Work Text:
Atsushi never wanted to be a detective if he was being honest with himself. He had no clue what he would have done without Dazai or the others at the Agency, but he knew this wasn’t what he wanted to do with his life. It was the same thing day in and day out, and that’s when he wasn’t on the verge of being killed.
Paperwork upon paperwork.
Atsushi had been at the Armed Detective Agency for a little over 2 months now, and there seemed to be a bit of a rest bite for now. Kyouka, the girl he now sees as his little sister, was within arm's reach; all the agency needed to do to make sure his little sister was with them forever was for Kyouka to pass some sort of entrance exam like Atsushi did.
Yelling in the distance snaps Atsushi out of his stupor, and gets him to raise his head from the report he was working on. “God damn it, Dazai!” He heard Kunikida scream at the top of his lungs, making Atsushi flinch slightly.
The man under attack pouted like a little kid. “But Kunikida-kun~” Dazai whines just as loudly back to Kunikida. Atsushi should really be used to their antics by now, but he doesn’t think he ever will be. He blinks slowly, trying to get the world around him to adjust out of his thoughts and back to reality. “Right, work…” Atsushi mutters to himself as the yelling continues in the not-so-far distance.
Looking back down at the paper, Atsushi found himself making small circular motions in a couple of places on his paper, the collection of circles looking to be some kind of optical illusion, making his eyes drift away from the words on the page.
He draws a few scribbles around the circles, trying to see if he can make something out of them. Atsushi tries to make something that wouldn’t mess up the page too badly, but it quickly turns from a bunch of mindless circles to an illegible mess in the corner of the page.
Atsushi sighs deeply as he frowns at the corner that was no longer its recognisable off-white due to the lead covering the sizeable area. He stares at it for a moment longer, trying to understand where he went wrong, when he hears footsteps come up to the desk next to him.
Raising his head and looking to the side, Atsushi sees a head of brown curls and matching eyes staring at the paper curiously. “Is Atsushi-kun trying to draw?” Dazai asks, attempting to sound innocent but failing horrendously, the soft chuckle clear in the office’s silence at his question.
A blush quickly creeps onto Atsushi’s face, and he turns his head to the side as he tries to hide from the prying eyes of his co-workers. “N-No…” He says with an attempt at a stern voice, but - as always - chickens out before even getting the first word out, and the result? An uncontrollable stutter. Atsushi sighs as he hears his mentor’s loud laughter seemingly echo off the office walls. “I don’t know what I was doing…” He decides to tell a half-truth that should hopefully get Dazai off his back for a little bit.
Atsushi could hear Dazai sighing at his pitiful attempt at diversion, and the younger man tenses, his hunched back over his paperwork clearing telling Dazai to drop it.
A moment of silence goes by in the office as Atsushi feels everyone’s eyes upon him. Of course, that wasn’t 100% true since Kunikida was still working hard like he always did, but he could still feel several pairs of eyes on him.
Then, finally - like a light appearing in a pitch black room - he hears Dazai’s footsteps get further away from him. Atsushi takes a deep breath in relief momentarily, relishing in the moment that the prying eyes of his mentor were further away from him than they were before.
Sadly, the peace was short-lived as light footsteps started to come closer to him again. Atsushi tensed as he waited for something - anything - bad to happen, because of course it would. He broke a key rule of working, slacking off on your work while clocked in and not on a break .
Atsushi bit his lip as he hunched his shoulders, bracing for the impact he was sure was coming.
Waiting for someone to hit him for disobeying the rules was one of the worst moments he’s had in a while, the last time it was this feeling way was when he thought the tiger was going to attack him and that he was being used as bait for the Armed Decetive Agency to help find his Byakko.
But the moment of impact never came as he heard a stack of papers being set on his table and a few steps being taken away from him. Atsushi cautiously opened his eyes, not knowing that he had closed them in the first place. He looked up to where he remembered Dazai being only a few short moments ago, only to find him further away from him than he remembered. He let out a confused noise upon seeing Dazai with a soft smile on his face and gesturing with his head back over to Atsushi’s desk.
Atsushi takes a moment to try and read Dazai’s face, but as always, his expression was slightly off, giving Atsushi the impression that something was wrong. He was going to question it, but as he looked around the roo,m he found that the eyes once on him were directed back towards their own work, all except one, Ranpo. “It’s just a stack of papers, kid.” The self-proclaimed ‘Greatest Detective of All Time’ said as Atsushi locked eyes with him.
