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Fukuzawa knew that this was going to be a hard topic to broach. But he needed to know for the safety of his employees. He trusted Dazai entirely; if the brunette told him that he would have to go and do something that could very easily end in death if something went wrong, but that it was the only way they could protect the agency, he would do it without question. He also knew that if someone else told him that, he would ignore them. The only reason it was different with Dazai was because he had grown up being taught to think of the optimal solutions to problems and had been taught to use logic to plan and strategize for situations others would likely ignore. Fukuzawa knew this with confidence because he knew how Mori acted, and he hated the fact that he could see Mori’s influence in the brunette. If only because it did nothing good for him. Dazai ignored his own health and pushed himself past his limits in a way to be helpful, in a way to not seem weak, the same reason he hid the fact that he was blind in one eye is Fukuawa had to guess.
He smiled at Haruno as she brought him a cup of tea, nodding his thanks before she left. He found his thoughts drifting back to Dazai and his eye. The revelation had shocked him, as well as hurt him as he realised that Dazai probably didn’t trust him as much as he had hoped, and that he definitely didn’t trust him as much as he trusted Dazai. He knew that the ex-mafia members trusted them to some degree, recent events proved that, in the way he didn’t try to close himself off completely. He let them see him when he was vulnerable, and while he wasn’t the most open with them at all times, he didn’t hide how he was feeling and allowed them to try and help him.
He thought back to before all of this had happened, had Dazai ever given them any hints to his eye. He couldn’t think of any, but he rarely saw the man outside of the office, there was never any need for him to, but that did give him a disadvantage when trying to think of instances it could have been brought up. The only thing he could think of was how he instinctively stood to the left of someone, always having someone to his right. It made sense now that he thought about it, but without the knowledge that he was in fact blind in one eye it could easily be chalked up to a comfort thing.
He let out a sigh before reaching out for his cup, he stared down at his tea for a minute, letting the heat seep from the mug into his hand drawing some comfort from the heat. He took a sip and set the cup down just before the door to his office opened once more.
Dazai walked in seeming unfazed, to Fukuzawa he looked like he normally would, unconcerned and confident. He barely walked into the room before closing the door, leaving him standing just in front of the door, with no intention of moving further into the room. His body language changed immediately when the door closed, he kept his eyes glued to the floor, and his body language was closed off, his shoulders hunched, and his hands stuffed into and staying in his coat pockets. This wasn’t the Dazai that Fukuzawa had employed, Fukuzawa expected that, he never would have expected Dazai to come out unscathed, and anyone who did had unrealistic standards linked to the situation. But what made the pain in his heart swell up once more was the fact that he couldn’t tell if this was because of the torture, or if this was Dazai when he wasn’t hiding behind his masks, when he wasn’t trying to be the person his co-workers had grown to know.
“Would you like to take a seat?” Fukuzawa asked, gesturing to the seats in front of him. He was giving Dazai a choice, normally he wouldn’t have asked it as anything more than a rhetorical question. He knew this was going to take a while and figured that deep down Dazai knew that as well. But he realised that Dazai may have felt like he needed an escape from the conversation, and he wasn’t one to deny that. He saw the way in which Dazai’s eyes kept darting from himself to the seats in front of him, clearly weary of what would happen if he didn’t or even if he did.
“Nothing will change if you want to stand Dazai, I figured you would be tired, but please do whatever works for you.” Dazai nodded, and slowly took a few steps towards the desk, his eyes never straying from Fukuzawa. It hurt Fukuzawa more than any weapon or wound ever could, because with every cautious action, every second which was spent with the brunette thinking about his next action, it became clearer to Fukuzawa that any previous trust he had held was gone. He didn’t know why, the two of them had held several conversations while Dazai was recovering and there had never been any distrust. He hated himself for calling the meeting the way he had when he realised that Dazai was scared of being punished. If that was for hiding the fact about his eye, or for what had happened he didn’t know, but he knew he had to ignore it. Trying to tell the man that he meant no harm would do no good, he knew this much like he knew Dazai also knew this. He had taken great lengths with every member to make sure they felt safe, he never punished them in any way more than giving them a stern talking to or giving them some of the more boring jobs around the office. And yet here Dazai was, looking as if he was expecting something much worse to happen.
