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Doppo Kunikida is, most definitely, a heterosexual male. If such a fool existed who’d be unable to tell just by looking at him, that fool would eventually learn that this fact is quite clearly outlined in his book of ideals - and Kunikida’s ideals define the future of his very being.
He will marry the perfect woman. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Though there most certainly is a ‘well, there was this one time…’
—------------------------------------
It is another one of the Armed Detective Agency’s Halloween parties. Ranpo throws them every single year, primarily because it gives him a professional excuse to buy (and consume) more sweet treats.
“It’ll boost morale and company cohesion!” He always says. Everyone is split on whether or not he actually understands what any of those words mean, but he still manages to convince Fukuzawa every time.
Ranpo appears to be quite pleased with himself as he sits back in his seat at one of the desks that has been turned into a table full of themed food, some of which is courtesy of the cafe downstairs. His tacky black-and-blue vampire cape is much too big for him and drags across the floor as he reaches over for a little orange cupcake, frosted to look like a pumpkin. Awkwardly, he tries to avoid his false fangs as he takes a bite.
Kunikida never understood the appeal of elaborate or childish costumes for this sort of thing. He simply took in the madness from the comfort of his black suit and deep red dress shirt.
The room is adorned with budget-friendly Halloween decorations and erupting with the whirring sounds of spooky ambient music. At the back of the room is a makeshift stage - a rectangle outlined by rows of tiny LED tealights with another rectangle protruding out of it to form a catwalk. In front of the ‘stage’, colourful lights are pointing downward to indicate a dance floor. The rest of the space is open and sprinkled with tables and chairs.
Agency members and friends are mingling, though none are brave enough to dance…except for one.
This party is even louder than Kunikida is used to for one reason only: it’s Osamu Dazai’s first time attending a work function since he joined the agency mere months ago. Since he began his professional, paid position as the irreparable pain in Kunikida’s ass.
Dazai dances ridiculously under the lights, wafting the small amount of fog from the faulty fog machine around so that it swirls and whirls as if it were dancing with him. He doesn’t appear to have come in costume, which Kunikida immediately clocks as very unlike him. Perhaps he’s come as a clown and that’s the joke.
Kunikida chuckles to himself before taking another sip of his blood-red wine.
“Ladies! Gentleman too - but ladies!” Dazai blurts out, possibly a bit intoxicated but it’s unclear. This might just be how obnoxious he naturally is.
“I’ve planned a performance! To the stage! Give me two minutes.”
Good Lord.
The attendees, including a very unenthusiastic Kunikida, gather behind the tealights whilst Dazai hurries to the bathroom. A figure dressed head-to-toe in grey with fur accents, including wolf ears and a tail, moves to follow him after a few minutes. They look back at Kunikida on the way to reveal a face intricately painted to look like the fur of a werewolf. It’s Yosano.
Oh she’s in on it.
She gently shakes her head in an attempt to say something like ‘you’re going to be deeply annoyed by this’, which was probably going to be true no matter what, but her efforts to warn him anyway are appreciated. She then disappears into the bathroom as well.
It’s been a little closer to ten minutes, but a new song begins playing from Yosano’s phone as they both emerge from the bathroom, with Dazai making his way into the allocated ‘stage’ area.
Except it’s not quite Dazai.
The lights illuminate the foreign shape he has miraculously morphed into in just a few passing moments.
♫ A pity she does not exist. A shame he’s not a fag. ♫
Long, messy brown hair cascades over a black dress adorned with delicate purple jewels, gothic lace patterns, and a black-and-purple corset. The dress stops to reveal distressed fishnets forming bat shapes which disappear into a shimmering pair of tall black heels. To top it all off, upon his head rests a bedazzled pointy black hat that’s wrapped in a shiny purple ribbon.
Dazai soon stumbles around enough for Kunikida to catch a glimpse of the glittery purple drag-style makeup decorating his face. It is most certainly Yosano’s doing.
Kunikida wonders if the two of them are dead set on killing him tonight.
And then he wonders why he wondered that to begin with if he, and everyone else, knows full well that he isn’t into this sort of thing.
Though he would’ve bet money that Dazai isn’t either, and he’s the one doing it. It wasn’t exactly clear how this would help him to impress the women he’s always flirting with at the cafe.
♫ The only girl I ever loved was Andrew in drag. ♫
Dazai has to be drunk. Both of them do, in fact.
