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The Armed Detective Agency had questioned many things about Dazai, for instance his past profession, if he actually had any living blood relatives (which was still up for debate to this day, because Dazai is an enigma), where he disappeared off to when he wasn’t trying to find a beautiful lady to commit a double suicide with (or throw himself into the nearest river) or why he was so casual around dangerous mafiosos like Chuuya Nakahara or Akutagawa.
But there were also many things they hadn’t questioned, and never felt the need to. Dazai’s strange fascination with wearing rings was one of these things. It didn’t seem important, so why should they question why their coworker decided to wear seven different rings every day (or why he never seemed to leave his house without them)? Most of the time, no one paid much attention to the rings, because they didn’t interfere with work or any cases.
Sometimes, Atsushi caught himself wondering about his mentor’s (slightly odd) taste in accessorization. Other than Yosano and Jun-ichiro, Dazai was the only person in the agency who added jewellery to their outfit. It’s not like wearing that many rings was odd; in fact, many men and women considered it fashionable to wear multitudes of rings. Atsushi himself had never really seen the hype about it, but maybe that was because he had never owned that many rings… or rings in general… or jewellery, point blank. But he had noticed how his mentor tended to twist one specific ring whenever he was in deep thought about something (normally when he was trying to deduce something while on a case deemed ‘too boring’ by Ranpo’s standards, but ‘too hard’ for anyone else in the agency other than Dazai)
Most of Dazai’s rings were pretty plain and boring, ranging from chrome to silver to gold, but this ring in particular always stood out to Atsushi. On Dazai’s left ring finger, there was always a simple onyx band shot through with iridescent ruby tendrils. Now, Dazai always tended to switch out the placement of his rings over the week, but this ring was always on his left ring finger, and he only took it off to wash his hands or when he was about to get into a dangerous fight while on a case.
The resident weretiger had thought about possibly bringing it up with Dazai many times before, but then ultimately decided that asking such a silly question would just waste his mentor’s time and never got around to it.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------
One day, however, Atsushi decided just to bite the bullet.
He nervously gnawed at his lips, wondering how to approach the topic with his mentor. The mentor in question was sitting at his desk with a stack of paperwork in front of him, twirling a pen in his hand and staring blankly off into space. Dazai had been forced to do his paperwork by Kunikida and clearly hadn’t started yet. But, the funny thing was, no matter how little Dazai actually did his paperwork, the stack of paper never got bigger, yet never got smaller either.
That’s not your biggest question right now, Atsushi! Focus!, He thought to himself.
Dazai was drawn out of his stupor by the sound of Atsushi’s throat clearing behind him. He spun his chair around to look Atsushi in the eye.
“Eh? You need something, Atsushi-kun?” Atsushi awkwardly fiddles with his fingers at being addressed directly,
“W-well, uhm, you know how you always wear a lot of rings, Dazai-san? Well, I was wondering, where did you get all of them from? And why does the one on your left ring finger seem so important?” Dazai’s eyes widened slightly in surprise at the question before he chuckled, a delicate smile on his face,
“Ah, we sure are asking a lot of questions today, aren’t we, At~su~shi-kun~?” Before the boy in question started scrambling to apologise, Dazai held up a hand,
“No need to apologise, it’s fine! I was just surprised at your questions! But, if you must know, my dear Atsushi-kun, they were all gifts- including the one you wish to know about so badly.”
When Dazai finished his sentence, he became acutely aware of the fact that most of the office had started listening in to his conversation with the resident weretiger (other than the office clerks, who still had work to do)
Yosano leaned onto Kunikida’s desk across from Dazai’s with a raised eyebrow and a look of intrigue on her face,
“Oh? Just who is this mysterious gift-giver, then, Dazai? I’m intrigued!” A teasing grin stretched across the doctor’s face as the bandaged man laughed lightly.
“Well, if you must know,” He said, interlocking his fingers together before resting his chin on them, rings glinting in the sunlight from the open window, “They were gifts from my beloved of seven years!”
The room went so quiet that everyone could hear the sound of both Kunikida’s pen clattering to the floor and the poor man himself (it had gotten so quiet that Fukuzawa stuck his head out of his office door to make sure that the Agency was still safe and sound)
Yosano’s face blanked, and she blinked several times, as if she was going through a complete reboot.
“Your… WHAT…!?” Dazai then avoided her question by glancing at an imaginary watch on his wrist, loudly proclaiming, ‘AH! I’m late for folding the dishes!’ throwing on his trenchcoat and promptly jumping out of the window. Atsushi breathed a sigh of relief when a faint ‘I’M OKAY!!!’ echoed back up to them through the open window.
Well, if the Black Lizards can survive being thrown out of the window by Kenji, Dazai can too, I suppose…
—------------------------------------------------------------------------
Keys jangled in the lock as the door to a ridiculously fancy (and expensive) penthouse creaked open. Dazai slipped off his shoes and hung his coat up on the rack next to an infinitely fancier coat and an albeit slightly tacky hat.
“I’m home, slug!”