Fukuzawa pulled himself from his thoughts as Dazai sat down. Resting his hands on his lap, fiddling with nothing more than his finger, finding them much more interesting to watch. Fukuzawa didn’t know if it was a good thing or not, on one hand he no longer had to watch Dazai’s eyes dart around the room looking for danger, or the way they watched his every movement. While on the other, it hurt in a way he couldn’t explain.
“Do you know why I asked for this meeting?” Fukuzawa asked, trying to move the conversation on to help Dazai calm down and help him realise that he was not mad.
“It’s about my eye. You mentioned before that you wanted to talk about it, and this is the first time we’ve done this. Even though you’ve had plenty of times to talk about it before,” Dazai responded, his voice steady and contradicting how he appeared. While it still lacked his normal confidence, it also lacked any indication of his nerves. He had raised his head once more, his eyes blank of all emotion but looking at him. Fukuzawa hated every moment of this, with every second that passed the more he could see the effects the torture and possibly training from Mori resurfacing. But he didn’t feel like he could point it out, too scared of scaring Dazai off.
It was interesting to him though, to see the differences between Dazai and Chuuya. They were partners while in the mafia, and more importantly they were the two halves of Double Black. Two powerful individuals who clearly had a very deep and complicated relationship. They were enemies, yet trusted each other to watch their back, to keep them alive. They hated each other, always fighting and trying to annoy the other, but at the same time they were comfortable enough to show weakness. Dazai, someone who never let his walls down to let others see him in moments of weakness, who never placed all of his trust in others, trusted Chuuya enough to get him out of the basement, trusted him enough to fall asleep in his arms. And given the fact that Chuuya had known what to do when he was panicking, who had moved in a way that showed practice and experience, meant that Dazai trusted him enough and felt comfortable enough to show weakness around him. As the president of the agency, he knew that Kunikida and Dazai worked well together, knew how to read each other while on jobs and knew how to balance each other out, and yet he knew that while Dazai had seen Kunikida during some of his lowest moments, he realised that the same could not be said for the blond detective. He didn’t necessarily view it as a negative, but it did help to show that while Dazai trusted the agency he didn’t feel like he could trust them entirely.
“I’m sorry,” Dazai said, his voice barely above a whisper.
“You don’t need to apologise. I’m not mad, I can understand why you didn’t say anything,” Fukuzawa responded, keeping his voice level and calm.
“I still should have said something, but I’ve always been taught to never show my weaknesses and being blind in one eye is quite a weakness.”
“But you’ve worked with it in mind, have you not? You have taken measures to protect yourself and ensured that it hasn’t affected your job,” Fukuzawa took a small pause, trying to give Dazai time to digest his words. He had a feeling that the brunette would struggle to accept the message. He was smart enough to understand everything he was saying, even if he didn’t say it outright, but Fukuzawa feared Dazai had spent too much time growing up only hearing negatives about his abilities and had spent too much time being corrected or punished.
“Dazai, I want to make this as clear as I can. You are not in any trouble, and if you think you are then you need to stop thinking like that. I would never get mad at anyone for something like this, unless they acted stupidly about it. I am not going to punish you for this, and unless you give me a very serious reason to in the future, I have no plans to ever punish you.”
“But-” Fukuzawa raised a hand, prompting Dazai to stop before he continued to talk, allowing it to drop back next to his tea when Dazai stopped.
