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——— 1 ———
Dazai glances at the wasteland surrounding him. The explosion of a bomb would have left it in a better state than this. Ringing fills his ears as he makes his way to the cause of the destruction: Chuuya Nakahara, who is now lying face-down on the only remaining patch of grass. He scrambles into a sitting position upon hearing Dazai’s footsteps.
‘‘That was awful,’’ he groans, wiping his brow.
Dazai crouches down, letting Chuuya rest his head on his chest and scanning his partner for any major injuries. There’s always a risk, using corruption. Chuuya is a ticking time bomb when Arahabaki takes control, and there’s nothing Dazai can do except stand and watch as Chuuya is destroyed from the inside out, stained with sanguine and broken trust.
“Couldn’t you have stopped me any earlier?” Chuuya complains, frowning at the scene around him.
“Of course! But that wouldn’t have been any fun!” Dazai replies.
“Asshole.”
“You know you love me.”
“As if!”
Chuuya eyes Dazai as if it’s the most absurd thing he’s ever heard come out of his mouth.
It probably is. Four years of no contact and this is the situation they’re in when Dazai makes a sudden confession of love. He doesn’t blame Chuuya for thinking he’s crazy. But that doesn’t mean the comment doesn’t hurt, like the phantom pain of a missing limb. Or the not-so phantom ache of unrequited love.
——— 2 ———
“Kunikida! I can’t believe you’d ask me to go on a mission when I’m recovering from such an awful injury! Have you no sympathy?” Dazai whines as he’s dragged up from the agency sofa.
“You sprained your wrist almost a month ago. I think you’re able to go and question a witness, at the very least.” Kunikida replies stonily.
“But Kunikida—”
“No buts.” He begins half pushing, half guiding Dazai to Yosano’s office door, “Go and tell Yosano and Atsushi you’re ready to go. Maybe get her to check out that wrist of yours if it’s still bugging you.”
Dazai stands in front of her door, pouting, and throws Kunikida a glare as he walks back to his own office, presumably to finish up whatever paperwork Dazai skimped out on doing.
Yosano opens the door before Dazai can even finish knocking, hurrying him inside to where Atsushi is waiting. He’s gotten taller since being at the agency, almost as tall as Dazai, and put some meat on his bones too.
“Hey, Atsushi! Fancy seeing you here!” Dazai chirps, wrapping an arm around the boy’s shoulder.
He stifles a giggle as Atsushi and Yosano roll their eyes in perfect unison.
“Could you have gotten here any later? Doctor Yosano wanted to leave, like, an hour ago,” Atsushi complains, “We have an important meeting with Mr. Takeda later today as well!”
“Well, you’ve been graced with my presence now! Take what you can get, kid,” Dazai replies, not missing a step as he grabs the briefcase sat on Yosano’s desk.
She glares at him, and Dazai laughs again, walking out of her office and back into the main room.
“Are you not coming? You can’t seriously send me on such a treacherous mission all on my own!”
“It’s not a treacherous mission, idiot. You’re going to a teenage girl’s house to ask her about a stolen car.” Yosano scowls, putting a hand on his back and guiding (shoving) him further out of her office.
“Don’t die, Dazai!” Atsushi jokes.
“Yeah, love you too.” Dazai quips back, “Are you not coming?”
“Nah. Kunikida just needed people to pressure you into punctuality,” Atsushi says matter-of-factly, sticking his tongue out in a perfect display of maturity.
Dazai walks out of the agency with a warm feeling in his chest. It stays there for the whole day.
——— 3 ———
It’s January 10th, Dazai realises as he stares at his calendar blearily. He had known this date was coming; he checks his phone obsessively in the days leading up to it, counting down the minutes until it reaches midnight. The agency will still be sleeping at this time of night, if they’re lucky enough to not be plagued with nightmares like he is. One of them is probably lying awake, thinking about how they can interrogate Dazai about why he’s been acting so goddamn weird at work for the past week. They won’t get the opportunity to, because Dazai isn’t coming in. Obviously.
—
Dazai visits Bar Lupin a lot, but usually doesn’t spend the entire day there, or up at the graveyard where Oda is buried. Usually.
It’s funny how grief works, Dazai thinks. Odasaku knew him better than anyone else; loved him, and cared about him.
And now he’s gone.
It’s frustrating, infuriating, fucking awful, because how can Oda be gone, just a lump of rock in the grass and a body in the ground, when he was Dazai’s best friend?
It’s hard to wrap his head around the fact that Odasaku’s eloquence; his kindness; his love for the light is gone—
How can it be gone?
