Work Text:
(1) Missed call from Dazai Osamu
Above it: “Call me back, when you get the chance.”
Thirty minutes ago.
The text and missed call notification bobbing on the dimly glowing screen of Ryuunosuke’s phone produce a sinking feeling in his gut that he is far too familiar with. The half-rotted part of his heart makes itself known, screaming at him in the form of television static, unsure of even what it wants to say: all that resides in his head is buzzing, displeased noise, and he can’t make out a word from the chaos. He picks up his phone, numb, all of the joy in his body seeping from his bones and into the floor, leaving him cold. A sour taste spreads quickly from his throat upward, invading his mouth and nose.
He had been doing so well, too; his responses to Dazai’s requests were always fast and unhesitating, doing exactly what was asked of him, and he completed each task efficiently and in a timely manner. His streak had lasted years—he hadn’t messed up once.
Chuuya glances at him from where he’d just hung his coat up, tilting his head in confusion.
“What’s the—” Chuuya begins to ask if he’s alright, but closes his mouth when Ryuunosuke turns tail and flees into their bedroom, fumbling desperately with his phone. Ryuunosuke slams the door behind him, frantic, heart thumping in his chest like a drum, as he presses ‘Call’ on Dazai’s contact.
He picks up on the first ring.
“Dazai-san,” Ryuunosuke pants, almost out of breath. “I’m sorry! I turned my ringer off because I was busy—I was sure you wouldn’t need me for anything today! I didn’t think a few hours would be a big deal. I was out— no, I can’t make excuses for myself. I’ve failed you. I will do better. What did you need me for? Must I deal with something the Detective Agency can’t spare hands for?”
There’s a seconds-long silence from the other end of the phone line, and Ryuunosuke’s heartbeat is echoing in his ears, in his skull, as he waits for a response. Dazai takes a little breath, and speaks.
“I didn’t call you to ask for your help on a mission.”
Dazai sounds strange, almost somber. Heart still hammering, Ryuunosuke’s chest feels heavy—full of unforgiving steel weights.
“Did I do something insufficiently on one of my recent tasks?” He manages to choke out, speaking even faster now. Nervous fingers dance across the comforter, almost tearing lines into the bedding with their intensity of movement. He stops only because Chuuya will have to replace the comforter if he sinks his nails in too deeply.
Dazai pauses again, and it’s at times like this where Ryuunosuke hates technology—the ability to see his face would ease a bit of his anxiety, perhaps, or at least let him know the tone of the words to be spoken. If phones didn’t exist, perhaps Dazai would speak to him in person more often.
“It’s not that at all,” Dazai says.
Ryuunosuke’s breath begins to shake, as much as he tries to force that down. The anxiety is a solid brick in his chest, pushing his lungs up against his ribcage, marking them with the indent of his bones.
“What do you need, Dazai-san?”
Ryuunosuke hears the sound of clothing shuffling on the other side of the phone, like Dazai is repositioning himself; he could be in his futon, kicking his legs behind him; sitting in a plush chair in the Agency and crossing his legs; leaning back into a sofa to get comfortable.
The next moment of loaded silence, realistically, takes three seconds. To Ryuunosuke, and his prey animal heart, it’s minutes. Dazai clears his throat, breaking the suffocating quiet.
“Happy birthday, Akutagawa-kun,” Dazai murmurs. “Did you have fun today?”
All of the noise—static, snarling, hissing, buzzing—hammering against the bone of Ryuunosuke’s skull ceases in an instant. Everything suddenly becomes nothing. He must take five seconds before he responds, but Dazai only waits.
“What?” The word drags against his throat when it breaks out.
“I said, happy birthday, Akutagawa-kun. Did you have fun today?” Dazai repeats himself, his tone unchanging, quiet and contemplative. It sounds like he’s drumming his fingers on a hard surface, keeping both of his hands busy like he usually does; always so restless, that man.
Ryuunosuke’s chest stings. Unspeaking, he takes a seat on the edge of his and Chuuya’s king-sized bed and fixes his eyes on the far wall; his gaze lands on a painting, a moonlit landscape he had painted on the day of his five year anniversary—two weeks prior.
He finds the strength to speak again, but not without a distrustful scratch in his voice. “Why do you want to know?”
