Work Text:
Yosano glanced toward the hallway. “I give them two weeks before something explodes.”
“Emotionally or physically?” Atsushi asked, looking over at her with an empty bowl in his hands.
“Yes.” Yosano replied.
--
Kunikida looked two seconds from cardiac arrest. “Explain. Now. What- how- why is he glowing?! Dazai, what did you do?!”
--
“There you two are,” Ranpo said, eyeing the hallway with a suspicious squint. “Thought I felt a storm pass through.” He paused, chewing idly on a fresh lollipop. “Or was it just sexual tension?”
--
Dazai shrugged. “Just indigestion. He looked at Kunikida’s lunch.”
Kunikida, from his desk: “It was a rice ball!”
“Exactly,” Dazai replied breezily, walking past them all and patting Rei’s shoulder as he went. “Radioactive.”
--
A moment passed.
Then another.
Until Dazai, in his usual fashion, broke the silence in a way only he would dare.
“You know,” he said, “you hissed at me again. Like a cat. You’re starting to develop habits.”
Rei visibly flinched. “Don’t.”
“No, really, I’m starting to think you need a collar.”
“Dazai.”
Dazai turned, leaned toward him just a bit too close. “Or maybe a scratching post. I’ll buy one for the office. You can test it.”
Rei turned his head away so sharply his ponytail whipped behind him, the white bang falling messily over his glowing eye, which had dimmed now back to silver-blue. “I hate you,” he growled lowly, and Dazai grinned.
--
Atsushi was the first to notice. He straightened up so quickly he almost knocked over a stack of files. “Oh! You’re back! We—uh—Ranpo said—he said you two were probably making out on the roof.”
Rei stopped walking.
Dazai did not.
“Probably?” Dazai echoed cheerfully. “That’s rude. You think we’d only ‘probably’ be making out?”
“WHAT—” Atsushi squeaked, face turning scarlet.
Kunikida stood behind his desk, looking absolutely done. “Dazai. Dazai. I swear if you say one more inappropriate thing in this workplace—”
“We’re coworkers, not saints,” Dazai shrugged.
Yosano smiled without looking up. “And saints don’t flirt like that.”
--
“Out. Adult business.”
“Wha—That’s not a real explanation!”
Dazai propped himself up on one elbow, hair messy, eyes lidded with something dangerously smug. “Tell Kunikida exactly what you saw. Word for word. I want to hear his scream from here.”
--
Dazai leaned in the doorway to the kitchenette, watching him. “You’re doing it again.”
Rei blinked. “Doing what?”
“That thing where you pretend to be okay but your shoulders are locked tighter than Yosano’s trauma drawer.”
--