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Dazai Osamu hates the rain.
On most days, the bandaged man is an annoyance, a hindrance, an absolute and more often than not welcome blight on Kunikida’s ideal workday, but for some reason, rainy days suck all of that puckishness away like a black hole. What’s left behind is an empty shell shaped like Dazai with none of his energy or antics. Today is no different. When Kunikida arrives at Dazai’s dorm, the door is unlocked. At the very least, that means he’s expected. He should be by now.
Perhaps it even means he’s welcome.
All the lights are off, and Kunikida leaves them that way. After removing his shoes and setting his umbrella by the door, he ventures deeper inside. In times like that, although he hates to admit it, his biggest fear is that he will find the room empty. His second biggest fear is that he’ll find a corpse.
Instead, Kunikida finds Dazai, cocooned in his futon, facing away from him and staring at the wall. “Dazai.”
Dazai doesn’t answer.
It’s like this every time. Dazai is rather petulant when it rains. Or maybe he’s steeped in something too terrible to name. Memories from the Port Mafia, maybe. Or the years he spent underground while all official record of his misdeeds was destroyed. Now that he’s in the ADA, Kunikida knows that at least on paper, the world has forgotten Dazai’s crimes. He’s equally certain that Dazai hasn’t.
Dazai hates the rain. Kunikida knows that. Even though he doesn’t know why, he tries to help whenever the weather gets like this. Not a typhoon or a storm; neither of those seem to bother Dazai at all. But a steady drizzle? That sucks the life out of Dazai one drop at a time.
Kunikida kneels behind Dazai’s futon and sets his hands on his knees. This really shouldn’t be his responsibility, but as Dazai’s partner, he feels an… obligation.
He feels other things, of course. Most of those feelings aren’t good, and those are the ones he tries to hold onto. Dazai is a thorn in his side, a source of more chaos than he can cope with. Even so, he comes each time it rains and tries to alleviate whatever Dazai is feeling. It’s always the same problem, but the solution is ever-changing and as erratic as Dazai is on his worst days, a target that won’t sit still.
That first time, his intent wasn’t assistance. After all, Dazai was skipping work. Again. He still remembers pounding on the fellow detective’s door, swallowing the rising shout in his throat as the clear click of a bolt sliding out of a lock welcomed him, sounding oddly like a loaded gun. The door peeled open, and one look at Dazai killed every complaint he had on the spot. In that lighting, Dazai’s eyes took on an unnatural reddish tint. For once, it was Dazai who annoyed, not him. But he also looked… tired. Done. Like he had been fighting a losing war against ghosts too terrifying to name.
After Kunikida recovered from Dazai’s stark expression, he sighed and announced, “When the rain stops, I’ll take you out for crab.” It didn’t light Dazai up. It didn’t bring back his childish antics. But it did summon a little smile to Dazai’s lips. That Dazai invited him in so he could escape the chill drizzle is just a bonus.
The next time, crab didn’t work as an incentive. And unlike the first instance of this completely unideal phenomenon, Dazai didn’t come to the door. Kunikida let himself inside since it was unlocked only to find the detective buried in his futon, facing away from the door like he is today. When Dazai didn’t respond to the promise of crab, Kunikida asked, “Do you want me to stay with you?”
Dazai responded by rolling over, peering over the blankets, and nodding one time. They passed the rest of that rainy afternoon in silence. Like magic, when the rain stopped, Dazai’s antics returned to full bloom, and he stoked Kunikida’s annoyance with a litany of flippant comments about him being a stick in the mud.
It’s annoying, Kunikida tells himself. But part of him also says, It’s endearing. He knows he shouldn’t think that way, especially about his partner of all people.
The fourth or fifth time in Dazai’s dorm, Kunikida spoke. “You don’t like the rain,” he observed.
Dazai rolled over to look at him.
“Why?”
In answer, Dazai disappeared under the covers, and for a while, he didn’t move. Kunikida pretended not to see the mass of blankets shaking or hear the quiet sounds of Dazai venting his emotions beneath it. He stayed the whole time, and when Dazai emerged again, he wordlessly offered a packet of tissues.
