Work Text:
Mori is kind enough to administer an anesthetic before he starts on the neat row of stitches up the length of Dazai’s arm. For that, Dazai is thankful - he's had enough raw field stitches over the years to appreciate the mild sting of the lidocaine.
“You said you would come to me the next time you felt this way.” It's phrased as a question - translation: “why am I stitching you up again instead of playing chess or discussing battle strategy over a cup of tea?”
“I did come to you.” Dazai laughs, even knowing it's not the least bit funny. “Eventually.”
He gets the feeling that Mori would've smacked him on the side of the head - teasingly, never to harm - if his hands weren't reconnecting the skin of Dazai’s forearm. As it is, he just sighs, tying off another neat suture before moving a few millimeters up to start the next.
“Come sooner next time.” It's a command, but not a harsh one. Dazai will probably choose to ignore it, but maybe not. There's potential for the lesson to sink in eventually. “Before medical intervention is a necessity, preferably.”
Dazai huffs, annoyed at being bossed around. “Maybe I just like being an annoyance.”
“This isn't an annoyance,” Mori says calmly. “Time spent with you is rarely an annoyance although I prefer our usual discussions over this.”
Dazai isn't quite sure how to take that. He thought he did everything in his power to be annoying to everyone. After all, no one will miss you when you're gone if all you ever did was get on their last nerve constantly.
He watches as Mori goes through the process of four more sutures before he speaks again.
“Why bother with this?” Dazai asks. “Surely you could find an equally adept executive, a decent enough chess partner. So why bother?”
Mori hums, the way he does when he's taking a moment to phrase his words carefully. One of his few nervous habits - Dazai has catalogued them all. “I care more than you think.”
“About me?” Dazai asks incredulously. This suddenly feels like too personal of a conversation to be had under the bright florescent lights of the small exam room off of Mori’s office.
“Yes, about you.” Mori looks up from Dazai’s arm to meet his eye. “Do you think I keep you alive just because you're an excellent subordinate? Or just because you remind me of myself?”
“I half thought you kept me alive out of spite.”
Mori laughs at that, stopping his stitching for a moment so that his shaking doesn't affect the quality of his work. “Only you would think that.”
Dazai has never been the best at understanding how emotions, particularly relationships, work. He's observed them for years, trying to figure out how to fit the people around him into the little boxes that humanity has designated to various relations.
Odasaku and Ango are friends. Chuuya is his work partner. Kouyou is like an older sister who hates him. Hirotsu is like a friendly uncle. But Mori… the man halfway fits into a dozen different boxes and Dazai has never managed to sort him into one.
Part boss, part friend, part family, part… something else he can't define.
Mori just is.
“So you keep me alive because you care about me?” Dazai asks cautiously. Care isn't a word often applied to him and saying it aloud feels like jinxing it.
“Yes, Dazai-kun.” Mori is finished with the stitches, washing his bloody arm with a cloth dipped in hydrogen peroxide. “I keep you alive because I care about you.”
“Oh.” As Dazai ponders this, Mori rewraps his arm in fresh white gauze - almost uncomfortably clean against his blood-stained white shirt.
Mori raises Dazai’s freshly bandaged wrist to his mouth and kisses it softly. Dazai is stunned speechless.
“Now would you like me to call for some tea and we can have our usual chess match?”
Dazai nods, still afraid of any words that come out of his mouth sounding borderline incoherent.
“Good.” Mori brushes Dazai’s hair back out of his face to stare into his eye, looking as if he's about to say something. In the end, he simply turns away, an unreadable look on his face. “You have a spare outfit in the bottom drawer closest to the door.”
Again, Dazai only nods, still processing the last few minutes of conversation.
How strange it is, to know that the most powerful man in Yokohama wants him around not for his mind or Ability, but for himself.