Work Text:
Kunikida wrung his hands together as he glared at the paperwork in front of him. His knuckles complained under his harsh grip.
Not a single word had been written for the past two hours. During that time, he flipped through and organized the stack of case files on his desk three times, re-arranged the contents of his desk cabinets twice, and took a short break to brew some tea.
Ordinarily, Kunikida would have been done with this report within thirty minutes of focused attention.
But... him.
"No! Why'd you do that?"
"D-Dazai-san, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"
Kunikida knit his eyebrows together and closed his eyes. Dazai has been whining all day nonstop to Atsushi about every pointless thing that pops up in his head.
When Atsushi first joined the Agency, Kunikida admittedly felt satisfied with how much Dazai bothered Atsushi. That meant fewer instances of Dazai bothering him instead. The kid was too polite to ever tell him to stop, so Dazai had a place to funnel all his chaotic energy. But after a while, simply listening to the bickering pushed Kunikida's buttons. The idiotic and often vile things that escaped Dazai's mouth; he couldn't possibly tune it out, much to his dismay. Kunikida didn't know why, but it made him more angry than anything else.
Kunikida dared to turn his gaze toward Dazai's desk to see what the two were bickering about.
Dazai shoved Atsushi to the side and took back control of the touchpad. His horrible posture was even more pronounced as he leaned closer to the laptop's screen, squinting. "Look. Our hand is already high enough. If you hit again, it's guaranteed to go over."
"Ah," Atsushi gasped, putting his hand to his chin, genuinely invested in the knowledge Dazai shared with him.
Kunikida got up from his desk and circled around so he could see what was going on. He stood behind Dazai's chair, arms folded across his chest. "Are you two gambling on a company-issued device?" Kunikida interjected.
"Aw, come on, it's not real money," Dazai insisted. "It's just for fun."
Kunikida just kept staring at the screen, watching as Dazai won out over the dealer and increased his pool of money to bet on. "Our company-issued devices are not to be used for fun. Don't you both have reports to write?"
Atsushi turned his head and gave Kunikida a sympathetic smile. "To tell the truth, I finished both of our reports a few hours ago."
"You..." Kunikida began, genuinely at a loss for words.
"I told him I'd teach him blackjack if he did my report for me." Dazai replied.
Kunikida has been sitting around for hours trying desperately to fill out this report, and Atsushi has completed two of them? And exactly how long have those two been at the computer, gambling over nonexistent currency?
Kunikida clicked his tongue and went back to his desk. He sat down, tore his eyes away from them, and locked his attention on his report. Finally, having gotten closure by learning they've merely been playing harmless virtual card games, he was able to put his pen to the paper.
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When he was done, it was dark.
Everyone else had gone home. Well, almost everyone.
Dazai walked into the office with a cup of tea in one hand and the other hand shoved into the right pocket of his dress pants. As usual, he spent the majority of the day slacking off and only now realized he had much more work to finish up. Now, he has to stay in late to get it all done. Kunikida was hardly surprised. He only felt disappointed that he was here with him.
Kunikida had one more task left on his agenda. He needed to sort through some new cases that had just come in and decide which one to present to Fukuzawa to have it confirmed as their next case. The manila folder was already on his desk, so he opened it up and briefly scanned each one to start. Meanwhile, Dazai had plopped down in his chair, sipping on his tea and staring at his desk. His space was more cluttered than ever, and Kunikida couldn't tell which stack of papers Dazai was even looking at. He crinkled his nose with disdain when Dazai set his teacup right onto one of the stacks. The tea was only a few centimeters away from spilling out over the edge.
He sighed and tilted his head back down. The next time Kunikida glanced at him, he was leaned back in his chair, fidgeting with something in his hands. It was metallic and cylindrical, about the length of his index finger.
Kunikida couldn't help but stare at the small object cradled in Dazai's hands and broke the silence. "What are you doing?"
Dazai stared off into the distance, his eyes not quite level with Kunikida's. He popped open the cap, revealing a brand new, unused tube of lipstick. It was a gentle shade of pastel pink.
"I borrowed it from Yosano," Dazai replied, lazily gesturing toward her desk.
"What?" Kunikida asked incredulously. He had nothing against men wearing make up, and he especially didn't care what Dazai chose put on his face. But why here, and now...? And why Yosano's lipstick? Of course he was too much of a cheapskate to buy his own.
"She probably won't notice," he replied. He brought the lipstick to his face and let it linger inches away from his lips. He smiled, finally looking into the eyes of his confused colleague. "Want to try it?"
"Absolutely not." Kunikida replied flatly. "Get back to work."
Dazai shrugged and spun himself in his chair until he was turned to the side, giving Kunikida a side-profile view. He watched with muted fascination as Dazai pressed the pink wax up to his lips and began applying it. It truly looked like he knew what he was doing. Not that Kunikida cared.
Kunikida managed to avert his eyes and turn his attention back to the case files. But his thoughts were left permanently scattered, and he couldn't focus no matter how hard he tried. His mind replayed the moment the lipstick touched Dazai's lips over and over again. He shook his head, feeling mildly disappointed in himself. I don't care how Dazai looks. It doesn't concern me.
He muttered those two phrases in his mind repeatedly, hoping it would help, but it only made things worse. The more he tried to convince himself he didn't care, the more he ended up actually caring. On top of that, it wasn't like he could force Dazai to take the lipstick off. As much as it annoyed him, it was ultimately Kunikida's self-discipline that was lacking, so it wasn't Dazai's fault.
Eventually he couldn't take it anymore and titled his head up to look at Dazai. He opened his mouth to say something but immediately clamped them shut. The seat was empty. How lost in his thoughts had he been, to not even notice Dazai leaving the room?
