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“Dazai, what is the meaning of this?!”
Kunikida’s voice echoed throughout the office, drawing the attention of a few curious eyes around him. His usual disputes with his co-worker weren’t anything unusual to the members of the Armed Detective Agency, having witnessed countless similar exchanges almost daily; the only question was what could have started it this time.
“Dazai!” he called again, “I’m talking to you, you lazy suicidal maniac!”
“Yes?” Sitting by his desk, Dazai slowly turned to Kunikida. “What’s wrong?”
Unsurprisingly, the smile on Dazai’s face made it clear that he knew the answer to that question very well.
Dazai moved closer and looked at the tiny piece of paper in Kunikida’s hand. Kunikida didn’t appear pleased at all by his response.
“I’m already behind my schedule and don’t have time for your immature pranks right now,” he continued after an exasperated sigh. “What is this supposed to mean already?”
“Oh, that? What’s the problem with it?” Dazai shrugged, smirking as soon as he recognized his own mindless work of art. “You don’t seem to mind when they come from Kyouka, but you never appreciate my masterpieces.”
There was something innocent, almost childlike, in his voice and in that simple answer, which only seemed to further fuel Kunikida’s usual rage. Interfering with his schedule was one of the worst sins anyone in the ADA could commit, and not taking said disruption seriously was also very high on that list.
Unmoved, Kunikida pushed up his glasses, and continued on with his lecture as it was practically a daily occurrence at this point.
“Well, it’s an age-appropriate activity for her, at least, and Kyouka gives it her all when she wants to do something. She’s a good kid, who tries her hardest with everything that she does. All you do is waste my time with dumb caricatures, and it’s only because you want an excuse to skip work. Maybe you should learn something about discipline and dedication from her.”
“Is that so, huh…?”
Dazai’s eyes suddenly focused on the pen lying on his desk, as he placed his hands behind his head. When he spoke again, his voice was much lower, any hint of his usual cheerfulness seemingly gone.
“Hey, Kunikida?”
“What is it now?”
Kunikida’s impatient complaint echoed through the office. Dazai barely moved and didn’t seem to even blink.
“You really don’t think I’m a good kid like Kyouka?”
Kunikida didn’t even need to think, answering almost immediately:
“You’re an adult, so act like one and do your job already!”
“...Alright, then,” Dazai whispered.
Atsushi, who was sitting next to them, took in the atmosphere around him. Silence reigned for only a moment, and then the office was once again filled with the usual sounds of paper being shuffled, random small talk, and Ranpo opening a package of the first candy he could find. Dazai absentmindedly started humming a low, soft tune to himself. His eyes were still fixated on that same pen he’d forgotten on his desk, but his mind seemed miles away from the world and the people around him.
Despite this, the rest of the day carried on as always.
Eventually, the long shift at last came to an end. Everyone was already gone, leaving a silent, somewhat lifeless workplace behind. Kunikida, however, was still running to and fro, ensuring that the office was as clean, neat and organized as it could be before he left, as he would do every day. The windows were closed, the chairs were in place, and now all that was left to do was emptying the trash cans. While it wasn’t usually a troublesome chore in of itself, someone had decided to leave behind an unusually large number of crumbled pieces of paper that day for whatever reason, and the mere sight of it was enough to make Kunikida’s stomach burn; it didn’t take a genius to know exactly who would leave all that trash behind without giving a second thought, some of the paper being torn or completely shredded. Kunikida let out a heavy, tired sigh as he prepared to take out the trash, before something unusual happened to catch his eye.
He took a step back, his eyes fixed on what he thought he saw. He was never the type to riffle through other people’s trash— not only was it highly unsanitary, but it was something he would only do if it were absolutelynecessary. Perhaps if it were a life-or-death situation, or for a mission, where some important information could only be recovered that way. Invading a co-worker’s privacy for no reason at all would absolutely go against several of his ideals.
