Chapter Text
It was a normal day at the Armed Detective Agency, if you count disarming a homemade bomb, catching a serial killer, and saving a politician from assassination a “normal” day. It was just after lunch break, that sleepy hour when people ease back into work, when Osamu Dazai, one of the agency’s best assets who wields the nullification ability, walked into the office.
He walked straight to the reception area where they had couches and a large coffee table. He took off his damp coat and hung it on the nearby coat rack. Its pockets and coattail were damaged from a fight he got into earlier that day. This is why Dazai had been carrying his phone and keys in his left hand. With nowhere else to put them, he absentmindedly placed his personal belongings on the table and plopped down on one of the couches.
“I’m too sleepy,” he whispered to no one in particular before stretching his long, lanky legs. He then hoisted them up on the couch, assumed the sleeping position, and fell fast asleep.
Since they were not expecting guests for the rest of the day, the staff members did not bother waking him up.
His protégé, a weretiger called Nakajima Atsushi, went to the reception area to check on him. “Uhm, Dazai-san?”
“Let him sleep, Atsushi-kun,” said Doppo Kunikida, who followed Atsushi to the reception area.
If the agency had a mother figure who took care of finances and administrative work (despite having several part-timers as staff) it would be Kunikida. Normally, he would be brandishing a baseball bat or hitting Dazai with a stick to wake him up. But today was different.
Atsushi took a step back from Kunikida. A look of fear was visible on the weretiger’s face. “Okay... Who are you and what have you done to the real Kunikida?!”
“I'm the real me!” Kunikida said, hitting Atsushi with the stick instead.
“But.. You’re actually saying to let Dazai sleep?” Atsushi was still in disbelief.
Kunikida shrugged. “It can’t be helped. President’s orders. He’s been working on a solo mission for several weeks now and it involves a dangerous ability user.” Kunikida hesitated. “Well, to be honest, the President didn’t reveal much about the case but he did say that the mission was requested by the Special Abilities Division and that it is physically draining for Dazai. So, we’ll cut him some slack today.”
“Hmm, so that’s why we don’t see Dazai-san more often these days,” Atsushi said. Dazai-san is indeed amazing, he thought. Atsushi then noticed that Dazai’s phone was on the table. More surprisingly, it was unlocked.
“Hey, that’s strange! Dazai-san is usually protective of his phone!” Atsushi pointed out. “Maybe he really is tired and he’s becoming careless with his things…”
“Dazai’s phone is unlocked?!” A voice called out from behind Kunikida and Atsushi. They turned around and saw Edogawa Ranpo, the agency’s super sleuth. The self-proclaimed best detective in the world was about to head out.
Ranpo continued without taking a beat. “I mean, even if it was locked, I could have figured out his passcode. But since it’s unlocked, why don’t you take this opportunity to get to know him better or maybe make his life more organized by setting alarms? Well, just a suggestion! Okay, I’m off to another investigation! And don’t worry, the police HQ sent a car for me so I won’t go out in the rain by myself! Anyway, good luck!”
When Ranpo closed the door, Kunikida and Atsushi exchanged glances. They were both thinking the same thing: Ranpo’s suggestion was just too tempting!
“Well, if we’re only setting alarms… I guess, it’s not exactly a violation of privacy,” Kunikida said. And he took the phone from the table and started fiddling with it. “Okay, one for waking up early, another reminder to sleep at a reasonable time. Then for taking meals… There! Wait! I can also approve his calendar invites for our regular company meetings so it would show up as a reminder… Let me see…”
“Kunikida-san, are you sure this is okay?” Atsushi started to get worried that Dazai would wake up and see them tinkering with his phone. He kept glancing between Kunikida and Dazai.
“Just make sure he’s still asleep!” Kunikida said as he kept typing things onto Dazai’s phone.
At that moment, Dazai turned to his side so he was now facing the back of the sofa. “Hmmm, Shimeko-chan, Tomie-chan, that feels good… Please, don’t stop…” Dazai muttered.
“Yep, positive…” Atsushi said, blocking his ears in case he heard anything more.
“Isn’t that Dazai-san’s phone?” Another voice greeted them from behind. A blonde, freckled boy was beaming up at them. He is Miyazawa Kenji, a young farmer who is known for his super strength. Though he claims that working for the agency is just his side gig and his true job is cultivating his farm, he works the same number of hours as anyone else.
“Kenji-kun! Are you back from the farm?” Atsushi tried to block Kunikida from Kenji’s view.
The young blonde boy still managed to take a peek behind Atsushi. “Yes, I finished my duties so I’m reporting for work! But what are you doing with Dazai-san’s phone?” He asked with an innocent smile.
