Work Text:
Halloween was always an exciting time at the detective agency. Aside from it producing higher crime rates, and in the rare case unethical ability use which they were usually called to take care of, the atmosphere was always more cheerful this time of year. Ranpo especially was excited, of course because of the prospect he could get more candy, and even at his big age he still talked about tagging along with some of the younger members so he could go trick-or-treating. Atsushi and Kyouka were huddled around a desk discussing their duo costume idea, Kenji was sitting on the floor sewing a little ghost out of felt, and in general everyone at the office was content.
Dazai never really considered himself to be much of a holiday person, but even he couldn’t deny he enjoyed the times leading up to holidays when everyone was preparing. At the very least, he had access to more excuses to slack on his work and Kunikida was too preoccupied to yell at him for as long as he normally did. He had no intention of dressing up this year despite the kids’ insistence on him doing a group costume with them, and he had managed to get out of it last year so Dazai figured he could do it again. He stalked over to his desk while ignoring Kunikida’s mutterings about him being late once again, plopped himself down on his chair, spun a few times, and picked up a pen to doodle on the page with the report he was meant to be writing.
Atsushi glided over to his desk and placed a hand on the edge, leaning on it. He looked slightly hesitant. “What are you going as for Hallowen this year, Dazai-san?”
Dazai shrugged, not looking up from his paper. “I’ll figure something out.”
“You said that last year,”
Kunikida scoffed from his spot, ceasing his typing to roll his eyes. “Dazai doesn’t even need to dress up. He already looks like a mummy.”
Dazai placed a hand on his chest in mock-offense. “I’m wounded!”
“Whatever, drama queen. Get back to work.”
Dazai took his pen and placed it on his paper, but rather than writing he just drew several frowny faces all over the page. He then excused himself over to the couch to catnap for the rest of the day. Dazai wondered how long it would take for Kunikida to have an aneurysm because of his procrastination this time.
—
Kunikida once again found himself having trouble sleeping that night. It happens every time around holidays, his mind overworking itself with preparations and ideas, remembering every small thing he forgot to do, schedule revisions to fit everyone’s needs and make them as comfortable as possible, and of course, going over ways he could try to get Dazai to actually do some work since there was so much piling up in the busy month.
Normally, when he found himself sleepless, Kunikida got up from bed to make himself some tea. That’s what he did this time as well, finding comfort in the way the kettle always took approximately seven minutes and twenty seconds to boil, the way putting in a spoon-and-a-half of honey made for the perfect sweetness level, the way the soft clinking sound of the teaspoon against the side of the cup helped to calm his racing mind. He mindlessly read the ingredients on the back of the tea box for a few minutes while he stirred, but was rudely interrupted by an incessant knock on his door. Kunikida glanced at the clock on his wall. 2:26 a.m. Who could possibly need him at this ungodly hour? The knocking continued. Kunikida sighed and rubbed a hand over his face before steeling himself and heading to the door, prepared to berate whoever had the nerve to come to his door so late at night.
The knocking didn’t stop until he was at the door, flinging it open while grumbling to himself. He glanced up, and his eyes widened slightly at seeing it was Dazai. That was new. Despite his insistence on making every one of Kunikida’s waking moments miserable, Dazai had never actually been to his dorm before. Kunikida just assumed it was because Dazai never had a reason to, or that he didn’t see them as close enough to visit his house (which Kunikida found ever so slightly disappointing, for some reason), and out of all the times he would have expected Dazai to inevitably show up, two in the morning certainly wasn’t one of them.
That fact did not deter the frustration he felt at being disrupted.
“Dazai,” He seethed. “What the hell are you doing here?”
The man in question was soaked and shivering. Considering it was late October, the temperatures were rather cold, especially at night, and going out while being wet was practically begging for hypothermia. And on top of that, Dazai lived relatively far away in his own apartment and didn’t own a car, so it was safe to assume he walked all the way to the Agency’s dorms while being sopping wet if his chattering jaw was anything to go by.
Ignoring the question, Dazai pushed his way past Kunikida and into the warmth of the dorm. His shoulders were tense and his hands balled into fists at his sides, and Kunikida slowly felt his anger melt away into something more like concern. Dazai was always in complete control of his body and reactions, so seeing him allow a rare display of vulnerability, even if only a tiny bit, was slightly worrying and slightly relieving.