“Ha?” Atsushi lets out dumbly as he tilts his head. “And it’s not more work?” He asks as a clarification, but it didn’t matter if he asked that question or not - if he was given more work, he wouldn’t be able to avoid it.
Ranpo sighs as he leans back in his chair. “That’s it! I give up with this kid!” He squawks as he rips his glasses off his face and clumsily throws them on his desk and shutting his eyes once again, placing his feet up on the desk, and almost slamming down on his glasses.
Atsushi frowns at hearing Ranpo’s words and looks down at the ground. “I’m sorry…” He mutters as he reluctantly looks back over to his desk to find a small stack (about 20 if he were to guess) of plain printer paper stacked neatly in front of his crummy attempt at artwork that was meant to be a report.
“It’s paper?” Atsushi asks the ridiculous question with an all too innocent look in his eyes as he looks up at Dazai, an underlying cover of hope and disbelief.
Dazai’s soft smile grows at Atsushi’s hopeful eyes. “Yep!” He says too loudly for an intimate atmosphere. “It’s so you can draw some more at home if you want.” The smile on Dazai’s face was the closest that Atsushi had seen to a genuine happiness on the man than in the few months that he had known Dazai, a small smile coming up to Atsushi’s face as well upon seeing how happy he inadvertently made his superior.
“Thank you, Dazai-san,” Atsushi said as he returned Dazai’s smile with a pure one of his own.
As the clock hit 5 pm, Dazai sat up with an exaggerated motion and seemingly jumped off the couch he was resting on. How did Dazai know it was 5 pm on the dot with his eyes closed and his headphones in? Atsushi would never know, but that didn’t matter as the small alarm clock on his desk rang continuously, telling him it was the end of his shift. “One minute.” He whispers to the clock as he writes the last few kanji on the report Dazai had stuck on him a couple of hours ago.
Atsushi heard footsteps as he placed his pencils away in an organised manner that only he seemed to understand. He looked up to a soft tapping on his shoulder. “Atsushi-ni…” A soft, feminine voice said as the tapping continued. Atsushi let out a soft sigh as he closed his pencil case and looked up towards the girl.
“I’m almost ready, Kyouka. Do you think you can talk to Kenji-kun for a few minutes?” Atsushi asked in an equally soft voice, not wanting to startle the girl, it was just a bonus that he liked to speak just as quietly, too. It would be nice if he could talk this way all the time. He heard a small hum of confirmation as almost silent footsteps sounded away from him.
Continuing to pack up his desk, he shut the lid of his computer down after powering it off. Atsushi slowly stood up, warming up his muscles to the idea of standing up. He could hear the small cracks his joints made as he stood up, a slight pain running through his body as he did so. The soft chatter from his little sister and the louder voice from their youngest co-worker filled Atsushi’s ears, and he couldn’t help but smile softly as he finished cleaning up his desk for the day.
“I’m all done, Kyouka,” Atsushi said just loud enough for her to hear as he placed his pencil case in his bag and zipped up the small messenger bag. Kyouka turned her head quickly at Atsushi’s voice, saying a quick goodbye to Kenji before speed walking over to him.
The younger girl arrived near Atsushi and looked up at him with a soft smile that made his heart swell with brotherly love. “We can go home now?” Kyouka questioned just as softly as normal as Atsushi pushed in his chair, ready to leave the office for the day. He saw Kyouka frown and tilt her head. “Aren’t you going to take the paper Dazai-san gave you?” She asked carefully, seemingly aware that Atsushi was anxious to take it.
Atsushi bit his lip as he tried to come up with an answer for the younger girl, but the worried look in her eyes made Atsushi unable to say no. “O-oh, I forgot-” He says with a slight stutter in his voice as he quickly opens his army-style messenger bag and grabs the small stack of paper and puts it in his bag, making sure to grab a pencil before zipping the bag shut again. “Thanks for reminding me.” He says in a soft tone that was comfortable for him. “Now we can go home,” Atsushi confirms with a small smile as he looks around the office to see who is still there and if he needs to lock up for the night.
It was a little habit he had gotten into when Kunikida had a sick day off, and he was left at the same time as the President. The older man helped guide Atsushi the proper way to close up the agency and drove him home since it was starting to get dark, and Atsushi was anxious about almost being killed again by Akutagawa.