Shakily, he stood up and went to the front of the office. He checked the little partitioned area with the two sofas, another place Dazai frequently went when he was bored of doing work. Nothing. He could tell that Dazai was at least still in the building, because his beige coat was on one of the coat rack hooks by the door. He opened the office door and peered into the spacious hallway. Dazai liked to be out here, too, leaning against the wall while spouting nonsense to Atsushi.
The thought made Kunikida seethe.
Suddenly, he froze, taking a moment to analyze his emotions. Was he... jealous? No. He wasn't jealous. Atsushi had become the new lightning rod for Dazai's insolence. Kunikida never enjoyed being at the mercy of Dazai's insanity, so why would he ever be angry that Atsushi was putting up with it instead of him?
Rather than stepping out of the hall, he closed the door and went back to his desk. He'd prove to himself that he didn't care by getting back to work. The rage resulting from mere idea of childish jealousy was enough for him to snap out of his daze. He finished going through the cases in no time, and reorganized his filing cabinet accordingly. Tomorrow, he'd present the selected case, and the agency would get to work.
It was late. He flicked open his notebook and ran his finger down the lines for today's daily schedule. He was supposed to be in bed a little over an hour ago. Exhaustion lined the edges of his eyes as he began flipping through to tomorrow's schedule, penning in new tasks where they fit. In the midst of his focus, he failed to notice that someone was standing very close behind him until it was too late and he bumped into him.
"Daz-" Kunikida began, turning around. The rest of his name died in his throat. Of course, the bastard was still wearing the lipstick, the shiny pink gloss perfectly visible under the office lighting.
"Hello, Kunikida!" Dazai chirped, before leaning forward and planting a kiss on Kunikida's left cheek. The kiss was hard enough that it created a perfect print of Dazai's lips onto Kunikida's skin.
"..."
Dazai backed away, examined his work, and immediately burst into giggles. Kunikida looked mortified, his face flushing redder and redder, and Dazai couldn't tell if it was because he was flustered or utterly pissed. The sight only made Dazai's laughing fit worse and worse, until he had his hands on his knees, nearly reduced to tears.
Once he recovered, he looked up and saw that Kunikida was still standing there, frozen, as if he had died on the spot. Dazai felt a little guilty. Was that... too much?
He opened his mouth again to apologize, but before he could get a sound out, Kunikida lunged, as if engaging in hand-to-hand combat. Dazai was caught off-guard and failed to defend himself. Rather than being beat-up, though, Kunikida had simply grabbed his arm, dragged him closer, and turned him around until he was leaning against Kunikida's desk, hands tightly gripping the edge of the sturdy desk.
Atsushi was fun to mess with, but he was quite the pushover in the office. He always played along with every ridiculous request thrown at him. But the fun part about messing with Kunikida was that he stood his ground, and always fought back.
But Kunikida was fighting back a little harder than he expected. He pressed Dazai against the desk, their bodies flush against each other. He planted his hands onto the wooden surface, his arms brushing against Dazai's torso, further trapping him to the spot. His self-control had finally slipped out of his fingers, his mind escaping into oblivion.
"Bastard," Kunikida growled, his eyes narrowing dangerously. "Do it again."
Dazai smiled but the shine in his eyes betrayed shock. Kunikida could hardly believe those words came out of his mouth either, but the words hung in the air and tangled between them as they shared the same air. It couldn't be taken back. If nothing else, Kunikida was always true to his word, and Dazai knew this all too well.
"Really?" Dazai sneered. He was disguising it as a challenge, but really, he was offering him one last chance to back out. If he played along now, Dazai would know that Kunikida truly wanted it.
He didn't take it. "Do I need to repeat myself?"
Without hesitating, Dazai craned his neck forward. When Kunikida asked him to do it again, he assumed he meant another kiss on the cheek, so that's where Dazai aimed. His lips almost made contact with his skin, but Kunikida gently took hold of Dazai's chin and rerouted him at the last moment. Their lips brushed against each other before they met properly.
Once their lips fully connected, Kunikida felt himself sigh, melting into the feeling of Dazai's lips on his. The air around them suddenly felt hot, burning hot, and eventually Kunikida's hand let go of Dazai's chin and found its way to his waist.
They parted for a moment to breathe. Dazai was staring right into his eyes, but Kunikida didn't hold the gaze for very long, quickly looking somewhere off to the side as his mind spun itself in circles. Useless, Dazai-centered circles.
For the past few months, their relationship had gotten muddy. They first tasted each other's lips one night when Kunikida was checking up on him in his apartment, and he assumed it would be the last. But to be here again, leaning against Dazai, kissing him... really, what were they? Colleagues, yes, but usually colleagues didn't kiss each other and enjoy it.
Were they anything at all, or were they just bored?
"Kunikida," Dazai said, ejecting Kunikida out of his thoughts. He finally allowed himself to make eye contact, his olive-green eyes a bit watery with embarrassment. "We can stop, if you're uncom-"
Kunikida replied by leaning in and catching Dazai's lips again, this time a little more ferociously. He didn't care if they acted like nothing happened the next day. He wanted to chase this feeling, to hold it close, to live through it in the present.
After a bit, Kunikida broke the kiss, and he looked Dazai in the eyes. He brought his hand up to his face and gently grazed Dazai's lips with his thumb. Most of the lipstick had been smeared, some of it sloppily transferred onto Kunikida's lips and of course onto his cheek.
"It suits you. This color." Kunikida mumbled.
"I'll distract you with it more often, then." Dazai shot back, though his usual sneer was absent from his voice. His voice was more sultry than anything, which made Kunikida's chest tighten.
But it made him happier than he expected.
I don't care, it doesn't concern me...