Recalling that makes him realize all over again he feels for Dazai in ways he definitely shouldn’t.
In times like this, when the rain is steady and no end is in sight, Kunikida finds himself facing the same exact problem he has many times in the past. The solution is still a moving target. Sometimes, they sit together. Sometimes, it’s crab. Sometimes, it’s sake that Kunikida leaves to buy at the convenience store nearby. Sometimes, Kunikida just sits in the silence, listening to the rain and Dazai and wondering if he’s really doing anything by being there, good or bad.
One day, Dazai spoke first. “Kunikida-kun.”
It was the seventh or eighth time Kunikida was sitting in Dazai’s dorm, waiting for the rain to stop, wrapped in realizations. He never thinks about the work he could be doing when he’s with Dazai. Instead, he focuses all of his energy on the brunette, whether he’s sitting or lying down. And Dazai often seems a little happier just having him there. By then, Kunikida accepts this task as part of his routine, even if it’s not ideal. He came out of those thoughts and glanced to his partner.
“Would you ever consider accepting anyone less than your ideal wife?”
“Of course not.” Kunikida bristled at the unexpected personal question.
Dazai chuckled in response. “I see.”
Directly following that neat little conversation, every now and then, Dazai jokingly calls Kunikida his work wife, usually when they’re alone. And that is a whole new level of annoyance, considering he’s vaguely aware of some developing draw he feels towards the brunette. After Atsushi joins the agency and Dazai’s former occupation is brought to light, Kunikida’s feeling shifts to something stronger, and he becomes convinced that why Dazai hates the rain probably has something to do with his past.
The work wife joke becomes more public, though. Something he occasionally drops in front of different members of the agency, like that phrase is some kind of twisted litmus test. Worst of all, though, is when he says it in front of Atsushi, then tries to push his paperwork off on the agency’s second newest member. Kunikida snaps. His aim is still good from his days teaching math. The pen hits Dazai squarely in a pressure point that turns him into an unconscious heap of bandages and khaki trench coat. Pushing his glasses up, he rises, slings Dazai over his shoulder, and says to Atsushi, “Sorry he’s like this. I know he’s usually intolerable, but lately, he’s gotten even more so.”
Atsushi peers up at him and asks, “Any idea why?”
He slings Dazai over his shoulder with the intent to deposit the brunette on a sofa he normally naps on. As he walks away, he responds, “My guess is it’s better not to know.”
He says that, but even knowing it would be better not to, Kunikida desperately wants to understand Dazai’s motives for calling him that. Now doesn’t seem like the time to ask, though, given that Dazai is still facing away from him and hasn’t said a word since he walked in.
But he knows they need to talk about it because it’s sitting between them like a wall and—
“Kunikida-kun.”
Dazai’s distant voice draws him out of his thoughts.
“Do you hate the rain, too?”
Kunikida considers the question with a low hum. Out of habit, he flips through his notebook and tries to find comfort in the texture of its pages. “It’s not the ideal weather, but… I guess I don’t feel one way or another about it.”
“Why do you come, then?”
Kunikida flips to a blank page and stares at it. Thanks to his ability, there is a limited but very real potential there. Something to take Dazai’s pain away… what would that be? He can’t think of anything. Even if he’s facing the same puzzle, the solution is obviously none of the previous ones. He doesn’t know what Dazai wants or needs, and even if he did, he doubts the solution is smaller than his notebook. “Does it matter?” he eventually responds.
To his surprise, Dazai gives an empty chuckle. “It’s just like you to answer a question with a question when you don’t feel like answering.”
“I do not—”
“Does your ideal wife do that, too, Kunikida-kun?”
Kunikida shuts his eyes. Shuts it out. Shuts it all out, except for the sound of the rain. For some reason, his heart is pounding. With a scoff, he says, “No, but my work husband does.”
Dazai snickers. Then, it’s just the sound of rain hammering against the window again. “I’m trying to be serious.”