Luckily, almost everyone was still here, except for Dazai, of course, but that was expected. If the man didn’t want to be around any longer than he had to, Atsushi couldn’t blame him.
Another soft tap to Atsushi’s shoulders made him look down at his little sister again, her smile soft and carefully formed. Atsushi couldn’t help but feel a bit sad that Kyouka hadn’t learnt to trust the agency yet, but with the way the Mafia’s Rabid Dog had trained her, he guessed it would be normal for her to second-guess everything. “Do you want me to cook chazuke tonight, Atsushi-ni?” Kyouka asks in the same whisper as before, which had become their way of communicating.
Atsushi smiles softly at Kyouka before giving a soft nod. “Yeah, that would be nice, Kyouka-chan.” A simple nod comes from his little sister before she starts to walk to the exit of the agency, and Atsushi follows her quickly, but making sure to give a big wave when he was at the door and making sure everyone heard him say goodbye to them all.
After all, he had a lot to be thankful for and all because of the agency.
The chazuke that Kyouka cooked was amazing as always, and she always knew the right days to cook it so that Atsushi felt content with life.
Atsushi leans back on his legs, still trying to get used to sitting in a traditional Japanese style like Kyouka had taught him, trying to get a bit of relief from the strain that the position is having on his legs. He smiles softly as he leans back in to finish the last of the meal before leaning back again, his legs begging him to get out of the hell of a position that was way too fancy for him to understand the purpose of. He, however, stayed in the same post until Kyouk finished her own meal, a soft smile also on her face as she got up from the floor gracefully.
“You did a good job staying in your seiza position today, Atsushi-ni. You were able to wait until I finished eating today.” Kyouka praised as she picked up Atsushi’s plate before walking over to the sink to wash their dishes. Atsushi smiles brightly at Kyouka’s praise, something that was still so unfamiliar, but something he trusted was real with his little sister.
“Thanks, Kyouka-chan,” Atsushi says softly and slightly embarrassed. The day he gets used to praise will be a whole new world for him, but for now, he decided that that wasn’t going to happen for a while, so he put it out of his mind.
Leaning back on his legs a bit more, trying to get more relief and also trying to find a way to stand up from here, Atsushi frowns when he finds himself unable to move enough to get onto his bottom so he could stand up. A light blush covers his face as he leans forward to get on his hands and knees, and manages to get up from that way after a few moments of struggling.
Atsushi’s knees crack sickeningly loud as he stands up, a spike of pain rushing through the leg Akutagawa had cut off during their first meeting, reminding him again of how useless he was and how the agency could be doing so much better without him.
“Be careful, Atsushi-ni. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.” Kyouka says softly as she turns off the tap to the sink, it now full of water. Atsushi nods lightly in return as he walks over to the sink to help Kyouka dry the dishes she was washing. “You don’t need to help me, Ni-san. I can do it if you want to spend your time drawing.” Atsushi’s heart fluttered at his little sister’s words. She was always so kind to him in a way he couldn’t understand.
Smiling softly, Atsushi shakes his head. “No, no, I always help with the dishes, Kyouka-chan. I’ll be fine.” He replies in a voice just barely above a whisper, his words feeling like they were strained more than normal. He really just wanted to be in the darkness of his ‘room’ and go to sleep, but he had to be a good person and help his little sister. Atsushi could hear Kyouka sigh softly beside him, but neither of them said anything, simply finishing the task in silence.
The two of them quickly finish the dishes before they knew it, soft smiles on each other’s faces as they look at each other. “Looks like we finished faster than normal today, ha?” Atsushi questioned with a hint of amusement at Kyouka, the younger girl simply laughing lightly in return with a soft nod.
“Yeah, I guess we did,” Kyouka says warmly after she calmed down from her small bout of laughter. Atsushi smiles down at her, a soft smile on his face as the two of them stare at each other for a moment.
