Chapter Text
Yosano scrolls through the members in the group chat that Akutagawa had very creatively titled ‘the baby album’ until she finds the contact she’s looking for.
She keeps a wary eye on the demon hovering over the crib as she dials the number and waits, listening to the rings.
“Yosano, contrary to what you may believe based on your encounters with Chuuya and Akutagawa, I am not free every moment of the day.”
“You answered, though,” Yosano points out, ignoring the fact that Kouyou didn’t even greet. “Anyway, uh, do you happen to know how to make Yuki go away?”
“Yuki?”
“Demon Snow. Kyoka calls her Yuki.”
Kouyou is silent for a moment. “Is she doing anything in particular?”
“No, she’s just kind of . . . hovering over Kyoka.”
“And how does Kyoka seem?”
“Fine. She’s trying to eat her hand.”
“Standard baby behaviour. Anyway, the ability is simply watching over Kyoka. You need not be afraid of her.”
Yosano stares at the demon. “Okay, but she has a very sharp sword and my ability only works if my head is still attached to my body. What if I try to pick Kyoka up and the demon beheads me? I have to change her, you know.”
Kouyou is silent for another few seconds before she sighs. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
Yosano stares at her phone when Kouyou hangs up without another word. “How does she know where the dorms are?”
True to Kouyou’s word, she knocks on the door within ten minutes. Yosano opens quickly, very keen on getting help as soon as possible.
“Hi, thanks for coming.”
Kouyou looks around the dorm and Yosano expects a look of disdain, but Kouyou seems appreciative. “I like this place. It’s very comforting. You’ve chosen beautiful paintings to hang.”
“O-oh. Thanks.”
Kouyou gives her a nod before walking up to the crib. She regards the pale demon for a moment before reaching into the crib to lift Kyoka up. She trusts her own ability to defend her if she’s wrong about Demon Snow simply watching passively to ensure Kyoka is not in any danger. When nothing happens, she turns to face Yosano.
“I seem to be correct. As long as you have no intention of harming Kyoka, her ability will not attack you.”
Yosano nods. “Could you, uh, change her too?”
She flicks her gaze to the demon and misses the slightly amused look that crosses Kouyou’s face.
“Of course. Did you receive the clothes they’d been using thus far?”
Yosano nods. “Atsushi dropped them off this morning. They’re over in that bag on the dresser.”
She watches Kouyou walk to the dresser and adjust Kyoka so she can hold her in one arm and use her free hand to open the bag.
“What do you say, my little Kyoka? Shall we dress you in a grower or these cute little jeans?”
Kouyou’s kind of pretty when she’s soft, Yosano thinks. Then,
Kunikida will kill me if he hears that.
Yosano feels only slightly guilty as Dazai, Atsushi and Kunikida jump when she slams her hands on the empty desk and fixes Atsushi with a stern look.
“Whatever it was, I’m sorry!”
“Were you and Akutagawa involved before you started living together?”
“Huh?”
“Look, we all know Dazai and Chuuya had . . . something going on even before the first baby fiasco, but what I want to know is if the two of you had anything going on before you practically ditched the dorms.”
Dazai looks mildly offended at being dismissed so easily, but he rolls his eyes. “I sent them on missions together fairly often,” Dazai says, “but I don’t think. . .”
Kunikida follows Dazai’s gaze to Atsushi, who’s looking down at his computer, hands clasped under the desk and ears turning faintly pink. “Why do you look like that?”
“Okay, it was one time and it would’ve stayed one time forever if this whole thing with Vee never happened.”
“Okay, but was it just, like, a little kiss or were there feelings involved?”
Kunikida and Dazai both lean towards Atsushi, who tilts his head. “If relief at surviving a very close brush with a gruesome death counts, then yes, there were feelings. Why are you asking anyway?”
“Ozaki spent the night in my dorm because if Kyoka’s ability tries to attack the room in her sleep, Ozaki’s can fight her off. I’m . . . concerned. The last two times baby-fied people were involved, people got into relationships.”
“But you and Ane-san have never even interacted before,” Atsushi points out.
“Ane-san?” Kunikida asks.
“Oh, it’s what everyone at home calls her,” Atsushi says dismissively.
Yosano doesn’t miss the way Dazai’s eyes brighten just a bit and for half a second, he smiles at Atsushi, when Atsushi calls the apartment ‘home’.