Dazai stripped off his coat and threw it at Kunikida, kicking his shoes carelessly toward the door.
“Hey-” Kunikida caught the coat as Dazai trudged into the living space and plopped onto the couch. “Dazai! You’re getting my floors all wet! What’s up with you?!”
Dazai muttered something unintelligible and flopped onto his side, burying his face into one of the throw pillows and getting it all wet. Kunikida’s worry had morphed right back into frustration at his coworker barging in and soaking up the place. He marched up to the form on his couch and snatched the pillow from his arms, demanding an answer to his questions. Dazai gave him a bitter look and shoved his face into the cushion, groaning. Kunikida was not having it. He grabbed Dazai by the shoulders and hauled him into a sitting position, ignoring the yells and protests from the man. Now that Dazai was upright and looking at him, did Kunikida figure they could actually have a conversation. That is, if Dazai was actually willing to communicate anything and not be stubborn for once. Kunikida didn’t count on it.
“Explain yourself.” He demanded. Dazai just mumbled something in response.
“I swear it’s like I’m talking to a child,” Kunikida muttered under his breath. “Dazai. Please tell me why you’re in my house, soaking wet, in the middle of the night.”
“Why do you think?” Was the reply, Dazai still not meeting his eyes.
Kunikida sighed. His small pillar of hope that his partner hadn’t taken a midnight swim in the river was toppled over, and so he resigned to not making Dazai’s mood worse by deciding to simply care for him for the night instead of berating him like he normally would. Kunikida stood and started walking away from the couch, but he was stopped by a hand grabbing at his sleeve. He turned to see Dazai staring at him with widened eyes. “Wait- where are you going?” the man asked, slight desperation in his tone.
“I’m just going to get you some new clothes and a blanket. You stink like river water.” He wiggled his arm free of Dazai's grasp and continued the trek to his bedroom.
“Right.” Dazai coughed and just sat there stiffly while his clothes were being fetched. Kunikida could tell he was uncomfortable despite having come here of his own accord, so he made it a mission to try to make him as at home as he could, telling himself this would be the only time it would happen. Definitely.
Once Dazai had received the new clothes and changed into them, Kunikida re-entered the living space to see him shivering. He tossed one of the random blankets strewn about the couch onto him and said, “I’m going to make tea. Do you want any?” to which he received an affirmative, and immediately left again to the kitchen.
In the kitchen, Kunikida found it easier to organize his thoughts. Dazai didn’t normally talk or do much after those half-serious suicide attempts, where he would just throw himself into the river at random intervals, resurface a few minutes later and decide it wasn’t worth trying again and then stalk off back home or to a random bar to drown his sorrows in whiskey. Kunikida didn’t see much of a point in trying to make conversation because of that, and so he simply left the other man in the living room, alone to his thoughts, and set the kettle to boil.
After a few minutes however, he looked up from his Ideal book to see Dazai, with the blanket lazily wrapped around his shoulders, walk into the kitchen hunched over and still shivering.
“Straighten up your posture, Dazai. You look like a hunchback.” He scolded and went back to scribbling in his notebook about how to take care of sopping wet partners in his dorm at quarter to three in the morning.
“Sorry, mother.” Dazai replied and straightened up, obnoxiously so, until his chest was sticking out and his shoulders thrown back behind him. Kunikida ignored him and wondered why he let the man in in the first place, and considered kicking him to the curb.
“You’re taking a long time in there,” Dazai observed unsolicitedly.
“My kettle is slow. I’ve been meaning to buy a new one recently but haven’t found the time.”
“You could have mine, if you want. I never use it anyways and it’s in pretty good shape.”
Kunikida glanced up at him, intrigued that Dazai was offering to give him something like that. “Really? Well, if you really mean that, how much do you want for it?”
“Nothing. I’m giving it to you. That’s how gifts work, Kunikida-kun.”
“Oh. Okay.”
There was a rather tense silence after that, neither of them knowing how to continue the conversation from there. The kettle steamed but didn’t boil, and Kunikida decided there that he would in fact be taking Dazai’s kettle.