–
Bar Lupin is empty, like it has been for all the hours Dazai has spent here. He’s losing track of time, but it must be late, because the sun dropped below the horizon a while ago, and the pavement outside is barely visible, except under the streetlamp. (lamps? He can’t exactly tell, and he’s pretty sure he’s drunk, because he lost count of his drinks at the fourth refill of whisky).
The bartender has long stopped showing his concern; he’s known Dazai and his less-than-healthy tendencies since he was fourteen, and it’s not surprising to see Dazai like this. Especially not today.
He’s definitely drunk, actually. Drunk as a skunk– because he’s seeing things.
Why else would the President be in a shoddy little bar right outside of the Port Mafia’s headquarters?
“I thought I’d find you here, Dazai.”
Dazai jerks his head off the table, “Go away. You’re not even here.”
The President’s gaze falls at that.
“I won’t ask how much you’ve had to drink. But clearly you’ve been here all day. Come on.”
“Go away.”
The president shakes his head sadly, and walks over to where Dazai is slumped over the bar. He grabs him by the shoulders, like a little kid, and hoists him up until he’s stood somewhat upright. Dazai offers little resistance as Fukuzawa puts an arm around his shoulder and guides him to the exit. It’s jarring, sometimes, how Dazai can go from loud and obnoxious, to quiet and removed, like his mind just— checks out.
He’s tiny as well, Fukuzawa notes. He can feel the bumps of Dazai’s spine through his dress shirt and vest, and he probably weighs a hundred and ten soaking wet.
That’s not his biggest concern at the minute though, because Dazai is near unconscious and barely responsive in his arms, and Fukuzawa isn’t as spry as he used to be, so it’s hard half-carrying a gangly mass of too-long limbs to his car.
When they get to his apartment, Fukuzawa puts on the kettle and warms up some rice in a bowl, setting it in front of the couch where Dazai is resting. He stirs a little, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hands in a way that is so heartbreakingly childlike it makes Fukuzawa’s heart ache. Dazai is so young. It’s not fair.
“What happened?” he asks blearily.
“Minor mishap at the bar. You’re at my apartment now; it’s a few doors down from yours,” Fukuzawa replies, placing down a pair of chopsticks next to the bowl, “I made you some rice and tea. Eat.”
Dazai shakes his head fervently. “Can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
“Can’t eat it. Don’t deserve to,” he clarifies, pushing away the dishes.
“Why do you think that?” Fukuzawa asks.
“Let– let Odasaku die. He shouldn’t have,” Dazai coughs, picking at his nails.
Small beads of blood form around his cuticles. The president gently bats Dazai’s hand away.
“You didn’t let him die. It wasn’t your fault.”
Dazai shakes his head again.
“Just have a little rice. You didn’t hurt your friend, and you certainly didn’t do anything to not deserve to eat.” He pushes the bowl and cutlery towards Dazai again.
Dazai picks up the chopsticks, albeit reluctantly, and pokes at the rice with them.
“You haven’t— added anything to the rice, have you?” he asks suspiciously.
“I added a little soy sauce and seaweed. Do you not like it?”
“No, like– substances or anything?”
“No. Why would I?” Fukuzawa replies, heated- not at Dazai though, but at the person who made him think that someone would be cruel enough to drug his food.
“It’s just, you know, I was in the mafia, and Mori wanted me to– be better. So he put stuff in my food sometimes, so I’d– build up a tolerance to it. Sucked though. I mean, I got really sick one time, ‘cause he cooked my rice with diluted bleach. Don’t know what he was trying to achieve with that but I must have really messed up. Sorry.” Dazai says it all in one breath, like he’s ashamed of admitting anything that makes him seem less than the Demon Prodigy, less than one half of Double Black, less than the youngest mafia executive in history— anything less than inhuman.
“You don’t need to apologise. It isn’t your fault, but at least, remember this: I am not Mori. I’m sorry he did all of this to you, and I’m sorry for not finding you sooner.” Fukuzawa says, “It would be best if you got some rest. I don’t have a spare room, but I can bring you some pillows and a blanket.”
“I’ll be fine without them. I’ve slept in worse places.” Dazai replies, curling up in the corner of the sofa furthest from the door.
“You shouldn’t have had to. If you want anything, I’m just down the hall. Good night, Dazai.”
The hall lamp flicks off, and the only thing illuminating the room is the gentle light from the moon and streetlights seeping under the curtains. Dazai stays quiet all night, like he’s scared to make a sound.
In the morning, Fukuzawa finds the cushions in the sofa positioned neatly, and the dishes from the previous night cleared away.
There’s a note placed on top of a pillow in Dazai’s signature chicken scratch. Pencilled onto it is, “thank you for letting me stay at your home. i truly appreciate it.”