She’s never been jealous of people in relationships before and, actually, if she’s really honest with herself, she’s not jealous that Atsushi and Dazai are dating people who love them so wholly. It’s just the way Atsushi casually refers to Chuuya’s apartment as home that does something ugly to her insides. The dorm has always been just a dorm to her. The closest thing she has to home is here in the office.
And it’s nice. It really is. But she wants to be able to call the place where she sleeps and spends her free time a home too.
What makes a home, anyway?
“My point is,” Atsushi continues, “I don’t think you have anything to worry about. It’s not like you’ve been harbouring a crush, have you? You can just think of it like a sleepover. Y’know, like when you and Ranpo have movie nights and he sleeps over. Maybe you’ll even make a friend. I hear she likes to buy nice things and finds shopping fun, too.”
Yosano nods. “You’re right. Yeah, you’re right. You two are different. Pining idiots.”
“We were not pining,” Dazai and Atsushi snap indignantly. Then they turn to each other and scoff. “You so were.”
Yosano nods to herself. Yes, this is fine. Everything will be just fine.
“I tried to bring her to your agency,” Kouyou says the moment Yosano enters her dorm. “But she didn’t want to leave the room.”
Yosano nods. “Yes. You texted me.”
“I did, yes. Well, now that you’ve arrived, I think I’ll take my leave.”
Yosano hesitates.
“What is it?” Kouyou asks, not unkindly.
“Could — can you stay? I could ask Dazai to come over to neutralise Kyoka’s ability if necessary, but I really cannot spend every second of the day listening to him tell me all about Chuuya and Atsushi and Akutagawa. I adore how much he likes them but I hear enough about them at work already. You’re the only other person I know that could take on Yuki even if you’re half asleep.”
Kouyou mulls it over, glancing at Kyoka in the crib as she does. “Well, I suppose for Kyoka, I can do that.”
“I mean, I don’t know if you’d be more comfortable in your own place but then I don’t know if you want a stranger in your home and —”
“Yosano.”
“Hm?”
“I said I would stay.”
“O-oh. Okay. Thank you. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“Nonsense. Your futon is large enough to fit two comfortably. Though, if you’d prefer, I could have someone bring a bed.”
“I’d honestly rather go bed shopping myself.”
Something pretty ignites in Kouyou’s eyes. “I would not be opposed to a shopping trip.”
“Yeah?”
“Of course. But I’m paying.”
“Wh- no! No, I’m asking you to leave your place to stay here so —”
“Yosano, darling, I adore your room and I love how beautiful it is, and I respect the work you do a great deal — but you cannot afford the kind of comfort I seek.”
Yosano forgets to feign being offended in the face of Kouyou calling her ‘darling’.
“Now, then, do you know how to cook? Because I don’t and all my favourite restaurants have closed for the night.”
Yosano nods. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, I can cook a few things okay enough.”
“Wonderful! I shall ready Kyoka for bed and put her to sleep while you do that.”
Yosano nods again. “Okay.”
The dorm is small, so Yosano can comfortably get dinner ready and watch Kouyou interact with Kyoka. Something in the Port Mafia executive changes when she has her eyes on Kyoka. She’s not exactly cold to everyone else, but she’s formal and very guarded. But when she talks to Kyoka, there is a lightness to her voice and a sparkle in her eyes. Maybe it’s because she’s speaking to a baby, or maybe it’s because she’s speaking to Kyoka. Either way, it’s a nice sight to behold.
Kouyou thanks Yosano for the food and they eat in comfortable silence.
Last night, Yosano had just been glad that there was an ability in her dorm fit to rival Demon Snow. She fell asleep very quickly and when she woke up, Kouyou was already feeding Kyoka. Tonight, she lays awake, acutely aware of the sleeping woman beside her, wondering what will happen when she wakes up in the morning.
Oh, god. What if she cuddles Kouyou in her sleep?!
It takes Yosano an hour to fall asleep.
“You’re weirdly good with babies,” Yosano comments, watching Kyoka cuddle up in Atsushi’s lap and glare at anyone who tries to reach for her.
“She’s right,” Tanizaki says. “Dazai and Chuuya would do the same thing when they were little.”
Dazai looks over and rolls his eyes. “I don’t believe you.”
“There’s so much proof in the group chat,” Kunikida says. “There is a video of you screeching at me for trying to pick you up so Atsushi could go and meet a client.”