Kunikida suddenly felt embarrassed. “Oh, nothing! Just setting up alarms here and there… I’m doing this for the agency, of course!!!”
It didn’t take much for Kenji to believe it. “Oh, I see! That’s super kind of you, Kunikida-san! City folks sure are always thinking of others! You know, speaking of phones, I heard from one of my friends that the way you save a person’s name on your phone says a lot about your relationship! I wonder how we are saved on Dazai-san’s phone…”
“Are you guys looking through Dazai’s phone?”
They all turned around and saw Light Snow ability user Junichiro Tanizaki approaching them. She was followed closely by his sister, a part-timer named Naomi.
“Sorry, we couldn’t help but overhear!” Junichiro said.
“But it’s true, you know! The way you save someone’s name on your phone says a lot!” His sister Naomi said. “For example, for my brother’s name, I use lots of heart emojis! Then I add a magnifying glass after Ranpo-san’s name and then I add a notebook to Kunikida-san’s, a tiger for Atsushi-kun, a medical plaster after Dazai-san’s, a flower after Kyoka’s, an injection after Yosano-sensei, a cow after Kenji-kun. As for the president, my phone doesn’t have a katana emoji, so I put a cat instead!”
“As for me, I also include descriptions in the name!” Kenji chimed in. “So it’s ‘Pretty Obaa-chan who sells flowers’ or ‘Scary-looking tough man from market’ like that!”
“That makes sense. I usually include honorifics in the contact name,” Atsushi said. “Now, I’m curious too!”
Kunikida coughed. “Me too, for research purposes,” he said before coughing again.
Then Atsushi hesitated. “But I’m worried that Dazai-san will wake up soon and he’ll get mad at us for looking through his phone!”
“Don’t worry!” Junichiro said. “The moment he wakes up, I’ll create a Light Snow illusion to hide us… Ah, wait, if Dazai-san starts looking around for his phone, he may bump into us and his nullifying ability will work… Never mind, it’s too complicated…”
“Why don’t we just move away from this area?” Naomi suggested. And they all agreed.
Quietly, the agency members tiptoed to the area near the entrance, which is blocked by the view of the stained glass divider from the reception area. From where Dazai was sleeping, it would be difficult to tell what the others were doing.
“Well, Kenji-kun, since this is your idea, why don’t you go through his contacts?” Kunikida suggested. “I will not dirty my hands for this.”
Kenji raised both his hands. Mud and dirt clung onto his fingers and palms. “Sadly, my hands are literally dirty! Atsushi-kun, why don’t you do it for me?”
“Me?” Atsushi hesitated but Kunikida already placed the phone in his hand. “Oh, well, if you guys insist…” He clicked on the phonebook icon. “Oh…” They were all surprised at what they saw.
“It’s actually all very formal,” Junichiro remarked.
As Atsushi scrolled through the phonebook, they noticed a common pattern for naming all contacts. People labeled with the organization name and their first name: Armed Detective Agency - Atsushi, Armed Detective Agency - Junichiro, Armed Detective Agency - Kenji, Armed Detective Agency - Kunikida, Armed Detective Agency - Kyouka, and so on. There were also: Special Division - Ango and Special Division - Taneda. Then, there were also a bunch of letters like O, H, and K.
“That’s very uncharacteristic of him,” Kunikida said. “Is this really Dazai’s phone?”
“Why?” Atsushi asked. “What were you expecting?”
“Something befitting of his maturity level. Mean nicknames such as ‘Grumpy school teacher’ for me or ‘Whiny weretiger’ for you,” Kunikida replied.
“Does Dazai-san think I’m still whiny?” Atsushi looked close to tears. “I thought I improved after the last performance evaluation!”
“Kunikida-san does have a point though,” Kenji interrupted. “I think it doesn’t match Dazai-san’s personality at all! Oh no! Am I being too –”
“I agree with Kenji-kun,” Naomi said. “I was expecting something fun but the way he referred to us is very formal… Cold, even.”
“What if he’s acting this way because he feels he is being bullied?” Tanizaki asked.
Everyone looked at Kunikida.
“WHAT?! WHY ME?” Kunikida looked genuinely shocked.
“You’re dropkicking or strangling him every time I see you two together,” Junichiro said. Everyone nodded in unison.
“I stopped doing that lately! And that’s because he’s always doing weird things!!!” Kunikida said in defense. ”You guys don’t know the amount of complaints we get because of him!!! He keeps trying to drown himself in the river! He never pays his tabs! We even got a complaint that he was on hallucinogenic drugs in the middle of the night and I had to look for him!!! I feel like I’m babysitting a man-child!!!”