“I’m going to get changed into my pyjamas. Do you need the bathroom for anything?” Atsushi asked with a small tilt of his head. Kyouka nodded to him and Atsushi’s smile warms. “Thanks, Kyouka-chan.” He says softly before turning to grab his clothes that were in his ‘room’ and going to the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
Atsushi tries to not look at all of his scars while he changes, but that’s pretty hard to do when there was a mirror in the bathroom, and yes, he could just turn away from the mirror, but then he felt like an attack could come up from behind him at any moment, despite knowing his little sister would stop the intruder before they even got to the room he was in. He frowns deeply as he stares into his reflection with his bare chest open to the world, the three burn scars from his time at the orphanage that never truly healed despite his ability allowing him to regenerate a severed limb in less than a minute.
Shaking his head, Atsushi closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to look into his reflection. No matter how unsafe it felt, he just couldn’t look at his body any more today. He quickly gets changed into his pyjamas, which were just his old orphanage clothes. He didn’t want to get rid of them; it was a reminder of what could happen if he failed at being in the orphanage, what could happen if he wasn’t good enough.
The clothes from the orphanage made Atsushi’s brain scream at him to take them off, the stop the rough cotton on his body, but he wouldn’t let it win today, he was an adult now, he couldn’t let something as simple as his clothing affect him. Atsushi shakes his head again as he tries to get the thought of the uncomfortable clothes out of his head and walks out of the bathroom.
When he stepped out of the bathroom, Atsushi saw Kyouka in front of the bathroom with her pyjamas that he had bought her when she joined the agency in her arms, waiting for him to get out of the bathroom. “Sorry, Kyouka-chan!” He squeaks out a little louder than either of them wanted, making both of them jump slightly. Atsushi takes a deep breath before continuing, this time softer. “Sorry about that, Kyouka-chan, I didn’t realise you were waiting.” Kyouka smiled at him softly before nodding, and Atsushi moved to the side so his little sister could walk into the bathroom.
Atsushi lets out a soft sigh once he’s alone, the soft buzz of the shower turning on in the background. He walks over to his ‘room’ wanting to go to sleep and relish in the little sleep he would be able to get in between his nightmares, but when he opens the closet door, he frowns lightly at seeing the paper that Dazai had given him in the office this afternoon. He was tempted to use the paper; he wouldn’t lie, the idea of something about having a way to express himself without anyone knowing was comforting.
A small smile settles on Atsushi’s face as he steps into his ‘bedroom’. ‘Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to look up some videos on drawing.’ He thinks as he turns on the light that he had installed on the ceiling of his room, upon Kyouka’s insistence.
Atsushi sits on his futon and unlocks his phone, and pulls up YouTube. His YouTube feed was mostly just the local news stations, trying to find any information on any cases that might find their way into the office, but Atsushi had a feeling that it might be diluted with a few art videos by the end of the night.
Searching up ‘How to draw’, the first video that comes up with a video of how to draw a character by the name Naruto Uzumaki. The video said it was easy to draw, so Atsushi clicked into the video.
The video was almost 15 minutes long, which seemed like a long time, but Atsushi shook his head softly and tried to follow along.
Time went by fast, and before Atsushi knew it, he had a drawing in front of him. He didn’t know the character, but he thought it looked somewhat like the one on his phone, if only a little distorted; however, Atsushi was pretty happy with his first attempt.
A yawn left Atsushi’s mouth, the skin around his lips cracking slightly, making Atsushi wince lightly. He looks over to the top left corner of the screen to see that it was already 11:30 PM. ‘How did a 15-minute video take me nearly 3 hours to draw?’ Atsushi asks himself with a soft frown on his face. Maybe it was the fact that he was trying to get it perfect, who knows, but he really wanted to draw more, it was the first time he was having fun in god knows how long. Sure, he enjoyed his time at the agency, but he would hardly call it genuinely fun, not like this anyway.
Atsushi sighs as he looks over the drawing again. It was okay, but he knew he could do better if he just did a bit more practising. Slumping his shoulders, he knew it would be better to go to sleep, but he liked this too much not to do any more tonight. Hell, he might even get a good night’s sleep tonight if he keeps going with how happy he is, because yes, Atsushi could say he was genuinely happy while doing this.
Maybe this was his calling after all?
Atsushi went back to the search bar on YouTube, this time searching up ‘Drawing basics’. There were a few videos that caught Atsushi’s attention, but after clicking into each one, he found that none of them really felt right; there was no humour or lightheartedness. Not anything that made Atsushi feel like it was safe to make a mistake.