“Seriousness is not in your repertoire,” Kunikida retorts, watching Dazai shuffle to a seated position. His hair is a mess, sticking up in all directions. His long-sleeved shirt is hanging off one bandaged shoulder. He stretches and yawns. The fabric shuffles back into position, and he fixes Kunikida with an intense look.
“Why you come here when it rains?” he asks again.
Bristling, he counters, “Why do you call me your work wife?”
Dazai’s expression empties, and he blinks like he’s been caught completely off-guard.
“Are you going to use Doppo Poet to make the rain stop? Oh, I forgot… that won’t work.”
“I don’t know if I’m even going to use it,” he retorts. “I just… for some reason thought maybe I could do something to help you.”
“Don’t you always?” Dazai’s smile is a little realer this time. It makes Kunikida’s heart flutter, if he’s being honest.
Brushing those sentiments off, he says, “I answered one of your questions. It’s your turn.” He peers at Dazai and adjusts his glasses.
Apparently, today, the solution isn’t crab, sake, or silence. It’s an iteration of twenty questions where Dazai has set the rules. Apparently, the point of the game is not to guess anything. It’s to keep asking long enough to avoid answering. “I refuse,” Dazai announces, confirming Kunikida’s suspicions. “Not until you answer one of the questions that matter.”
“Those being?”
“Why do you always come here when it rains?”
“Why do you call me your work wife?” Kunikida counters.
Dazai sends him a pout. “Why does that matter to you?”
“Why shouldn’t it?” He’s surprised he manages to say that calmly. In truth, Kunikida is simmering. With annoyance. With curiosity. With… that thing he refuses to name. “You throw it around like you’re trying to antagonize me. Why shouldn’t it matter?”
“What if that’s not my objective?”
Kunikida scoffs. “Then what is your objective?”
“Maybe I just like having your attention.”
As that word sinks in, Kunikida becomes vaguely aware that his mouth has dropped open.
“Are you surprised?”
Folding his arms, he answers, “I think you’re screwing with me again.”
Dazai frowns at his hands and grips the covers. Then, he raises them and practically glows with a mirth that is so clearly artificial, it hurts to look at. “You caught me! You should see the look on your face, Kunikida-kun. There, there. I may find a beautiful woman to die with, but you’ll always be my work wife.”
Kunikida wishes those words didn’t sting so much, wishes they made him angry instead of sad. He pulls out a pen and taps the paper. And he writes.
“Oh, you are using it? I made you mad, right? Are you going to summon something unpleasant? Maybe you can summon Chuuya. He’s small enough, and he’s the absolute worst—"
Without answering, he tears out the page, holds it between his fingers, and waits for the light of his ability to fade. When it has, there’s a sprig of little yellow-green flowers between his fingers. He regards them for a moment and sees in them a strange, subtle piece of knowledge he picked up without meaning to while scrolling through the internet one night. Subtle, he tells himself, offering the flowers to Dazai.
“Did you get us poison flowers so we could die togeth—”
“Will you can it?” Kunikida snaps. He’s surprised at how loud his voice sounds in the closed space, so he clears his throat and takes a breath before continuing. “I’m not here to die with you. I’m not here because I hate the rain. I’m here because I want to do something for you.”
Dazai hums and takes the flowers, then lifts them to his nose. “They smell really mild. What are they?”
It would be easy to lie, but before Kunikida can even think to, the truth spills out of him. “Alchemilla Mollis.” Catching Dazai’s confusion, he adds, “Lady’s mantle.” It only takes another two seconds for him to realize what he’s done. What those flowers say. Dazai clearly doesn’t know yet, but he’s a smart man. It’s only a matter of time before he figures it out. Kunikida shoots up. “I just remembered I left the stove on.” He’s sure Dazai can figure out he came from the office considering what time it is, but that’s the best excuse he can come up with. “Don’t bother getting up. I’ll see myself out. Please come back to work soon.”
“Kunikida-kun.”
He pretends he doesn’t hear Dazai calling his name as he strides towards door and fights to get at least one of his shoes on. He realizes he forgot his pen. He has other pens at the office, and besides, what’s one pen when weighed against the dwindling time before his dignity shatters? It’ll be fine, he tells himself, struggling to put his other shoe on. It’ll be fine. He’ll turn it into a joke that hopefully won’t last long, so just…
Something encircles him from behind. Dazai’s bandaged arms. He freezes, then tips his eyes to look back at the brunette. “While I was in the Port Mafia, I worked under someone who instilled me with an intimate knowledge of torture methods.”
