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It had been a day.
There were days when being a private investigator was bearable. There were days when Osamu hated it with every fiber in his bitter and salty being. There were days when he had to empty himself of all thoughts and go about his business like a mindless drone in order to survive.
Today was one of those days.
He’d been hired by a woman to follow her husband and figure out if he was cheating on her because she didn’t believe him when he said that he was at the office (his fucking job!) all day. Osamu had sat in the library across the street watching through the window as the husband did paperwork and paperwork and oh, look. More paperwork. He didn’t even leave his desk for lunch because he’d brought it from home. And when the husband did stay after hours (what had made her suspicious in the first place) he was doing, wouldn’t you know it, more paperwork. When he left, Osamu tailed him straight home.
Yeah, the guy wasn’t cheating. He just had an insanely boring life and was maybe (who was Osamu to say) taking what opportunity he could to avoid his overbearing spouse.
All of it added up to Osamu walking in his front door mentally exhausted and thoroughly done with humanity. With one exception.
The exception happened to be scurrying around the kitchen like a madman, muttering to himself, and desperately trying to waft smoke out of the air. His silver hair was mussed like he’d been pulling at it. He froze when he saw Osamu, comically poised with a towel as if he were about to start fighting a bull. Osamu noticed the acrid smell of something burning.
Osamu looked at him. Looked at the smoking pot on the stove. Looked back at him. Looked at the stove.
“Atsushi… how do you burn water?”
Atsushi just shook his head, eyes wide as saucers. “I don’t know, Dazai. I don’t know.”
Osamu chuckled as he moved past Atsushi to turn off the stove and dump the water out. The spaghetti noodles were sitting out, ready to be boiled—and probably burned as well.
Behind him, Atsushi let out a groan. “You said you were coming home late, so I had it all planned out. I was going to surprise you. But then the spinach was all moldy and we didn’t have any tomato sauce and I burned the water, somehow. I just wanted to do something nice for you and make dinner and prove I’m not a burden for on—” He wisely snapped his mouth shut at Osamu’s glare.
“Anyone who doesn’t feed me rotten spinach is alright in my book,” Osamu said cheerily, quick to smooth his features back into a pleasant expression as he filled the pot again and set it back on the stove.
Dinner preparations went smoothly after that. Whatever mysterious force had caused the burning the first time seemed to have had its fun and left. Atsushi was quick to find whatever vegetables they had to fill out their menu (carrots and parsnips didn’t really go with spaghetti, but who had to know?) He chopped them into perfectly sized pieces while Osamu cooked the noodles. Osamu wanted to whack him over the head and say “See? You are good at things and you don’t give yourself enough credit!” but he resisted. The kid would learn in time.
Atsushi rambled about his day at school while they ate. He was making friends which was good, but there was one girl, Lucy, who didn’t seem to like him for some reason. Osamu resolved to do his research on Lucy. Kunikida wouldn’t approve of him using his investigator skills on a kid, but he didn’t care because no one messed with his kid.
Eventually Atsushi’s talking petered out. Osamu looked up from slurping noodles to see the kid staring dramatically off into the middle distance. He kicked him under the table.
“Ow!” Atsushi started. A total overreaction. Osamu didn’t kick him that hard. “What was that for.”
“Spill it, kid.”
“What?”
“Come on, I know that look.” Osamu pinched his own chin mocking Atsushi’s forlorn expression. “Something’s eating you.”
“No, I just—” Atsushi floundered before huffing out a sigh, realizing that it was pointless lying to a detective. He poked his carrots morosely with his chopsticks. “I really wanted to make dinner by myself. And it’s so stupid, but… something like cooking spaghetti should be so simple, but I still messed it up! I just… want to be good at things. I want to make things easier. And it sucks that I keep failing.”
Stop putting so much pressure on yourself, Osamu thought but didn’t say out loud because, ironically, it would just make Atsuhi put more pressure on himself.
“You’re trying, Atsushi. We’re all trying. That’s what life is—a lot of trying and a lot of failing. For some reason we keep at it. But all anyone can ask of you is that you try. No one asks that you succeed.”
Atsushi was still pouting and refusing to meet his eyes. Osamu nudged his foot again.
“As for making things easier… I find it easier to do things when I’m happy, don’t you? And I’m quite happy having you around. I was quite lonely before you came along.”
Atsushi didn’t need to know just how lonely and desperate he’d been. How some days he still was, but that he knew he had to keep pushing through because there were reasons to keep going and they were worth it. After all, it would be terribly rude of him to give up on everything when someone needed him.
They would both keep trying.
“You make me happy, Atsushi.” The look on the kid’s face said that he might finally start to believe him. “Besides, you do something I never thought was possible.”
Atsushi’s eyes—such a strange but beautiful mix of violet and gold—shone with hope and anticipation. “Really? What?”
Osamu couldn’t help but crack a smile. “You make water flammable.”
The chunk of parsnip thrown at him was probably wholly deserved.