Eventually the silence was getting rather unbearable, so Kunikida spoke up. “Are you really not doing anything for Halloween?”
Dazai just shrugged. “I’m an adult. Why would I need to?”
“The kids want you to, also being an adult doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy holidays. Yosano-kun and Ranpo-san are going as vampires and even the director said he would find a costume as well. You’d be the only one not dressing up.”
Dazai stayed silent at that, shrugging again. Kunikida was not having it.
“You know,” he started. “Maybe I’ll just dress up as you and go bothering everyone and slack off all day and then drink myself into oblivion. Then maybe you’ll see and understand your own behaviour.”
Dazai smirked. “And I’ll go as you, running around the place yelling at everyone and writing unrealistic ideals and working myself half to death. Then you can see how overbearing you are sometimes.”
“At least I actually do work, unlike you, Mister Laze-On-The-Couch-All-Day-And-Complain.”
Dazai stuck out his tongue which Kunikida found incredibly childish. It added more items to his list of ‘how to act like Dazai perfectly’, which he was seriously considering creating to give the walking bandage a taste of his own medicine.
“You know what, yeah!” Dazai exclaimed suddenly. “I’ll just be you for Halloween!”
“Absolutely not!”
Dazai rambled about the ways he would act and the wig he would buy and the fake notebook he would create. He seemed to be having way too much fun with this, so Kunikida decided to just hop in the same boat and exclaim about how he would act like Dazai.
“I’ll buy ten bottles of sake and jump into a river and try to seduce random girls on the streets into killing themselves with me! I’ll completely wrap myself up in toilet paper and coerce Atsushi into doing all my work for me! I’ll be more Dazai-like than you could ever be.”
A newfound look of determination had found its way onto Dazai’s face. “Fine then. Whoever has the better impression has to have the other buy lunch for a month.”
“Fine.”
—
Halloween day was worth the anticipation. There was a table of snacks set out which, naturally, Ranpo was absolutely glued to, and the director had brought his cat to the office, whom Atsushi and Kyouka were in the corner cooing over while everyone else sat at their desks playing charades.
Kunikida and Dazai hadn’t shown up yet, and Atsushi distantly wondered about them as the grey cat climbed up onto his lap and started batting at his long strand of hair. Dazai was pretty frequently late to work so he didn’t really linger much on that, but Kunikida on the other hand was always perfectly punctual so it was definitely strange that he was taking so long to arrive to the celebration he had worked so hard on to prepare.
As if his thoughts were being read, the door burst open with a slam, and Atsushi looked up to see it was Kunikida who had entered. Or, well, not-Kunikida, but rather Dazai, with a cheap looking blonde wig and his partner’s usual suit and glasses. All the eyes were on him immediately, amusement evident in the faces of everyone, them all preparing for the shenanigans they knew were imminent.
Kunikida/Dazai immediately stormed to the blonde’s desk, sitting down in the chair roughly and slamming the Ideal notebook onto the surface.
“WELL?! WHAT IS EVERYONE STARING FOR? GET TO WORK!!” He yelled, furiously scribbling on a random paper he had snatched.
Another person entered the room, Atsushi quickly realizing it was Kunikida wearing Dazai’s hair and clothing, loosely shuffling into the office and plopping down onto the couch. “I can’t wait to commit suicide today!” He sang in an obnoxiously high pitched tone. “I’m sure the waitress at the cafe would love to hang herself with me! Time to go get a super sweet coffee and not pay my tab!”
“DAZAI!!” The yell came from Kunikida’s desk. “GET YOUR LAZY ASS UP AND FILL OUT YOUR REPORTS BEFORE I BURST A BLOOD VESSEL FROM YELLING SO MUCH AND GETTING SO WORKED UP!! I JUST LOVE YELLING ALL THE TIME!!”
“But I’m too busy daydreaming about rivers and nooses! Hey, do you think if I draw something really really disturbing on my paper and show it to the waitress, will she like me perhaps? Maybe she’ll kill me? Oh! What a wonderful thought!”
Actual Dazai picked up the green notebook off of the desk, the notebook of legend, The Ideal, and started writing in an empty page while muttering aloud what exactly was being written down. “New entry… The Ideal Partner. Must be twenty-two years of age, male, short brown hair, brown eyes, 5 '11, incredibly sexy and handsome…” He kept scribbling in the book and describing his own appearance.