Kunikida downs the last of his first glass of wine. Yeah, no, he definitely isn’t drunk. Not only that, but he’s seemingly incapable of pulling his eyes away from ‘Dazai’ in order to make that so.
It’s going to be a long night.
He’s not going to have an awakening, though. After all, Doppo Kunikida is, most definitely, a heterosexual male. It just so happens that Dazai is dressed as a woman, and not just any old woman, but a hyperfeminine gothic witch. Anyone would get confused, right? That’s normal. It’s acting, after all.
But God was Kunikida struggling to tell his heart that.
The music drones on in the background as this almost-ethereal being wobbles on her heels and flails her arms around. Kunikida swears she playfully locks eyes with him.
He.
That’s Dazai.
He’s not so sure how long he spends fixated on the stage, tuning out the music and the cheering, before he’s snapped out of it by a shove from Ranpo, who’s now standing at his side.
“Ohhhhh. This your dream woman?”
Ranpo is clearly joking, and Kunikida could’ve joined in on the joke too. Instead, he makes it extremely obvious how unfunny this situation actually is.
“What? I- no. That’s Dazai. He’s a man. An agitating one.” He splutters.
“Sounds like somebody’s trying to convince himself that he doesn’t have a crush.”
Ranpo is clearly still joking. Kunikida can’t help but get defensive anyway.
“No. I said no. I don’t swing that way.”
He turns his attention back to the performance in hopes that Ranpo will be too hyperactive to reflect too deeply on the gravity of his response. He doesn’t seem to catch the devious smirk and knowing glare now piercing through him from Ranpo’s direction.
♫ So stick him in a dress and he’s the only boy I’d shag. ♫
Glitter and jewels flash like flickering stars as he - Dazai - twirls around under the spotlights. It’s as if the rest of the room turns pitch black and all of the light, all of the joy, all of the energy concentrates itself around this one man. The cheap tealights mutate into dainty wax candles, the stage floor into rose petals, the minimal amount of fog into gorgeous gusts of spiralling stardust.
It’s not ideal, but if Kunikida were given the opportunity to even touch such a celestial being as this, he would do everything in his power to make it so.
To clarify, Doppo Kunikida is, most definitely, a heterosexual male. Divine entities are simply exceptional cases.
And good Lord, was this man divine.
♫ The only boy I’d anything is Andrew in drag. ♫
Kunikida is finding it far too easy to conceptualise the idea of falling for what is essentially just Dazai in a dress. For the most part, it still looks like Dazai, breathes like Dazai, moves like Dazai, and most annoyingly of all, sounds like Dazai. He is becoming unopposed to the idea of falling for Dazai.
This cannot be.
“Thank you, thank you! I’m here all night!”
The performance is coming to a close as the stunning artefact on stage attempts to curtsy graciously, almost toppling over. Onlookers clap and throw glitter in return and it’s the first time Kunikida has properly paid any mind to their reaction.
They are laughing and cheering and laughing and cheering.
In the same way that Ranpo was joking around, Dazai has been too.
Even the shimmer in his eyes as he stared into the depths of Kunikida’s soul, unravelling his heart and mind into unfathomable strings of mixed signals. Even that was a joke. It was acting, after all.
♫ I’ll never see that girl again. He did it as a gag. ♫
Kunikida moves to take another sip of his wine before remembering it’s still empty from having downed it in panic earlier.
He remains transfixed by Dazai’s final twirls. There’s a melancholic sense of finality that embraces him throughout it all - the profound awareness that he may never see this side of Dazai again. Jokes are never as funny the second time around.
The morning will come and Dazai will be just as frustrating as he always is and Kunikida will be just as displeased.
♫ I’ll pine away forevermore for Andrew in drag. ♫
—------------------------------------
So, there was that one time. But it didn’t count.
It’s not as if, even now, Kunikida notices the softness of Dazai’s face more. The controlled messiness of his hair, the way his clothes sit quite femininely around his hips, the shimmer in his eyes that still occasionally slices through the train tracks carrying his thoughts.
There isn’t a lingering feeling in the furthest corner of his mind that longs to touch the divinity he couldn’t that night, and there certainly isn’t a sense that Dazai still has that divinity deep within him, even without the fancy dress.
Because Doppo Kunikida is, most definitely, a heterosexual male. And Osamu Dazai is, too, probably. There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it. And neither of them have a problem with that.