Dazai, being as uncaring as he is about, well, anything, he doesn’t seem to be the kind to filter his words of any naughtier language. And Kunikida, making himself a reputation of being straight-laced and uptight at the young age of twenty-two, seems to be the kind to rather cut out his tongue that say such words like “fuck” or “shit” in front of others.
So the rest of the Agency’s staff watches in vague amusement as Kunikida (very quickly) blows through his temper at the prodding of his partner, releasing enough creative word play with swears that it would make a sailor blush.
Now, they really had no way of knowing that before Dazai had even joined them, he had often uttered the phrase “if whatever I am saying has the potential to become more impactful with such language, I do not deserve to speak.”
To which his old partner eloquently replied “bullshit” every time.
And so while Dazai loathes to admit it, the habit of effectively nixing curse words from his dictionary had stuck.
It was like that for most things, really. Both Dazai and Kunikida seem like contradictions of each other and themselves at first glance, but really, it was only Dazai that was a contradiction.
Kunikida, while not an entirely truthful man by any means, nor does he share what is on his mind most of the time, prefers to live life honestly. Which means that if he has something to say, it is rarely filtered. Such is the life of a man bound to an ideal and schedule transparent even to an untrained eye.
How exploitable, in Dazai’s opinion, but the empire that is Kunikida has not fallen yet, so he holds his doubts.
Dazai, on the other hand, is a walking contradiction. A careless man that filters what he says. A man who yearns for death yet desperately searches for a reason to live. A man who does what he wants yet is bound by the wish of another.
After all, contradictions are much less exploitable. Much less naive and simple, and much more confusing. Maybe Dazai was a coward, he stayed away from the truth because it was safer and his lies remained thick on his tongue.
It is an interesting dichotomy, one should think if they took the time to study the pair.
A coward paired with courage. A liar paired with truth. The darkness paired with the light. Brutality paired with morality.
Perhaps that is why they work so well together. Rather than play the same tune, they harmonize using different instruments, creating a melody that wreaks destruction on their enemies. The differences allow for flexibility, despite how seemingly rigid Kunikida is and how impossibly fluid Dazai remains.
Dazai simply wonders when the melody will end, as all good things do.
Kunikida was not a stupid person. Many people, in fact, wouldn’t even question this fact, but working within a detective agency with such people like Dazai and Ranpo makes a competent person look rather… well, incompetent.
Forgive him for his lack of flowery language, for he was rather a man of science and mathematics, and not a man who thinks of words very often.
Unlike his partner, who uses words like they’re a weapon tailored to his own existence.
Dazai Osamu lies like he’s praying at the altar of a god only he believes in, earnest and desperate yet holds a bitter aftertaste. Dazai Osamu flirts like he’s at the end of the world, falling out a motion and trying to grab a whole of someone. Dazai Osamu considers his words much more than anyone else realizes.
Except Kunikida.
Kunikida knows how much Dazai depends on words, because how can he not? How could he not notice that if his partner’s tongue were to be cut out, it would be like Kunikida's notebook burning to ash?
So yes, Kunikida was not stupid.
Kunikida was not stupid because he was aware of the web of words Dazai bundled himself in, like a warped blanket to calm a child a night. He didn’t know what those words were, if they were lies or truths or shades of either, but he knew that if Dazai tugged on a single strand, something would collapse.
Tugging on Dazai’s strands of words in his complicated web meant destruction for someone.
Their enemies, usually. But sometimes themselves. Sometimes their allies.
Kunikida lived and breathed by his ideals, and one day, he was sure he would die by them, and Dazai lived by nothing. If Kunikida was a brick wall, unmovable yet rather unassuming, then Dazai was water. Slippery and fast with no such loyalty to anything.
Dazai, Kunikida knew, lived by none of his own morals - if he had any.
That revelation used to scare him. It used to torture him slightly, to know that people exist without such a guiding force in their lives. But now, Kunikida just lived in quiet acceptance.
So yes, Kunikida is not stupid and yes, Dazai may not have his own ideals to live up to, but Kunikida wanted him anyways. As a partner and as a friend.
Dazai likes to call him a romanticist, similar to everyone else, really, but to him being a romanticist is no more than being an idealist. To be an idealist, you must live your life through the gaze of the morality your ideals give you - a guiding light in a world of darkness.
A rather romantic thought, Kunikida supposes.
So really, was there a difference between being a romanticist and an idealist? Maybe not, at least not in their own small partnership within the Agency.
And so, Kunikida remained both and Dazai remained neither, such was their dichotomy from the beginning.
These differences, Kunikida knew, were what gave them the ability to create such a powerful melody.
Only, Kunikida was not stupid but maybe Dazai was this time, seeing that Dazai should know that there’s no reason for such a song to end.