What he thought he’d seen hidden among the mess Dazai had left behind next to his desk, however, was far too serious to ignore. Pretending that there was nothing there was also not befitting of a man with such strong ideals, who held onto them so fiercely. Kunikida knew he couldn’t just let it go. He took a deep breath, pulling out the first piece of paper his shaky fingers touched, and nothing could have possibly prepared him for what he saw. What he laid eyes on as soon as he opened the tiny, messy paper ball made his stomach sink, and his heart almost seemed to stop for a brief second.
The small, wrinkled piece of paper had a crude drawing of a man wearing a long, dark coat and holding a gun, facing away. Although his face wasn’t fully shown, Kunikida could tell that the man was looking down at a lifeless body, represented by a silhouette that had been crossed out repeatedly. It was almost completely indiscernible, but still somewhat visible underneath all those lines.
If Kunikida hadn’t already known this mess was what his lazy, useless coworker had left behind, it was painfully clear that it was Dazai’s now. His tracing was shaky and uneven, but Kunikida knew the handwriting well. He knew it very well. In fact, the words scribbled in Dazai’s calligraphy all over the piece of paper were ones he knew he would never be able to forget, not for the rest of his life:
Am I a good kid now?
Can I finally be a good kid now?
Am I finally a good kid?
I didn’t hurt their feelings, right? So, am I a good kid?
Can I be a good kid?
Kunikida read the questions over and over again, until they no longer felt like words, until nothing made any sense at all.
“Kunikida-san, is everything alright?”
“Ah!”
Atsushi’s voice, though gentle and calm as always, caught Kunikida by surprise. Wasn’t everyone else supposed to have left by now?
“Kunikida-san?” Atsushi called again. “What’s the matter? What’s in that note? Are we being threatened by someone again?”
And now the boy was asking questions, ones that Kunikida didn’t have the answers to. Sure, Dazai was always joking about suicide, and maybe he could afford to put more effort into finishing his paperwork. But even though no one truly knew what could be going on inside that head… could it really be that serious?
“No, not this time,” Kunikida replied, taking another quick look at the paper in his hand. “What are you still doing here?”
Kunikida folded the drawing in a hurry, hiding it in his pocket as soon as Atsushi walked closer. How could he even begin to explain to the boy what he didn’t even fully understand himself?
“I was about to leave, but… Kunikida-san, you seem tense. Is something the matter?”
Kunikida let out a heavy sigh. This conversation was unavoidable.
“Atsushi-kun… did you notice anything stranger than usual about Dazai’s behavior this afternoon?”
“What do you mean?”
What did he mean, exactly? How could they possibly even begin to figure out what was going on with Dazai?
“I’m not sure,” Kunikida admitted. “Was there anything that caught your attention? Maybe something he said, or another one of his juvenile pranks?”
“No, actually… He was really quiet after you had that fight earlier,” Atsushi finally stated after thinking in silence for a moment. “Yeah, I guess that is strange for him.”
The pain Kunikida felt deep in the pit of his stomach, which had finally begun to ease, suddenly returned in full force. But why would Dazai have been so bothered by that in the first place? Wasn’t it just another day at work for them at this point?
“Did something happen while you were out on that job earlier?” Atsushi asked.
After another long, heavy sigh, Kunikida tried to remember every single detail of that morning’s mission. It had been an easy, common request; getting it done in a couple of hours was simple enough, and overall, it had seemed to be just another morning. Dazai flirted with every woman they met on their way, as he usually did, and even brought up a new suicide technique he’d just read about the day before. Everything had looked to be perfectly normal. Nothing felt different or out of the ordinary about Dazai, and nothing had seemed to disturb him during the mission. Dazai’s morning had appeared to be perfectly fine, his usual shenanigans aside.
“No… not that I noticed.” Kunikida’s voice, however, was nothing but a low mumble.
Dazai wasn’t the one who had had an unexpected, uncomfortable encounter earlier, and the thought left Kunikida shaking his head.
“You know, Dazai-san might like playing his pranks and skipping work, and I know he always gives you a hard time, but… whenever he joins us in our doodle exchanges, it always feels comforting, somehow.”
Atsushi spoke matter-of-factly, as if it were obvious, yet Kunikida’s bewildered stare made it clear he didn’t have the faintest idea what he was referring to.