“Why are you telling me this?” He’s not sure if that question is part of the game.
To his surprise, Dazai answers. “Because she also happened to teach me the language of flowers.”
Kunikida, unsure of what else to do, pushes his other foot into his shoe. “If you know, then let me down. Softly, if you can manage that.”
Dazai doesn’t let go of his waist. The pressure of Dazai’s chest against his back and the light weight of Dazai’s forehead… they’re making all those feelings that he’s been willing out of existence spring to life again.
“Let go.”
That works. Dazai’s arms unwind, and once he has withdrawn, Kunikida sets his hand on the doorknob. He waits for Dazai to say something. When Dazai doesn’t, he speaks instead. “I don’t want this to affect work.”
“Then we won’t let it.”
A blunt rejection… it’s going to be hard to pretend everything is fine between them, to keep that awkwardness hidden. Especially from Ranpo. God, Ranpo probably already knows about Kunikida’s feelings. Ranpo knows everything. Between him and Dazai, he’ll never heard the end of it. He’ll—
He tugs the door open. It’s still raining. There’s a low rumble of thunder, and once again, he feels Dazai press against him from behind, then disappear. Confused, Kunikida turns around to see Dazai staring at the floor. “I forgot.”
“What?”
“That you wanted me to let go.”
Kunikida shuts the door. The entryway goes dark, but he still sees Dazai flinch. Sighing, he murmurs, “I didn’t want you to.”
Dazai glances up at him. There’s something desolate filling his face, hidden beneath the faint smile. “Do you really want me to turn you down?”
Reading the question as a return to their earlier game, Kunikida answers, “Are you going to?”
For once, Dazai looks like he doesn’t have an answer.
So, Kunikida draws a breath. “Why do you really call me your work wife?”
“Pink camellias.”
Kunikida shifts through his limited knowledge of flowers, then shakes his head. There’s a closer rumble of thunder this time. Is he… blushing?
“You said all you needed to say about your intentions with the Lady’s Mantle, but there’s something else you can do.”
“What is that?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
Kunikida suddenly hopes those flowers didn’t suggest something he didn’t intend them to. At the last minute, he recalls what he thinks are the rules of their unspoken game and buries his concern with, “Shouldn’t you be the one telling me?”
“Stay.” That’s all Dazai says, and it blindsides him. Dazai’s voice lacks its usual confidence and dramatic flair. If anything, the word sounds fragile. “Stay. Just stay. I won’t ask you to do anything else. I won’t tease you or call you my work wife anymore. Just—”
“Okay.” Kunikida slips his shoes off again and rises. “Okay,” he says again. “I’ll stay.”
Dazai sighs this time, and all his franticness disappears.
“Is staying all you want?” Kunikida asks.
“Kunikida-kun, you’re a little perverted.”
“You can’t blame me for worrying that the undertone of this conversation is a little suggestive.”
“I just want to hold onto you,” he answers, as if reading Kunikida’s concerns. “Like hugging and maybe cuddling. That’s it. But I can’t ask you for that.”
“Why?”
“Pink camellias.”
“That’s the second time you’re saying that.”
“In the European language of flowers, they symbolize a longing for the recipient.”
“Ah.” Kunikida murmurs the word, but once he processes, he winds up shouting, “What?” at the top of his lungs.
Dazai rolls his eyes. “So loud, Kunikida-kun.”
“Why the hell didn’t you just say something instead of—”
The crack of thunder makes him jolt this time. Mostly because he’s not expecting it. He tries to gauge what effect it has on Dazai, but the ex-mafioso just stands there, meeting his gaze. “I was waiting for you to notice. As oblivious as you were, I thought if I made it obvious by calling you my work wife—”
“That wasn’t obvious! I thought you were doing it to annoy me!”
