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Knock! Knock! Knock! Kunikida jolts awake and the first thing he does is look at the clock, the time it displays is roughly 2:15am, he groans but knowing his line of work it's probably something important so he's hasty in how fast he puts on his glasses and gets from his bed to the door, being careful when navigating through the dark.
He switches on his light and looking through the peephole he immediately sees a familiar mess of dark brown curls, definitely Dazai, he sighs again hoping to god this is important. There's been a couple times where Dazai just really wanted to ramble about something stupid and he has zero problems bothering Kunikida.
He opens the door and Dazai Immediately waltzes on in like it's his own house immediately rambling about wanting to sit up with someone cause it's a weekend and how Kunikida should “Have more fun” He stops in the centre of the living room and with his hands folded behind his back tilts from heel to toe back and forth on his feet.
It honestly all goes in one ear and out the other dragging on and on starting to sound like white noise, he attempts to but in a few times but it just won't stop, he clasps a hand over Dazai's mouth and sighs tiredly, “Look I understand you want someone to talk to, but I was sleeping, your giving me a headache”.
Dazai pulls away and dramatically plonks himself on the sofa, “Everyone goes to bed so early!” He declares with a hint of irritation, “Atsushi was very quick to decline me, but I suppose it's fair he doesn't want to wake up Kyoka” He's picking at the skin on his fingers while talking.
“... Right, but waking me up isn't a problem?” Kunikida sarcastically questions to which Dazai beams and replies, “Exactly!! Glad we're on the same page!” He pats Kunikida's shoulder and the blond groans in annoyance, “That was not what I meant! and you know that!” he whisper-yells.
“Okay, okay!! How about I stay for twenty minutes?” Kunikida sighs again, pinching the bridge of his nose “Dazai, no-” Dazai leans his head on his hands and tilts his head to the side staring up at him with his dark brown eyes “Ten minutes then?”.
He begrudgingly mumbles “Fine” He eventually just agrees, if he does Dazai might let him sleep after 10 minutes are up Dazai stops scratching at his fingers and smiles the second he's allowed to stay, “Knew you'd come around eventually”.
Kunikida rolls his eyes and he starts to fill a kettle with water and sets it to boil. He wonders why specifically now Dazai is so desperate to talk to him.
He turns his back for one second and Dazai is already bored and looking in the space underneath Kunikida's coffee table, probably looking for something to fidget with while waiting for Kunikida to be done making tea, when Kunikida looks back and snaps at him to stop snooping Dazai startles quickly pulling himself back up.
Dazai hits his arm off the underside of the coffee table by accident and winces badly, letting out a way too dramatic yelp of pain, he's left holding up his arm and wincing for a moment, his eyes burning from the sudden pain, taking a good lot of seconds to recover.
Kunikida eyes him skeptically but also with worry, obviously he had prior injuries that were reopened, a coffee table couldn't cause that. He is wincing too badly for it to be a simple bump. “If you were injured you should have gone to Yosano” Dazai doesn't respond and just shifts for a moment, his arm is bleeding now through both the bandages and the sleeve of his coat.
And Kunikida startles, “Your arm is-” Dazai is quick to cut him off, “I know”. kunikida shakes his head in disbelief “Well, are you going to do something about it!?” Dazai doesn't say anything, sort of just… letting the blood drip to Kunikida's floor and watching blankly as it pools.
“Right…” Kunikida walks over and he carefully reaches out and grabs his injured hand earning a flinch from Dazai, who then with his free hand uncomfortably clutches the sleeve of his coat. A nervous habit kunikida has picked up on, Dazai is extremely bad at expressing emotion, it's one of the few things he does purely on instinct.
“Dazai…?” He doesn't respond, kunikida sits beside him and carefully pulls his arm over again and fully pulls up the sleeve, his bandages are becoming stained with red, It's not bad enough to kill him but definitely enough to make him a bit sick, Dazai looks dizzy too.
