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The izakaya is warm against the evening chill, the light inside is soft and golden, and his coworkers are bickering away good-naturedly, but still, Atsushi can’t relax.
This sort of experience — grabbing a meal after work with his colleagues — always seemed like an impossibility. Shackled in the far corner of the orphanage basement, he’d so often close his eyes and imagine something like this — a room filled with raucous laughter, a table piled high with abundant plates of food, and, most miraculously of all, a gathering where his company wasn’t unwelcome. For his dream to have become reality in a matter of weeks is almost too much for Atsushi to believe.
And that’s why he absolutely cannot let himself fuck it up.
“Excuse me, Dazai,” Atsushi says quietly. “What am I allowed to have tonight?”
Ranpo, somehow always managing to listen to every conversation in a room simultaneously, pipes up before Dazai can answer.
“The Agency isn’t going to be footing the bill, if that’s what you’re asking. Sorry, Newbie, but we really only get company meals on special occasions.”
A knot pulls painfully tight in Atsushi’s stomach.
“No, no, of course not!” Atsushi waves his hands frantically in front of him, desperate to assure Ranpo that he wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to expect the Agency to pay. “I just meant what I was allowed. You know, with points and everything.”
For a long moment, both Ranpo and Dazai are quiet.
“Points, Atsushi?” When Dazai speaks, it’s slow and measured, as if trying to ensure he’d heard everything correctly. “I’m not sure we understand what you mean.”
“Oh, sorry, maybe you use a different system. I shouldn’t have assumed. Whatever method you use to keep track of meals, or privileges, or chores. Stuff like that.”
Both Ranpo and Dazai remain quiet, and Atsushi is struck by the feeling that he’s said something horribly wrong.
“I’ll be sure to learn it!” he says hurriedly. “I probably should’ve asked about it earlier, but we’ve been so busy, and I didn’t want to interrupt anyone’s work. But now’s as good a time as any for me to figure it out, right?”
Ranpo and Dazai share a meaningful look, before Ranpo says, tone uncharacteristically cautious, “Okay, hang on. Pretend for a second that I’m an idiot and I’ve never heard of this sort of point system before in my life, and try to describe it to me.”
Atsushi is quiet for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts. To explain the system would be to explain the cycle of day and night, or the changing of the seasons. He’d never stopped to try to put it into words; it was simply the natural order of things.
“Well, I’ve already had lunch today. And two cups of tea. And Kyoka gave me a couple of her gummy candies in the afternoon. So with the system I’m used to, that would probably be…” Atsushi pauses to calculate. “Close to two dozen points already. I’m not sure if I have enough left over for dinner tonight.”
Atsushi is suddenly and excruciatingly aware that the entire table has fallen quiet and that everyone, even President Fukuzawa, is staring at him with varying expressions of disbelief.
“Oh, right, sorry, forget I said anything.” Atsushi’s throat is tightening, so much that he struggles to get any words out, and he can’t raise his gaze from the table to meet anyone’s eye. “I don’t know what I was thinking. There’s no way I’ve earned enough to even cover what I’ve had today already, let alone deserve anything more. I’ll start at a deficit tomorrow, and I’ll make sure to work twice as hard to compensate.”
For one long, horrible moment, the entire table is silent, and Atsushi braces himself to be fired from the Agency on the spot. How could he be so greedy? He’s the closest he’s ever been to friendship, to safety, to happiness, and he’s destroyed all of it because he doesn’t have the goddamn sense to know when to quit. His disgust with himself sours his stomach, threatening to make him sick.
“Atsushi.”
It’s Kunkidia who breaks the silence.
“Are you saying that this sort of system existed at that orphanage? That you were only allowed meals if you met some arbitrary threshold of points ?”
Still unable to raise his gaze, Atsushi nods.
“And if you failed to accrue enough points, then what? You simply went hungry?”
Atsushi nods again.
“But that’s barbarism! And to implement such a system with children… To call it cruel isn’t enough.”
“It’s fucked up is what it is,” Ranpo says around a mouthful of takoyaki. “Jeez, no wonder you got all jumpy the second they gave us our menus.”
Atsushi sits perfectly still for a long moment before summoning all his strength — far more than it took to fight Akutagawa in that dingy alley — and lifting his head. His coworkers aren’t smiling and laughing like before, but they don’t appear angry, either. Atsushi isn’t sure he really has a name for the expression on their faces; all he knows is that it makes a soft, warm relief flood through his body.
“So that means…” Atsushi begins.
“Order whatever you’d like,” Ranpo finishes. “It’ll even be my treat.”
Atsushi hesitates, unable to shake the lingering worry that he’s done something horribly wrong.
“But you just said we pay for our own meals except on special occasions.”
“Then I’m declaring today a special occasion. It’s the day you get to stop worrying about a made-up point system and eat some damn karaage .”
Atsushi looks at Ranpo in amazement.
“How’d you know that—”
“I saw you eyeing it on the menu.” Ranpo grins. “And it’s pretty cheap, so I don’t mind buying it for you. Just don’t expect this sort of thing all the time.”
Dazai leans over towards Atsushi, and says, in a stage-whisper, “Yeah, and if you ever need a snack at work, just let me know. I’ll swipe Kunikida’s wallet for you.”
Kunikida slams his glass down on the table hard enough to shake it.
“You worthless waste of bandages!” he shouts. “Do you mean that’s where my cash has been going for the past year?”
The izakaya is warm against the evening chill, the light inside is soft and golden, his coworkers are bickering away good-naturedly, and at last, Atsushi begins to relax.