“If that was my objective, it would have worked.” Dazai folds his arms and turns. “I’m going back to bed. You can come sit with me if you want.”
Kunikida drops his head and follows Dazai. He picks his discarded pen up, setting both it and his notebook aside before lowering himself to his knees again. He intends to just sit. He really does. But before he knows what he’s doing, he’s the one reaching for Dazai’s shoulders, winding his arms around them. He feels Dazai jolt and immediately lets go. “Sorry. I should have asked. I—”
“So you weren’t rejecting me by the door?”
Kunikida stares into Dazai’s face.
“Then why did you tell me to let go?”
Kunikida exhales. “I… didn’t entirely know why you were hugging me.” He pauses. “I thought maybe it was just the rain. Or another joke. That you were feeling cold and saw me as something warm and just…” He bites his lip. “I didn’t want to hope it was anything but that.” After a moment, he asks, “Why did you flinch?”
“It startled me. That maybe… you were okay with it.” Dazai fidgets with the blankets for a bit. “You can hug me again, Kunikida-kun. I don’t mind.”
He’s not sure he should. And Dazai, the bastard, has to read that hesitation considering he gently removes Kunikida’s glasses, grabs his shoulders, and starts to tip them over with a playful laugh that sounds a little too much like him. Kunikida knows he could resist that tug. Fukuzawa trained him, and Dazai isn’t nearly as strong as he is. Instead, he chooses to follow the flow of gravity because it’s what he wants, too. It doesn’t even take thirty seconds for Dazai to spread the blankets over them and burrow against Kunikida’s chest with what Kunikida hopes is a content hum. The futon smells like Dazai. It’s intoxicating. It would be dangerous if he were a man with different principles. Kunikida smooths the back of Dazai’s head and tries to relax. Little by little, his own tensions and misgivings drift away until all he knows is the warmth of his partner laying next to him and the slow, steady rhythm of Dazai’s breathing.
“Have you ever wanted to kiss me?” Dazai asks out of nowhere.
Kunikida emerges from his quiet, comfortable state of mind and counters, “Have you ever wanted me to?”
Dazai laughs and says, “Why don’t you?”
“We only just kind of confessed—”
Dazai rolls his eyes. “Kind of, he says.”
“The language of flowers hardly constitutes as—”
“Kunikida-kun.”
He hears the seriousness in Dazai’s voice. It’s not a dangerous kind, nor is it heavy. But it does silence him.
“I’m nowhere near your ideal wife, but I hope—”
“You don’t need to be my ideal anything. You’re enough.” Kunikida tries to straighten the mess on Dazai’s head. They wind up locking eyes again. “You’re a pest. You annoy me to no end. And this senseless act of waiting when you could have just told me—”
Dazai’s finger lands against his lips, and he falls silent. Gently, he pulls Dazai’s hand away.
“You’re enough. You’ve always been enough for me. As a partner and friend and now… whatever we decide to be.” He swallows. If they’re playing this game, he may as well ask another question. “Have you ever wanted me to kiss you?”
Without even a moment passing, Dazai says, “I might want you to right now.”
“Then I will.”
Dazai smirks.
“I will,” Kunikida warns him again, but he can’t act on it because Dazai is already lining their lips up. Kunikida moves to meet him halfway. It’s impulsive. Things feel rushed. It’s not ideal, but it’s good. So damn good. Even if it is brief, it’s more than enough. Kunikida feels heat in his face and glances away.
“Again. If… you want.”
Kunikida doesn’t make it a habit to give into Dazai’s demands, but this one time, he acts without questioning the precedent it might set. Of all the directions that moment could go, it just stays where it is: a soft, slow exchange of kisses and caresses that end when Dazai tucks his head beneath Kunikida’s chin. After a few minutes, Dazai’s breathing slows, and Kunikida watches his face go slack in the dim room. Every now and then, lightning illuminates Dazai’s features, but the thunder following those flashes doesn’t even make him stir.
Dazai Osamu still hates the rain, and Kunikida still doesn’t know why. But in the moment, Kunikida hopes it’s enough that they’re not alone, and that Dazai is calm despite the water drumming against his window.