Dazai scoffs. “If I can’t remember it, it didn’t happen.”
“You bit Tanizaki when I handed you to him,” Atsushi says, rolling his eyes.
“Do you think Kyoka will stay with you for a while?” Yosano asks. “I want to run to the pharmacy down the block for some stock.”
Atsushi bounces Kyoka gently. “I think we’ll be fine for an hour or two.”
“Oh, can I come with you?” Kunikida asks. “I want to get a bottle of cough syrup.”
“I can pick it up for you if you’d like?”
Kunikida shakes his head. “I have time.”
“Oh. Sure, then. Atsushi, call me if you need, okay?”
“We’ll be fine, right, Kyoka?” He lifts Kyoka’s hand to wave at Yosano. “Bye, Yosano!”
“Buh,” Kyoka says, which Yosano assumes is just Kyoka copying Atsushi.
The walk to the pharmacy is silent and the only time Kunikida speaks in the pharmacy to ask Yosano’s opinion on two different brands and whether it would be a good idea to grab a pack of band-aids just to have some on hand if necessary. It’s on the walk back that Kunikida pipes up.
“Is it not weird, sharing the dorm with Ozaki?”
Yosano shrugs. “It’s all right.”
“I know she probably means no harm and is doing this for Kyoka’s sake, but don’t you ever feel afraid?”
“Not really,” Yosano says, surprising herself with the admission. She hadn’t thought about it before now. “I actually feel more relieved and safer. Her ability is strong and if Kyoka’s goes haywire, Ozaki’s can defend all three of us from her. Not that I logically believe it would come to that, but the fear that Demon Snow cannot be controlled by a baby is there.”
Kunikida hums. “Is that it, though?”
“What do you mean?”
“This feeling of safety . . . is it the kind you get when you’re on a mission and you know your partner is going to be there to back you up or is it . . . home?”
“Home?” Yosano notices that they’ve stopped walking. “The only home I know is the agency.”
“There are different kinds of homes. Atsushi’s home is with the agency, but it’s also his apartment and it’s also Dazai, Chuuya and Akutagawa, all together and separately.”
“What’s yours?”
“The agency, for one. My house is a home to me.”
“What makes a house a home?”
“Comfort. Safety. Home doesn’t have to be a place and it doesn’t have to be a person. It can be either. It can be both.”
“Oh.”
When Yosano leaves the agency at the end of the day and makes her way to the dorms, she wonders if the small but comfortable space will ever feel like a home.
She kicks the door closed with her foot and adjusts Kyoka so she can free one hand to take her shoes off.
“Here, I’ll take her.”
Yosano jumps, a little startled by Kouyou’s voice.
“Hello, little lady,” Kouyou coos, plucking Kyoka from Yosano’s arms. She smiles sweetly at Kyoka, looking delighted by Kyoka’s own smile. “Did you enjoy your day out? I bought something for you.”
And off Kouyou goes, leaving Yosano in the genkan to take her shoes off with ease.
“I brought dinner,” Kouyou calls from the corner of the room where the crib is, “so you don’t need to worry about cooking today.”
Yosano approaches Kouyou cautiously and peeks into the crib, where Kyoka is mesmerised by the toy in her hands — it’s a pretty little plush rabbit, and Kyoka clearly adores it already.
Kouyou, who leans over the railing, looks up at Yosano. “I hope you like donburi.”
Yosano nods. “It’s nice.”
“Good. I also brought takoyaki. Why don’t you freshen up and then we’ll eat, hm?”
“Oh. Sure. Thanks.”
When Yosano sits at the low table, Kouyou is already changed and arranging the food on the table.
“I was thinking,” Kouyou says as she places a bowl in front of Yosano, “tomorrow, we could go shopping. The tiger boy told me you’re off tomorrow. We need to stop to get a stroller first, though, since Kyoka is just one child.”
Yosano nods mutely. When she asked Kouyou to stay, she hadn’t expected to find Kouyou back in her dorm when she got home today. She figured Kouyou would only come over after dark, only to spend her nights watching over Kyoka. She certainly didn’t expect Kouyou to be waiting with food.
It’s sort of nice, coming home to someone else.
Yosano banishes that thought the moment it formulates. She is not Dazai and she is certainly not Atsushi. There will be no fraternising with the Port Mafia in Yosano’s dorm.