“...What are you talking about?” Kunikida had to remind himself to take a deep breath, before his emotions got the better of him again. “Are you all joining that lazy womanizer in skipping work now as well?”
“Not exactly. It’s just something we do sometimes, I guess…”
No one quite knew how the doodle exchange had first started. It just had. One day, Atsushi had woken up to find Kyouka scribbling on a piece of paper in their apartment. She was biting her lower lip, eyes fixed on what she was doing. So intense was her focus that, when Atsushi approached, she was startled enough to cause her hand to slip.
“Hmm… this is no good,” she mumbled to herself. “I guess I’ll start over.”
“What are you up to, Kyouka?”
The girl always threw herself into everything she did, no matter what it was, and this seemed to be no different. With a soft smile on his lips, Atsushi watched Kyouka again only to find her holding the paper close to her body, hiding what was on it.
“You can’t see it,” she replied in her usual serious tone, her eyes instantly darting back to the paper. “Not yet.”
“Alright, then. Whenever you’re ready.”
That night, when Atsushi finally headed to bed after a very long day, he noticed a small piece of paper next to his bed— the same one he’d seen with Kyouka that morning. He immediately looked at its contents and found a small pencil drawing of a tiger curled up and preparing to go to sleep, gazing at him with its big, feline eyes. The words “thank you” were written above the tiger’s head. It was a simple drawing, but it was also the most beautiful gift Atsushi had ever received from someone who was now so close to him.
When the next morning came, everyone found a small doodle personally made for them by Kyouka, waiting on their desks or close to their workspace. They were all signed with those same words. A few days after that, Kyouka herself found a tiny, messy drawing of herself eating a crepe. It only showed her head, and it wasn’t drawn too neatly, but on the other side of the paper were the most beautiful words someone had ever spoken to her: “Welcome home”.
After a few more days had passed, Kyouka also found a doodle of Kenji smiling and giving her a thumbs up, followed by a drawing of a butterfly signed by Yosano not too long after that, which prompted her to immediately start working on her next pieces of art. Meanwhile, she also began to notice other drawings showing up randomly for other members of the ADA to find even when she no longer had a part in it anymore. It wasn’t something anyone ever spoke of, or addressed directly, either. If you were a part of the ADA, after Kyouka joined, randomly finding a cute, uplifting surprise for yourself when you least expected it simply became a common, everyday occurrence, and it didn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.
“… I see.”
Kunikida pushed his glasses up with a sigh. What could he even say? While learning that all his co-workers had been messing around and engaging in such childish behavior in their workplace didn’t make him happy, there was another thought nagging at the back of his mind that was much more upsetting.
“And you’ve all been doing this? Was I the only one who didn’t know about it?”
“I guess,” Atsushi shrugged. “I never really thought about it. Dazai doesn’t participate often, though. He left one for Kyouka once after she had a bad time at one of her first jobs, and one for me a few weeks ago, after I messed up on one of our jobs, too.”
Dazai’s actions didn’t seem to be random, and the realization hit Kunikida like a ton of bricks.
It had all happened so fast. All it had taken was a quick glance. Dazai was rambling on endlessly about one of his usual random subjects as they were returning to the agency after finishing an investigation that morning, when suddenly, Kunikida was staring right into the eyes of the little girl who had blown herself up in front of him not too long ago. Or maybe the girl who had walked by them with her mother hadn’t even resembled the girl who died at all; Kunikida wasn’t even sure anymore. All he knew was that he needed to keep striving for his ideals.
Had Dazai noticed that? Would he even know about…?
“I… see,” Kunikida said again, after a moment of silence. “Thank you, Atsushi-kun. I think I know what I’ll do.”
“Are you sure everything’s okay, Kunikida-san?”
“Yes, it is. I’ll make sure of it.”
