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The ceiling comes slowly back into view—one white dot disappearing at a time.
The world is grainy at first, as if someone placed a thin sheet of frost between him and reality. Kunikida blinks, and the dots sharpen into fluorescent panels, humming faintly like bees caught inside glass. The hum vibrates through his skull, joining the heavy gasps rattling around inside. It feels like that’s all he is—lungs scraping for air, a brain that sloshes in his head like it isn’t attached properly, the throb of pain crawling down the back of his neck.
Then a voice, low and familiar, slips into the cracks of consciousness.
“Does Kunikida-kun love his job more than this?”
Kunikida freezes.
Even in his fog, he knows that voice.
Dazai.
His eyes travel sideways—slow, unwilling—and there he is: crouched beside the cot, elbows on his knees, chin resting lazily in his palm as if they were sunbathing in the office and not sitting in an emergency med bay under the Agency. His bandaged eye is uncovered, hair slightly mussed, coat draped over a chair in a heap. He looks anything but professional.
He also looks unusually… tense.
Kunikida fights to sit up, but a warm hand presses his shoulder back down with surprising gentleness.
“No, no, no,” Dazai sings lightly, “don’t get up. You’ll make Yosano furious and I’m far too pretty to die today.”
Kunikida groans—annoyance first, nausea second. “What… happened…”
Dazai tilts his head, considering how to answer. “A bomb. You shielded a civilian. And then you tried to keep going.” He leans closer. “Keyword: tried.”
Images flash behind Kunikida’s eyes—the alleyway, the hostage, the blinking red light—
Then the blast.
His stomach churns.
He squeezes his eyes shut. “I should have ensured the perimeter. I should have double-checked the timing. I should have—”
“—not gotten yourself launched ten meters into a wall?” Dazai finishes cheerfully. “Yes, that would have been ideal.”
Kunikida opens his eyes to glare at him.
Dazai does not look away. Not even a little.
And that… worries him.
Kunikida forces his voice to steady. “Why are you here?”
Dazai blinks, genuinely confused. “You were unconscious.”
“That does not answer the question.”
“Well,” Dazai drawls, leaning back on his heels, “Kunikida-kun tends to get upset when people don’t follow his beloved schedule. Dying was definitively not on today’s agenda.”
Kunikida frowns. “I wasn’t dying.”
“You stopped breathing for thirteen seconds.”
The words drop like a slab of granite.
Kunikida’s heartbeat stutters. He looks at Dazai—and this time, he notices the small tremor in the man’s fingers, the faint tightness at the corners of his eyes.
Dazai laughs lightly, but it’s thin. “Yosano fixed it. Obviously. You’re fine now.”
Silence settles between them. Not awkward—just heavy.
Finally, Dazai reaches into his coat and pulls out Kunikida’s notebook.
It’s burned along one edge, pages warped but miraculously intact.
Dazai holds it up with something almost like respect.
“This little thing,” he says softly, “was still in your hand when I found you.”
Kunikida swallows. “I… wanted to write down the casualties. The damages.”
“You were half-conscious.”
“It needed to be recorded properly.”
Dazai laughs again—but this time it sounds defeated. “Does Kunikida-kun love his job more than this?”
Kunikida freezes.
Because that—that was not teasing.
That was not provocation.
That was not Dazai being Dazai.
That was fear.
And it is funny—
funnier than it has any right to be—
how a man so predictable in habit, schedule, and ideals…
is the only one who can throw Dazai entirely off-balance.
Kunikida finds his breath again. “Dazai.”
The brown eyes look up at him.
“I don’t love my job more than my life.”
Dazai lifts a brow. “Really? Because you certainly give convincing performances to the contrary.”
Kunikida exhales slowly. “I protect people. That is part of my ideals.”
“Yes, but dying for them?” Dazai presses, voice softening. “That is not the same thing.”
Kunikida hesitates. “I acted on instinct.”
Dazai’s lips twist. “Instinct gets people killed.”
“So does hesitation.”
For a moment, they stare at each other—two stubborn men who refuse to blink first.
Then Dazai sighs. It comes out too raw, too real, and he immediately tries to hide it behind a flimsy smile.
“You know,” he says, voice light again but cracking underneath, “you’re very inconvenient, Kunikida-kun. If you die, I’ll have to torment someone else, and that takes effort.”
Kunikida allows a tiny, rare smile. “I will try not to burden you like that.”
Dazai’s shoulders relax. Relief, quiet and subtle, settles over him like a blanket he pretends he doesn’t need.
He lightly taps the notebook against Kunikida’s arm. “Yosano said you’ll be fine in a few hours. No permanent damage. You can go back to lecturing me tomorrow.”
“Good,” Kunikida mutters. “Your reports are still atrocious.”
“And your hair is still tragic.”
“Tch.”
Dazai stands, stretching with exaggerated flair, but pauses at the door.
He doesn’t look back when he speaks—not fully. Just enough to show half a smile and half of something else—something like sincerity peeking through a crack.
“Kunikida.”
A beat.
“Don’t scare me like that again.”
Kunikida’s breath catches.
“I won’t,” he answers quietly.
Dazai nods once, then steps out of the room, coat swishing behind him.
The ceiling comes slowly back into view again—but this time, Kunikida isn’t thinking about white dots or throbbing pain.
He’s thinking about Dazai’s trembling hands.
He’s thinking about how someone so reckless, evasive, and unpredictable could care so deeply without ever admitting it out loud.
And he’s thinking—
that maybe, just maybe—
Dazai’s question wasn’t rhetorical at all.