“Kunikida-san, I keep telling you that we should change the emergency hotline of the agency to one of the staff members. You have way too much on your plate,” Naomi suggested. “But we all still think you’re a bit harsh on him. Other staff members have said this as well.”
“When he was kidnapped by the Port Mafia shortly after Atsushi joined, no one bothered to look for him…” Junichiro remembered.
“Because he was capable and he didn’t request for backup!” Kunikida reasoned.
“Last winter, when the heater wasn’t working in our apartment building, you asked the maintenance team to fix his unit last,” Atsushi said.
Kunikida threw his hands up in frustration. “I was just thinking he was the oldest among all of you so surely he can sacrifice a bit! And if I remember correctly, he was happy about it and said he could sleep over at some cute girl’s place!”
“And a few weeks ago, there was also that incident of the phantom moving our desks around and only Dazai-san’s was broken,” Kenji remembered. “Being singled out like that was not very nice…”
“But I personally didn’t have anything to do with that! I was told that it was related to an ability user who was playing a prank on us and that Dazai-san took care of it as part of a solo mission… But those silly little incidents don’t mean that he’s being bullied!” Kunikida was fuming now.
“I mean, if you lump all those situations together, it definitely qualifies as a hostile work environment, even for a workplace like ours…” Naomi said. Out of all present, she was the most qualified to comment about this, given her position as a part-time admin staff.
Everyone, except Kunikida, nodded in unison.
“And there’s also a rumor going around the staff…” Naomi whispered before motioning to the others to get into a close huddle. “They say Dazai’s been frequenting this hotel affiliated with the mafia and every time, he’s wearing these all-black fancy clothes… What if he’s going back to Port Mafia?”
Kunikida was at the end of his rope. “That’s preposterous! Stop spreading baseless rumors! Dazai would never go back to the Port Mafia just because I’ve been a bit harsh on him!”
But Kunikida has a point, Atsushi thought. Dazai doesn’t seem like the guy who would get affected by petty quarrels and pranks.
“Come to think of it, Kunikida-san’s bullying aside, don’t you think Dazai-san seems very aloof sometimes?” Atsushi asked.
“What do you mean, Atsushi?” Junichiro asked.
“Well, when we’re having company parties, he usually declines or when he does attend, he’s always somewhere on his own,” Atsushi said.
Kenji chimed in. “Do you remember the party at the yacht? He’s not even in the group picture we took!”
“Yeah!” Naomi agreed. “Us staffers kept looking for him because the president wanted everyone in the photo, but we failed in the end!”
“I remember that time! I found him by himself on the deck!” Atsushi said. “I came looking for him because I was afraid he was gonna jump overboard… Then we talked for a while and he gave a toast to something… Uhm, I didn’t understand it… Was it to the dogs? Or cat? Tiger? I don’t exactly remember but I just went along with it…”
Kunikida sighed. “Dazai is indeed strange. Remember the days when we couldn’t figure out what his former job was? He may seem very friendly and hyper and and outgoing, but the truth is, he doesn’t let anyone get too close to him… Despite being his partner for many missions for several years now, I still feel like I can’t get through him. I believe that he is still hiding many secrets from us…”
“Then shouldn’t we just try a bit harder to be friendlier to him so he opens up more?” Kenji suggested. “This reminds me of this hard-headed bull we took care of several years ago! He was very unruly and he avoided the rest of the other animals! But as it turns out, he just had an injury! So we brought him to the farm doctor, took care of him gently over the next few weeks, and then he got better and started mingling with all the other animals!”
Kenji’s comment lightened the mood and everyone nodded. Just then, a notification popped up from an unsaved number — it was a photo message.
“Oh no! What do I do?!” Atsushi suddenly panicked and threw the phone up in the air.
“You idiot! Don’t damage the phone!” Kunikida belted out, but not too loud that Dazai would wake up.
Atsushi’s tiger-like reflexes were helpful in this case. He jumped up and caught the phone mid-air. What he didn’t notice upon landing was that his back was now turned away from the agency door, which was being opened from the outside.
Unfortunately for Atsushi, upon catching Dazai’s phone, he accidentally clicked on the photo message which promptly opened it. The screen now showed a half-naked photo of a woman.
To add to this unfortunate event, the ones entering the office were Izumi Kyouka, the youngest agency member and wielder of Demon Snow, and Lucy Maud Montgomery, a former member of the Guild who now works for the cafe on the ground floor of the agency office. Both girls were holding boxes of snacks from the cafe. And both girls originally thought very highly of Atsushi… until they saw what he was holding, that is.