It looks like Dazai wrote something underneath the message, but rubbed it out. His handwriting is even worse than normal here, though, so Fukuzawa can only make out a couple of words: “love you”.
He was obviously still drunk;
It clenches Fukuzawa’s heart anyway.
——— 4 ———
“What did you do this time?” Yosano groans as Dazai limps into the infirmary for the third time this week.
“Oh, just the usual.” he replies, backtracking when she raises an eyebrow, “I tried jumping into a river, but I miscalculated– a rarity, can I just clarify, and my leg hit the ledge so I fell into the shallow part. Kunikida didn’t have to fish me out this time!”
Yosano sighs. “Let me see.”
Obediently, he pulls up his pant leg, leaving the layer of bandages untouched. Yosano glares at him, then rolls her eyes.
“You’ll need to take those off too, you know. I have to assess your injury properly and I can’t do that if there’s an inch thick layer of fabric in the way.”
Dazai wrinkles his nose. “Can you not like– work around them? I can’t be undressing in here— isn’t that scandalous! And doesn’t Kunikida disapprove of workplace relationships?”
“Dazai. Seriously,” she sighs, exasperated.
Dazai recoils a little at that, like the prospect of even revealing half his leg to the colleague he’s worked with for years is the most monstrous idea ever proposed. But Yosano is right, and he doesn’t want to be walking around with a broken leg for longer than he has to. He does hate pain.
He picks out the end of the gauze and starts unravelling it, taking perfect care not to look at Yosano (or the offending limb) meanwhile. He still hears her poorly muffled gasp as he peels off the rest of the bandage.
“Dazai…”
“We’re here for my broken leg. Those are old, anyway.”
The light-hearted energy in the room is sucked out, all at once, but Yosano nods anyway and begins prodding at the area of the break, mumbling to herself quietly.
“It looks like the bone’s still in place, just a hairline fracture. You won’t require surgery, but stay off of your leg and don’t do any strenuous physical activity for at least six weeks.” she says, monotonous and rehearsed.
“Did you just recite a textbook, word for word?” Dazai rewraps his pant leg, hurried, but Yosano stares at the number of lines criss-crossing it until he knots the end of the gauze and sinks back into the chair.
There’s so many. Some are in straight, neat little rows, but some are angry– still reddened keloids raking up his calf, and some are burns, like someone put out a cigarette on his skin, or hit him with a cattle prod. Yosano shudders involuntarily at the possibility.
They sit in a tense silence for a few seconds, until she speaks up.
“Did you– do those to yourself?” she asks.
“Not all of them.”
“Who–?”
“Mori. I’m sure you could have gathered that, though. You’re a smart woman. You knew him like that, too,” Dazai cuts her off, staring intently into the space just behind her shoulder.
“How do you know that?” she asks, defensively, crossing her arms.
Yosano doesn’t think about that part of her life a lot. She’s come to accept what happened, what he did to her, and there’s nothing she can do about it now. Dazai even alluding to that feels like slicing open an old scar; rubbing salt into a wound.
He tends to do that a lot.
“You have that look.”
“Don’t get philosophical with me,” she snaps, but there’s no real heat behind it.
“If I told you why, you would be offended,” Dazai replies curtly.
His eyes don’t meet hers. The room goes quiet again.
Yosano opens her mouth like she’s about to say something, but she closes it abruptly and nods. A mutual understanding.
“If you ever need to talk– my door is open,” she says, sincere as ever, holding Dazai by the shoulder so he can stand up and grab his crutches. He hobbles out of the infirmary, pausing at the doorway.
“I’ll think about it.”
——— +1 ———
The agency is quiet, for once. Even though it’s normally bustling with noise at this time of morning, it’s strangely silent.
The open sign on the front door has been flipped to closed for the first time in almost a year, and even the waitresses down at the cafe are nowhere to be seen.
Dazai waltzes straight into the building, ignoring the sign on the coffee shop. It’s odd, yes, but maybe that lovely barista has finally decided to take a day off. He’s making his way up the stairs when he notices something’s off.
It’s silent.
The agency is never silent, mostly because of Kunikida’s excessive yelling and Ranpo’s tendency to go off on tangents when he’s talking and Kenji’s wistful monologues about farm life.
But now, on a regular June 19th, it’s completely. Dead. Silent.
The hairs on the back of Dazai’s neck prickle as he reaches the top step. Years of being in the mafia have taught him nothing if not stealth and being unnoticed wherever he goes.
So he throws open the door to the main office, of course.
“Surprise!”
Dazai stumbles backwards.