“Let me finish. You are not the type of person to learn from punishments, are you? You learn by testing things out but looking over situations and testing the waters. It’s why working with Kunikida helps you so much. He has strict moral guides to follow. When you first joined the agency, you completely lacked this. I hoped having Kunikida as a partner would help you to see what would be acceptable. Have you sometimes gone too far? Yes. But that is only something I can say for a very small percentage of the jobs you have done.” Dazai was looking down at his hands, his hair falling forward to hide his face further. Fukuzawa had hoped he hadn’t gone too far, but he knew Dazai needed to hear and understand this. If he didn’t do it now then he knew he probably wouldn’t be able to, Dazai would always find some way to escape.
Dazai sat in silence, he knew that he had to respond at some point with something, but he didn’t know how or with what. Fukuzawa wasn’t incorrect; he learnt best by testing to see what happened and by using his previous experiences to adapt to new problems. He knew he didn’t really have to respond, for as much as Fukuzawa had posed it as a question, they both knew the answer. Learning from punishments was normal, yes. But Dazai never learnt what to do, he just knew to not make the same mistake, so if he ever ended up in the same situation in the future, he would just have to try something new and hope that it was the correct solution. Punishment was a good incentive for many people, but when the threat of it is always there, even when you have no clue about what you could be punished for, a person is able to become somewhat numb to it.
“Anyway, I feel we have gotten a bit off topic. I called you in here to talk about your eye, not about any of this, and for that I am sorry,” Fukuzawa tried to keep his voice calm and steady. Dazai was not in trouble, he repeated in his mind. He knew that when dealing with Yosano and Dazai he had to be more careful, Mori’s influence had done damage to both of them, he had the same thought process with every member of the agency, but with the two of them he found himself repeating the single sentence more often than not.
“I just have one question, and then we can move on from the topic. Is that alright?” He asked, hoping Dazai responded with a yes, if he said no then the topic would end then and there, he wouldn’t push the topic any further, he knew he wouldn’t get anywhere with how stubborn Dazai could be. But he really hoped Dazai would say yes and that would never change.
When Dazai nodded a breath, he hadn’t realised he had been holding escaped.
“I need to know. Your eye, does Mori have any involvement in what happened to it?” He asked. He hoped the answer was no, it would probably be more accurate to say he was praying that it was no, but he wasn’t all too hopeful. Mori was a cruel man, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he went this far as a punishment. Dazai was able to function perfectly fine and was able to hide the fact that he was blind in one eye, something that would have taken many years to practise and perfect. He knew how to cover his blind spots and position himself to keep safe without outright telling others what he was doing.
“No,” Dazai said simply, not expanding any further. Fukuzawa slumped down in his seat, relieved at the knowledge that his former partner had nothing to do with the injury.
“I’m glad to hear that,” his hands once more wrapped around his forgotten mug of tea, spinning it around slowly between his palms trying to find something to distract his mind.
“Is that everything?” Dazai asked, his voice barely above a whisper. Fukuzawa looked up to face his employee, trying to ignore how tired he looked.
“Yes, Dazai. You are free to go if you want. Don’t feel like you need to explain any more to me.” In reality Fukuzawa still had several questions that he wanted to ask Dazai, but he knew better than to pry. He figured, and hoped, that if Dazai ever wanted to tell him anything about his past then he would, until then Fukuzawa wouldn’t push him.
“Thank you, president,” Dazai stood up, barely wasting any time before heading over to the door, the celebration still going on strong outside in the main office. Dazai paused for a minute, his hand resting on the door handle.
“Someday president. I will tell you everything I need to, but that day is not today.” Fukuzawa smiled, gazing down at the mug still cupped between his hands. Dazai had once more figured out exactly what he was thinking and responded accordingly. For anyone else this would be concerning, a little scary even, but for Dazai this was just another one of his quirks, something else that made him Dazai.
“I know, please, take as long as you need. And if the day never comes, well then it never comes,” Fukuzawa responded, looking up just in time to see Dazai smile before he opened the door and walked back into the celebration, his mask back in place smiling and joking as if nothing had happened.