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Kunikida wasn’t depressed.
He repeated it to himself every morning—like brushing his teeth, like sharpening his pencils. Routine. Necessary. Predictable.
Kunikida Doppo was not depressed.
He wasn’t. He couldn’t be.
Someone like him—someone with a meticulously designed notebook full of ideals, someone who lived every day according to structure, order, logic—such a person didn’t become depressed. It didn’t fit into any of his categories. It didn’t align with the blueprint of who he believed he was supposed to be.
Depressed people lost track of their goals. They stopped caring. They couldn’t move, couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t continue.
Kunikida could still move.
Kunikida could still work.
Kunikida could still breathe.
Therefore, he wasn’t depressed.
He wasn’t suicidal either. The thought alone was so absurd he nearly laughed whenever the idea brushed the edge of his awareness—like an insect buzzing too close. Something to swat away, something to dismiss.
He wasn’t suicidal.
He wouldn’t kill himself.
He—
Of course he wouldn’t.
…But the truth always lingered somewhere beneath the denial, like silt at the bottom of a clear river. He wouldn’t see it unless he disturbed the surface—unless something stirred the mud—but he could feel it sometimes. Heavy. Thick.
Something that wanted to rise.
The Agency had grown used to his rigidity, to the sharp and precise movements of a man who controlled everything he could because there were too many things he couldn’t. They didn’t see the tightening at the corner of his jaw when a case ended with casualties. They didn’t hear his breath hitch when he rewrote a page of his notebook because the day hadn’t gone according to plan. They didn’t notice when his idealism—so bright, so consuming—began to eat him alive instead of guiding him.
But Dazai noticed.
Of course Dazai noticed.
Because Kunikida wasn’t as silent as he thought he was. He wasn’t as composed. Not anymore.
It began with the missions—more of them ending with civilians injured. Then came the night he didn’t go home, instead staying at the office long after everyone else had left. When Atsushi returned around midnight because he’d forgotten his wallet, he found Kunikida still sitting at his desk, writing the same sentence again and again until the indentation carved practically through the paper.
“It wasn’t enough,” he whispered to himself, unaware anyone else was there. “If I had reacted three seconds earlier, I could have—”
He stopped.
He erased it.
He rewrote it.
Erased it again.
Atsushi backed out before he noticed him, shaken.
But Kunikida wasn’t depressed.
The tremor in his fingers was just exhaustion. The tightening in his chest was simply stress. The wish—deep, unspoken—that he could trade places with the people who died was just empathy taken too far.
He didn’t want to die.
He just didn’t want to be himself anymore.
But that wasn’t the same thing… right?
The truth finally crept out the night the Agency faced a failure so catastrophic Kunikida disappeared. Not for long—just for a few hours. Enough time for them to realize something was wrong.
They found him at the riverbank, standing completely still, staring at the black water that swallowed the moonlight.
The wind was cold. Winter-cold. Biting through his coat, numbing his fingers.
But numb was better.
Numb meant silence. Numb meant peace.
Dazai approached without making a sound, hands in his pockets, voice unusually gentle.
“You know,” he said conversationally, “people usually come here when they want to be alone with thoughts that scare them.”
Kunikida didn’t turn.
Didn’t flinch.
Didn’t answer.
So Dazai stepped closer.
“You don’t have to tell me,” he said. “But don’t lie to yourself. You’re smarter than that.”
Kunikida exhaled shakily. “I’m not—I’m not depressed.”
Dazai’s eyes softened. “Is that what you think you need to be for your life to hurt?”
Kunikida swallowed.
“I’m not suicidal either.”
“Mm. And I’m not annoying,” Dazai murmured. “We all lie to protect ourselves.”
Silence.
Kunikida’s hands were clenched by his sides, knuckles pale. “I just… wanted the noise to stop. Just for a moment. Just—everything. The expectations, the ideals, the failures. It’s too much sometimes.” His voice cracked, barely perceptible. “But that doesn’t mean I want to die.”
“No,” Dazai said quietly. “But it does mean you’re breaking. And you’re pretending you’re not.”
Kunikida shut his eyes.
The cold wind stung his face, but not enough to ground him. His heartbeat felt slow and heavy, like it didn’t want to keep going.
“I can’t afford to break,” he said. “People depend on me.”
“You’re human,” Dazai replied. “Humans break.”
“I don’t get to. I have ideals.”
“You also have limits.”
“I shouldn’t.”
“You do.”
The world seemed to tilt under his feet, but Dazai grabbed his sleeve and held him steady.
“You don’t need to jump,” Dazai said softly. “You just need help.”
“I’m not suicidal,” Kunikida insisted again, but it finally sounded like what it truly was:
Not a declaration.
A plea.
Dazai squeezed his arm.
“I know,” he said. “But you’re hurting enough that it scares me anyway.”
Kunikida finally—finally—looked at him. Eyes red. Breathing unsteady.
“…What do I do?”
“For now?” Dazai said. “Come back inside. Come back to us.”
Kunikida hesitated.
But then he nodded.
Dazai didn’t let go of him the entire walk back, afraid that if he did, Kunikida would drift back toward the river without even realizing it.
Kunikida wasn’t depressed.
He wasn’t suicidal.
But he was hurting.
And for the first time, he let himself admit it.
It didn’t fix everything.
Not even close.
But it was the first step away from the riverbank.
And for now—
that was enough.