That is, until Atsushi found a video by a creator called ‘Draw like a Sir’. The name was interesting, so Atsushi clicked on it. He couldn’t make out what the man was saying in the video, trying to figure out if it was a different language or if Atsushi was just that tired now, but then he recognised one of the words the man said. “ Marcel", it sounded like a name, at least to Atsushi. He sighed lightly and decided that the man was not speaking Japanese.
Atsushi paused the video and pressed through a few menus to get to the subtitles menu, where he selected Japanese. He smiled brightly when the hiragana came up on the bottom of the screen. It wasn’t in kanji like most things were since it was just the auto-generated translation, and not done by a human for that video, but if anything, this was the best case possible! Atsushi still didn’t know a lot of kanji, but he did know all of his hiragana.
A bright smile came up on his face as he played it from the start again, this time able to read what the man was saying.
Within the first 32 seconds, Atsushi was laughing so loudly that he was afraid that he might have woken up Kyouka. This was the video he needed.
The video started off with the basics. Atsushi could tell that just by the first step. He looked over to his drawing that took way longer than he would ever like to admit, and noticed what Marcel was saying instantly. What he was doing was something called ‘chicken scratching’. They were short, sharp lines that seemed to feather together into a single line. Atsushi listened to the video, taking mental notes of what he had to do to fix it.
‘Confident lines that look like lines and bends’ Was what Atsushi could tell from the video. Marcel was so good at drawing that it shocked him; he was amazed that anyone could draw a line that quickly as he did demonstration after demonstration. ‘I’ll just focus on that for tonight. It’s too late to do anything else," he thinks to himself as he follows the demonstrations over and over again.
Before Atsushi could tell how long he had been doing it for, he heard ruffling from outside of the ‘room’ and the soft sound of Kyouka’s alarm going off.
Atsushi takes his eyes off the page in front of him. He had finished 3 pages of straight lines and circles, and he could tell each one was getting better than the last, to look up at the door next to him opening. “Atsushi-ni?” Kyouka says softly as she looks down at him. “Did you not get to sleep last night?” She asks as she looks at the papers in front of him. Sighing softly, Kyouka shakes her head lightly, not a cruel gesture, Atsushi notes, but one that looks like a disappointed mother.
“I-I got some sleep last night!” Atsushi tries to lie, but as always, his stuttering gives him away. While he hated lying, and he would feel guilty for days any time he did, he would feel worse if his little sister worried about him.
Kyouka sighs again and crouches down so she’s near Atsushi’s height while he’s sitting down. “Get some more sleep, Ni-san. We don’t have work for another 2 hours.” She says with a kind tone, a soft smile on her face. “I’ll wake you up as late as possible to still get to work on time, okay?” She comforts Atsushi, and he couldn’t help but smile lightly at her.
“Yeah, that would be a good idea, ha?” Atsushi questions with a soft laugh in his voice as he places his phone down and puts the papers that he was drawing on at his feet before shutting the light off. He slowly lies down, making sure not to hit his head.
As Atsushi’s head lands on the pillow, he feels his eyes drop almost instantly. “Thanks, Sis…” He whispers just loud enough to be heard as he falls asleep.
Bonus!!!
Kyouka smiles as she places the blanket that was still at her older brother’s feet over him. She felt warm, happy, and for once, she felt like her older brother trusted her. He had called her his sister out loud, and he had never done that before. She knows he has trauma, and maybe she can help him get through it.
As Kyouka closes the door to Atsushi’s room lightly, she pulls out her phone and sends Kunikid and Dazai a message each telling them that Atsushi won’t be coming in today since he had a bad night’s sleep. Yeah, she may have been lying a little bit, but she knew Kunikida would be a little lighter on Atsushi if she said that he at least tried to sleep last night.
Kyouka places her phone in her kimono and quickly makes Atsushi some food for when he woke up, a simple bit of leftover rice from last night’s chazuke dish, and places it alongside a note telling him that Kunikida told him to get some rest and that he had the day off. Kyouka hated lying almost as much as Atsushi did, but it would be better if he thought that the man gave him a day off instead of Kyouka calling in for him.
Taking a deep breath, Kyouka steps out of the dorm room and towards the agency office.
Messages:
Last message from Kunikida: ‘Of course, Kyouka, make sure he rests for today, he must have had a bad night if he’s not coming in for work.’
Last message from Dazai: ‘Sure, Kyouka, let’s just say he had a bad nightmare and not tell Kunikida the truth ;)’