There were many things about Dazai that seemed completely unpredictable. Even after working with him for years, sometimes Kunikida still couldn’t tell what was really going on inside his head, or what his next mischievous act would be, or even when Dazai was making up lies just to see him write it down in his notebook. Sometimes Kunikida couldn’t even understand what Dazai was planning to do to help them finish a job until after he’d already done it. And yet, at the same time, there were also things about Dazai that he knew to always expect. Kunikida knew he could count on Dazai in moments of need without fail, just as much as he also knew that Dazai would always try to push his paperwork onto any poor soul who was unfortunate enough to be around him at the time.
While today had been unexpectedly chaotic since the moment Kunikida had first opened his eyes that morning, he knew exactly where to go if he wanted to find Dazai, and he also knew what to expect.
A good while later, after one last exasperated sigh, Kunikida finally left the officer, ignoring the pile of papers in his own trash can that was almost twice the size of Dazai’s.
“I knew this would happen,” Kunikida muttered as he stared at his phone. “I need to start on today’s schedule already. I can’t wait for that fool again.”
He made another attempt, but no one picked up the phone. Things had finally started to return to normal at the ADA. After staying up late drinking with Dazai and listening to his endless ramblings about new methods to commit suicide, Kunikida had made sure to get them both back home before Dazai became black-out drunk again. He should probably have still been in his room after drinking that much, too unconscious to notice that his phone was ringing.
Kunikida couldn’t afford to waste any more time. He was already fifteen minutes behind schedule, and the previous day had been a complete tragedy already. He put his phone in his pocket, grabbed his notebook, and left.
It was early afternoon when Dazai finally arrived at an almost empty office. Atsushi was focused on his paperwork — or perhaps was finishing Dazai’s own paperwork again — while Ranpo was too focused on his sweets to pay attention to anything else, and the others seemed to be out doing their jobs. All seemed as ordinary as ever, aside from one very unusual detail: there was a pile of trash and random papers in the trashcan next to Kunikida’s desk. Dazai noticed it almost as soon as he walked through the door, and his face immediately lit up. Kunikida was always getting on his case whenever he left something out of place; this was the perfect opportunity for Dazai to get back at him somehow, and he surely wasn’t going to miss it. He walked closer, pulling out the first piece of paper he saw without too much thought, and as soon as he opened it, his face instantly whitened.
Kunikida’s drawing was impeccable, as expected of him. Dazai immediately recognized a smaller version of himself, smiling and sharing a piece of candy with a little girl. The words “good kids” were written in Kunikida’s perfect calligraphy above their heads. It had already been a long time, but Dazai instantly knew who the girl was as soon as he laid eyes on the image. Even if Kunikida’s sketch hadn’t captured her likeness as perfectly as it had, it would be impossible for Dazai to ever forget her face.
Silently, he hid the piece of paper in his pocket before anyone could notice it, laying down on the couch, his eyes focused on the ceiling.
“Oh, you’re here.”
Dazai had nearly fallen asleep again when Kunikida’s voice opened his eyes. He gazed at his co-worker in silence as he sat up, almost expectantly, but Kunikida merely gave him an almost imperceptible nod.
“...Maybe you should just take it easy for now,” he said, and Dazai’s eyes widened at the same time. “It’s not busy today, anyway.”
Dazai continued to stare, his mouth half-open in disbelief. Anyone would have expected Kunikida to give him the scolding of a lifetime, but the words he had spoken instead were ones that Dazai had never heard come from Kunikida’s mouth in all the time he had known him.
Rather than going back to sleep, however, Dazai rose to his feet and placed his hands in his pockets, his usual smile on his face.
“...I guess something really bad must’ve happened if you’re telling people to start slacking on the job, Kunikida,” he said. “Maybe I really should get started with my paperwork…”
Without another word, Dazai and Kunikida sat down at their desks once again. Dazai began reading the unfinished report next to him while humming a cheerful tune, happily singing about his ever-familiar double suicides. On any other day, Kunikida would have reprimanded him: told him to take his work seriously, or at least to stop bothering the others who actually did. But today, it seemed, was not one of those days.
Their eyes briefly met, and with them, another quiet nod of acknowledgement. Then, they returned to their work, Dazai’s ominous, yet silly song filling the comfortable silence.