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It’s dark when Dazai finally manages to find Ranpo hiding in the corner of the offices—Yosano’s, incidentally, and they both know Dazai isn’t about to say that part out loud.
“Oh my, Ranpo-san,” he says, half-smiling, acting like he hadn’t come here without even questioning where else Ranpo would be, “you’re rather good at hiding, aren’t you?”
“Go away, Dazai,” Ranpo mumbles, chin pressed against his knees. He wants a lollipop, but he also feels too lightheaded to do anything about it.
Dazai doesn’t do that. Instead, the revered boy demon—though he isn’t much of a boy anymore—sits down on the floor of their doctor’s office. “You’re awfully sulky again.”
“I’m tired,” Ranpo says. “I don’t wanna keep doing assignments I’d rather not do.”
“And you’d defy Mori-san, then?”
“Idiot!” he sticks his tongue out at Dazai, drawing the syllables out. “As if I didn’t know that you’re the one who keeps giving me those.”
“Because I know what assignments you actually prefer,” Dazai shrugs. “Unless you want me to give you the boring ones like the grunts stealing from our safes?”
“Ew, no,” Ranpo wrinkles his nose. “That’s boring. They don’t need even you for that.”
“You’ve been throwing tantrums an awful lot, lately,” Dazai notes. He’s not threatening Ranpo; they don’t work on him and anyway, Ranpo doesn’t need warnings. Besides…he knows he’s an important asset to the Port Mafia.
After all, it’s with the combined intelligence of the demon prodigies, Dazai Osamu and Edogawa Ranpo, that the Port Mafia functions as efficiently as it does. Dazai would do well enough on his own, but it wouldn’t take very long for him break in this kind of environment, not when—
“I miss Fukuzawa-san,” he admits quietly. He immediately wants to take it back, but Dazai doesn’t ever shut the fuck up about Chuuya and back when Oda was still around, him too, so Dazai deserves some of this, this little piece of fourteen-year-old Ranpo that’s tired and longing for something that isn’t tinted with despair.
“Are your missions taking a toll on you, Ranpo-san?” Dazai asks, sincere if not for the teasing note in there. Ranpo nips at the hand that tries to pet his hair, and then lets Dazai stroke his scalp comfortingly. If Dazai can ever do such a thing.
“I'm tired of stretching myself thin for everyone,” he manages. If it weren’t for the Black Lizards, he would’ve run away long ago, he thinks.
“Unfortunately,” Dazai replies, not sympathetic but understanding it intimately, “such is the curse of existing for the sake of another.”
And isn’t that the truth, Ranpo thinks scornfully.