He tries to pull the secured end of the bandages to unravel them and take a look, but Dazai panics, finally snapping out of his silence, “hey! No it's fine, it's fine leave it” Kunikida ignores this and unravels them anyway, he needs to get it over with, he can calm Dazai down later, Dazai looks away avoiding letting Kunikida see his face.
Kunikida immediately knows it's self-inflicted from the ordered appearance, definitely not caused by an accident at work… and on top of that it looks extremely recent, this happened today.
“...Thought you promised me you'd come get me if you felt like this after last time” Kunikida mumbles, “I did” is Dazai's response, Kunikida sighs, “You never told me anything was wrong” Dazai just simply replies, “you never said I had to”.
He sits and just starts quietly treating the wounds, to Dazai's discomfort, he sprays disinfectant on both arms and feels mildly guilty when Dazai squirms from the pain, he seems really restless now that kunikida knows, has entirely dropped the energetic act he had coming in.
Some people find it odd how Dazai is this way, keeps trying to kill himself but hates pain, a walking contradiction of a person, but the answer is of course rather simple, they aren't opposites, they are cause and effect, Dazai hurts himself, because he hates pain. What better way to deal with being angry at yourself?
Dazai sniffles at some point while having his arms bandaged, Kunikida knows better than to point that out. But then Dazai very suddenly tears up, pulling away from Kunikida’s grasp and curls up, hiding his face. That's when Kunikida dares to speak, it's too concerning not to mention, “Dazai?”.
Dazai's body shakes but he makes no sound, it's actually kind of terrifying how silent someone who is clearly sobbing can be, no wonder if he's ever upset no one would pick up on it. Only every once in a while would a small noise break out, sounds more like a hiccup or a squeak than any kind of actual emotional distress.
Kunikida hesitantly puts a hand on his shoulder, when Dazai doesn't flinch hard anymore he slowly eases into the movement of pulling his shoulders from his knees. Carefully pulling him into a hug and wrapping his arms around him as he sniffles miserably. He pulls him against his chest, letting him lean his head on Kunikida's shoulder. “There you go, you're alright”.
Dazai breathes quietly, he's clearly trying to hold it all back, to not give in to being held or comforted, but too bad for him kunikida is ridiculously good at comforting people for such a often loud and strict man, when it really matters he wears his heart on his sleeves, he carefully runs his fingers through Dazai's hair. “hey… it's okay… you're going to be okay”.
He breaks the silence, “...I wouldn't mind if you cried you know… isn't it difficult to breathe forcing yourself to be silent like that?” He's silent, but after a moment's hesitation he takes a sharp shaky breath and his body forces him to sob, letting out a cry the second he stops trying to be silent, and kunikida’s heart aches hearing it.
He just starts sobbing and clings to Kunikida after holding back for so long, he hates how good it feels to be held and comforted, it felt so much easier to just act okay and pretend he wasn't after relapsing only a few hours prior. He's normally so good at it, if only he wasn't so stupid to have hit his arm, him thinking this way just makes him cry harder, Kunikida runs his fingers through his hair again, "Don't think too hard, just focus on breathing now"
Dazai curls up again and kunikida isn't sure how to help him, thinking it's getting worse, until he realises what he's doing right now seems enough, Dazai has gotten comfortable and his crying slowly but surely calms down to just sniffles and hiccups over the course of around 15 minutes.
And eventually in just over 20 minutes, he goes silent altogether breathing softly, his chest rising and falling in a normal rhythm compared to the struggled gasps from before.
Kunikida nudges him and he shifts limply “... Dazai?” … He had closed eyes and a calm expression on his face, he'd fallen asleep like that and kunikida didn't have the heart to wake him up and send him home, not after what just happened.
Kunikida holds him like that for at least long enough for him to fall into a deeper sleep despite how exhausted he himself was growing. After a while he shifts and carefully lays him down on the sofa, putting a blanket over him, if he slept sitting all night it would be painful in the morning.
Dazai stirs and turns to his side curling up and Kunikida finds he doesn't mind him staying longer than the previously agreed upon ten minutes. Especially if it means maybe, at some point Dazai will feel safe enough to come to him before he hurts himself next time.