“Welcome back, mackerel!” Was the resounding reply that came from deeper within the penthouse.
Chuuya was curled up on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate in between his hands, even though it was only Autumn and also 3 p.m. The mafia executive had forgone his usual gloves and suit and instead was dressed in a pair of ratty Hello Kitty pyjama pants and a well-loved white t-shirt. Due to the lack of his usual gloves, Chuuya’s pale fingers were on full display, with a simple onyx ring shot through with holographic icy blue tendrils glinting in the lighting of the television. At the sound of Dazai’s footsteps, Chuuya raised an eyebrow and looked him up and down,
“You left work early again, didn’t you?” He asked, fully aware of the bandaged man’s answer, yet the man in question simply smiled,
“Whaaaaattt?? Nooo! I have done nothing of the sort!” Dazai gasped over dramatically and clutched his chest like a man succumbing to a heart attack, “How could you accuse me of such a horrid thing, Chuuya! I’m heartbroken, I am!”
Chuuya’s only response was to pause the TV and fix Dazai with a sceptical stare,
“Mhm? And I’m the goddamn milkman.”
“So rude! Is this how you treat your gorgeous genius husband?”
“Yep.”
“Chuuya!! You weren’t supposed to agree with me!”
The ginger in question only rolled his eyes and stood up, and pressed a kiss to Dazai’s cheek (with only ‘minor’ difficulty),
“There, happy now?” He said, raising an eyebrow.
“Maybe…~”
“FUCK YOU MEAN ‘MAYBE’?!”
—------------------------------------------------------------------------
The next day, Dazai felt as if every head in the building swivelled towards him as soon as they heard the sound of the door hinges swinging like a pack of hungry animals. Yet it wasn’t until he sat down at his desk among his towering piles of paperwork that Yosano quickly approached him with a smile so sharp he felt like it could probably cut glass… or steel… or the throat of a certain mafia boss,
“Sooo… Dazai… care to tell us about this mystery sweetheart you oh so carelessly told us about yesterday?”
Dazai eyed the machete haphazardly stuffed into Yosano’s bag before steepling his fingers together in an almost perfect mirrored image of the previous day’s conversation,
“Oh? You mean my beautiful husband of four years?” He asked faux-innocently, well aware of the chaos he had just caused. Kunikida, the poor guy, simply turned ashen white before promptly passing out. Yosano, who had been leaning on Dazai’s desk, slipped forward and banged her elbow on the desk. Atsushi (who had just walked in with food for everyone) walked right back out the way he came, earning a mournful glance from Ranpo (although that could’ve been directed at the food and not Atsushi)
The office had gone dead silent. The only sound that could be heard was the faint ticking of the clock. Dazai blinked once, twice, and looked around the room before the bandaged man spoke up,
“Wait… you guys didn’t know I was married…?” and then promptly burst into laughter.
The office was still reduced to a stunned silence broken only by the faint creaking of the door as a very confused and slightly concerned Atsushi poked his head in. Finally, Yosano regained her wits about her before replying
“No??? How were we supposed to know when you flirt with basically everything that breathes?! Specifically, women?! How were we supposed to guess you were married to a man?!”
Dazai simply raised his brow, channelling his inner Chuuya impression,
“What? I thought it was obvious? Didn’t the ring that I always wear on my ring finger not give it away? Plus it literally says on my files that I’m married! How did you guys not notice??”
Kunikida (who had only come to at the mere mention of files and paperwork in general) sprang up from his spot on the floor and all but ran to the filing cabinet, which held all of the agency members’ files, before yanking open one of the drawers and passive aggressively rifling through the files until he landed on Dazai’s. He promptly opened Dazai’s file and read so fast that he might’ve set a new world record before Kunikida’s jaw dropped in pure shock.
Yosano, who had been watching Kunikida with a mix of keen intent, amusement and also shock, immediately jumped up from where she was still (uncomfortably) positioned on Dazai’s desk from when she had slipped to snatch the file from the poor blonde’s hand. Like Kunikida, Yosano’s jaw dropped,
“HOLY SHIT, DAZAI!” She loudly exclaimed, with a weak “language..!” coming from Kunikida, who seemed on the verge of passing out again, yet his small protests seemed to go unheard as Yosano looked from the file, to Dazai and back again before continuing as she caught sight of the expression on Dazai’s face, which seemed to be saying ‘Go on…?”
(She was certain there was a near-identical look on Ranpo’s face, who seemed to have deemed the interaction actually interesting as soon as Kunikida had read Dazai’s file)
“It says here that you’re married to… MAFIA EXECUTIVE CHUUYA NAKAHARA?!”
Despite the fact that he had already read the file, Kunikida promptly passed out again.
(Seriously, he should get that checked…)
The brunette simply giggled and shrugged lightly, all seven of his rings glinting in the sunlight.
“Well, what can I say? Chuuya likes to spoil me and… what’s more romantic and meaningful than seven rings for seven years worth of partnership?”
Well, that does explain why Dazai is so comfortable with Nakahara. One Dazai Mystery™ solved out of hundreds (or possibly thousands).