The real Kunikida was not pleased that his oh-so-precious notebook was being written in by someone other than himself, and angrily stomped over to the desk to snatch it out of Dazai’s hands, momentarily breaking character. “Give me that, you-” he cut off, remembering the part he was supposed to be playing, raising his voice back up an octave. “I mean- You’re always writing in this stupid notebook! What’s even in here anyways?”
Meanwhile, the rest of the agency was watching in amusement at the two’s failed attempts at acting like each other.
“I can’t believe this,” Yosano giggled. “What are you two doing?”
“We’re having a contest!” Dazai replied, out-of-character. “Whoever has the worst impression has to buy the other lunch for a month. Make sure you guys are keeping track of whose is better.”
Their impressions continued until around two hours later, when they decided to open up voting so they could go back to being themselves again. Atsushi was at his desk with the director’s cat curled up on his lap, purring and lazily batting its eyes. “What do you think, bud? Should I vote for Dazai-san or Kunikida-san?” He asked the cat, who just flicked its tail in response, blinking its eyes closed and failing to reopen them. Atsushi took this as confirmation to vote for the lazier of the duo, Dazai. He felt his overall performance was better and he didn’t break character as many times, acting being one of his best skills. Atsushi gently picked up the cat and placed it on the ground, ignoring the mewl of protest and heading over to the ballot box to cast his vote along with the others who were just finishing scrawling down the names of who they were choosing.
In the end, Dazai won with two votes and had the time of his life rubbing that fact all over Kunikida’s face.
Atsushi leaned over the snack table and grabbed a pretzel, plopping it into his mouth. He was contentedly standing by himself, just watching the shenanigans of the office, when he felt a tug on his sleeve. He startled after turning around to see Kyouka.
“O-oh! You scared me,” He would never not be unnerved by how completely silent Kyouka could make herself when she moved.
“Are we gonna go trick-or-treating?” Came the girl’s quiet voice.
“Yeah, of course! What time is it?”
“Almost four-thirty.”
Ranpo, who was also ravaging the snack table mercilessly, immediately perked up at the notion he could get candy. “I’ll take you guys, if you want!”
Atsushi chuckled. “Where’s Kenji? I thought he was coming with us.”
“Right here!” The boy in question ran out of the bathroom, dressed in a cow onesie with a matching horn headband. It was his first time trick-or-treating in a big city, so to say he was excited was certainly an understatement.
Atsushi and Kyouka themselves were going as aliens, having put on their own squiggly antenna headbands and green shirts and pants. Ranpo had vampire teeth on and a dramatic cape, to match with Yosano, whom he managed to convince to come along with the group as well. The Tanizaki siblings had left the office an hour ago, going with some of their other friends instead.
Eventually the big group got their shit sorted out and shuffled through the front door at 5:12 p.m., leaving Kunikida and Dazai alone in the office.
—
Dazai peered from his desk over to the couch, watching Kunikida flip through the pages of his book, sipping his coffee quietly so as to not disturb the silent peace of a near empty office. He decided that he had enough of the silence, however, going to join his partner on the couch. Dazai sank down into the cushions next to Kunikida and leaned his head on the man’s shoulder, exhaling loudly as if he were an old man.
“Careful, Dazai. You’re going to make me spill.” Kunikida cautioned, not looking up from his book.
Dazai said nothing, nuzzling his head further into Kunikida’s shoulder. Then he paused, noticing something. “Are you wearing my cologne?”
“Yes. I wanted to take my role seriously.”
“And yet you still lost,” Dazai chuckled. Kunikida only grunted in response.
“...Where did you find it?” Dazai asked after a few moments, wondering if his partner had gone through his things.
“In the pocket of your coat. You told me you usually left it in your right pocket a few weeks ago, remember?”
Dazai didn’t remember, but that didn’t stop the unusually warm feeling making a home in his chest at the thought his partner recalled such a small detail about him. It wasn’t often that people put in effort to learn much about him, much less retain the information, and Dazai was admittedly a little embarrassed at how nice it made him feel in the rare times they did. He hoped he could hold onto that warm feeling as long as Kunikida stayed his partner.