“I want you to tell me about your day.” Dazai’s words sound thick in their own right, but he’s calmer, more gentle, than he usually is. “That’s all.”
“That’s all?”
“Can you do that?”
Ryuunosuke swings his legs onto the mattress and makes an attempt to consider his situation, but his brain only produces blankness—white void.
Uncertain, he hesitantly begins with, “I turned twenty-six, today.”
Dazai hums in acknowledgement and shuffles—switching his phone to his other hand, to his other ear? He’s still listening, though, and the call is still connected. Ryuunosuke moves the phone from his ear and puts it on speaker.
“I went out to lunch with Chuuya. He’s my fiance now... since last year.” Dazai knows that already. “Our five-year anniversary was two weeks ago.”
Dazai laughs quietly. “That’s right, you two started dating on Valentine’s Day, didn’t you? How cute is that, huh? What restaurant did he take you to?”
The resultant silence is so oppressively heavy that Ryuunosuke can feel it closing in on him from all sides. He takes a deep breath and lies down, laying his head on his pile of pillows. “When are you going to hang up on me, Dazai-san? When are you going to get bored?”
There’s another shuffle—Dazai lies down too, he thinks, rests his opposite cheek on a pillow or an armrest. “Do you want me to hang up?”
Ryuunosuke stares at the ceiling. “I don’t know,” he says, which is the truth.
Dazai makes a little sound in his throat. “That’s okay. I’ll hang up if you want. Until you decide, why don’t you tell me about your birthday, Akutagawa-kun?” There’s something unfamiliar in Dazai’s voice—something like a smile, something warm and gentle.
Ryuunosuke closes his eyes, relaxing into the familiar comfort of his bed. He thinks that, maybe, Dazai has his eyes closed too. “Chuuya took me to a new restaurant he thought I would like,” he recalls, his tone softening. “He ordered us wine.”
“Mhm?”
Ryuunosuke sets his phone next to his head, resting it on the satin pillowcase. His heartbeat has calmed a bit—doesn’t feel like it’s trying to crack an escape route through his ribcage anymore, at least—so he waits for Dazai to hang up.
He doesn’t.
“... We got dessert, too. I got a molten lava cake. He let me try a bite of his cheesecake.”
Dazai chirps, “Sounds yummy~ You’re making me crave something sweet!”
Ryuunosuke smiles, his breathing finally steadying out.
“I had fun.”
“I’m glad, Akutagawa-kun.”
He recounts—event-by-event—the rest of his day so far, and Dazai makes a show that he’s listening via interested noises and the occasional relevant question to prod him along. Ryuunosuke doesn’t check the clock for a while. Once he’s finished recalling his day, Dazai speaks up without being prompted.
“If you have a little time, can you drop by the Detective Agency? Just for a minute.”
Ryuunosuke’s heart drops to his stomach.
He had really thought…
“What do you want me to do for you?” He responds almost robotically, opening his eyes and snatching his phone up from the pillow. Dazai will give him an assignment, and then he will hang up. He was a fool to think otherwise.
Something rapidly brushes up against the microphone—Dazai’s hair?—and produces a scratchy noise, but quickly ceases as if it were an accident. “That isn’t what I meant. I have something for you, so will you come get it?”
The weight of the words won't sink in until two minutes later.
All he can respond with is a bewildered, “...Okay.”
“So, I’ll see you within the next hour?”
“...Yeah. I’ll… I’ll see you soon, Dazai-san.”
“Mhm! Bye!”
Ryuunosuke presses the ‘end call’ button and sits in shocked silence for a few heartbeats before hauling himself off of the bed and trudging toward the door. He pads into the living room with a fully blank expression, and Chuuya bolts toward him the second he rests eyes on him.
“What did he say?” Chuuya whispers, drawing Ryuunosuke into a fierce hug, squeezing him into his chest. Ryuunosuke’s composure shatters the second he’s touched and he buries his nose into Chuuya’s neck, desperate for something familiar to compose himself with after journeying into uncharted territory.
He can’t stop the next hiccup—or the resulting wail that wrenches its way out of his throat like an agonized spirit.
“‘Happy birthday, Akutagawa-kun,’” he sobs, quoting Dazai, and Chuuya’s arms tighten around him, unable to do much else.