Atsushi is holding one end of a banner that says “happy btrhday birthday dazai!” in bright blue bubble writing, while Yosano is holding up the other end, looking mildly amused at Dazai’s expression.
Various agency secretaries and waitresses from the cafe are scattered around the room, fixing up bowls of sweets and rearranging tablecloths, while Kunikida and Kenji are holding a stack of gift boxes each, wrapped in shiny orange paper and tied with a ribbon. Strangely, the President and Ranpo are nowhere to be found, but the room is bustling with noise.
“Happy birthday, Dazai,” Kunikida says warmly, handing him the stack of presents.
Dazai accepts them, gobsmacked. This is… new.
He’s never had an actual birthday party before, let alone a surprise party. There’s so much he wants to say, but his mouth only produces a quiet “thank you”.
Everyone beams at him, shaking their heads and pulling cards or wrapped boxes out of their own pockets.
Dazai accumulates a pile in the corner of the office, stacked with colourful boxes and cards with cats on them and letters in Yosano’s illegible doctor handwriting and Kenji’s scrawl. He’s just about to start opening the envelopes when Ranpo bursts through the door, carrying a huge bag and being followed closely behind by the President, who’s holding a box bigger than his head very precariously.
Ranpo spots the pile of gifts and adds the bag to it, returning to the President to help him with the box.
“Happy birthday,” says the President, bowing, “I hope you weren’t too surprised by the— well…”
Dazai is still lost for words, so he just nods his head.
“There’s cake in the box, by the way. We didn’t know what flavours you like, so we got a vanilla one so you can eat it with whatever toppings you want,” Ranpo says mildly, unfolding the box.
Dazai remains lost for words. He can’t imagine the cost, first of all. The cake must have been twenty thousand yen alone, and the party, and the food. He owes everyone so much. He hates being indebted to people.
Ranpo ignores Dazai’s inner turmoil in favour of propping open the lid of the box the cake is in. It’s a modest two tier cake, with pale blue icing. On the top, in chocolate piping, it says “Happy Birthday Dazai! we love you”.
It’s such a trivial thing— three words on a cake, but it still has Dazai’s eyes stinging. He scrubs at his face in an attempt to make the tears stop, but they don’t. It’s so stupid— but nobody has ever thrown him a party before. Nobody has ever cared enough. He stops that train of thought before the tears start up again. But it means so much.
Ranpo pointedly doesn’t stare too much at Dazai’s reddened eyes as he hands him the gift bag. Dazai accepts it and stands next to the table awkwardly.
“Aren’t you gonna open it?” Ranpo whines, “I spent forever picking it out.”
Dazai nods curtly, opening the bag as carefully as he can. Everyone at the agency has gathered around him, eager to see what’s inside. He tries to unwrap the present inside without ripping up the paper too much— he’s not really had any experience opening gifts— when Ranpo sighs.
“Give it here,” he says, gesturing at the package.
He tears open the wrapping.
Inside is a book with a leather cover, bound with golden-looking stitches. Ranpo chucks it to Dazai, and it’s heavy. He opens it up to the first page, and inside is a picture of him, Yosano, Ranpo, and the President, from two years ago. In the photo, he looks sickly thin, his cheekbones protrude; his smile is taut and his eyes are dark.
He flips the page. Most of it is empty, but there’s a candid shot of him leaning on Kunikida’s shoulder, presumably after a mission. He doesn’t remember this, but he doesn’t really remember much of when he first joined the agency.
“I can’t believe you found a photo of me and Kunikida where we’re not arguing,” Dazai laughs.
“Do you like it?” Ranpo asks.
Dazai nods.
“Yeah.”
Yosano doesn’t hesitate to remind them that there’s still a pile of gifts in the corner, so Dazai makes his way over and starts with the box right at the top. It’s in a striped blue gift bag, and when he opens it, there’s a watch inside— silver and green, with his initials engraved on the bottom. The note taped to the bag reads: “happy birthday. i know green is your favourite colour - kunikida” who throws him a smile from across the room.
Dazai makes his way through the pile: Kenji and Kyouka have bought him a ceramic farm animal set (with rabbits and cows, of course), the secretaries have bought him various journals and pens, Junichiro has gifted him a pair of grey slacks and Naomi has gotten him some new brogues. Atsushi has gotten him a tie and a pair of tan suspenders, and Dazai grins at the memory of picking out Atsushi’s first tie and suspenders. Yosano has written him a letter, and enclosed some of her artwork. And right of the bottom of heap is a small black box with a mackerel-charm bracelet, and a letter saying “happy birthday, bandages”. Dazai knows exactly who gave him this, even though there’s no name on the card.
He grins to himself and turns to the agency.
“Time to cut the cake?”