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Atsushi had been staring at his bowl of rice and miso soup for a concerning amount of time.
It wasn’t that anything was wrong with it. The rice was warm. The soup steamed gently, thin curls rising toward the ceiling of the Armed Detective Agency’s kitchen. Morning light filtered through the windows, soft and pale, painting the scuffed wooden table in gold. It should have been peaceful.
Instead, Atsushi was frowning at his breakfast like it had personally offended him.
He held his chopsticks suspended midair, unmoving, gaze fixed with intense concentration. Anyone watching might have assumed he was contemplating a life-altering decision. In reality, he was trying to decide whether the tofu cube in his soup looked vaguely like a cat.
It did.
Which meant he couldn’t eat it.
He sighed quietly.
From somewhere behind him came the faint shuffle of slippers across tile. Atsushi didn’t react. The Agency was always full of small sounds—papers rustling, a kettle clicking off, Kunikida muttering about schedules in the next room. It was normal. Familiar.
The shuffle got closer.
Atsushi narrowed his eyes at the tofu.
There was a pause. A subtle shift of weight. Then—
Two hands landed on his shoulders.
Atsushi jolted, nearly launching his bowl into orbit. “D-Dazai-san?!”
“Good morning, Atsushi-kun,” came the cheerful, sing-song reply directly next to his ear.
Atsushi twisted in his chair. Osamu Dazai was smiling at him with far too much energy for this early in the day. His bandages were neatly wrapped as always, his beige coat draped carelessly over his shoulders like he hadn’t fully committed to wearing it.
“W-What are you doing?” Atsushi asked, still clutching his bowl protectively.
“Observing,” Dazai said.
“You’re not observing. You’re… hovering.”
Dazai tilted his head thoughtfully. “Hovering is a form of observation.”
Before Atsushi could argue, Dazai did something infinitely worse. He lifted one knee onto the side of Atsushi’s chair.
“D-Dazai-san?”
“Hm?”
“What are you doing?”
“Climbing.”
Atsushi’s brain stalled. “Climbing what?”
“You.”
And with that extremely unhelpful explanation, Dazai proceeded to attempt exactly that.
He shifted his weight forward, draping himself over Atsushi’s back like a particularly dramatic scarf. One arm looped around Atsushi’s shoulders, the other braced against the table. Atsushi made a strangled noise as his chair screeched against the floor.
“Dazai-san! I’m eating!”
“That’s fine,” Dazai replied lightly, as if this were a perfectly reasonable breakfast activity. “Don’t let me interrupt you.”
“You’re physically on me!”
Dazai hummed, adjusting his grip as if testing for structural stability. “You’re sturdier than you look, Atsushi-kun. Very impressive.”
Atsushi felt heat rush to his face. “That’s not the point!”
He tried to shift forward, but Dazai simply followed, sliding more firmly against his back. It was like being ambushed by a long-limbed cat who had decided this was its new perch.
“Dazai-san,” Atsushi said, attempting patience, “please get off.”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“I’m conducting an experiment.”
Atsushi blinked. “An experiment?”
“Yes. I read somewhere that white tigers are excellent climbers.”
“That doesn’t mean you can climb me!”
Dazai rested his chin on Atsushi’s shoulder, peering down at the bowl. “Ah. You’re contemplating tofu.”
Atsushi stiffened. “I am not contemplating tofu.”
“You’ve been staring at it for three minutes.”
“You were timing me?!”
“Of course.”
Atsushi felt his eye twitch.
Dazai shifted again, and this time he actually attempted to hoist himself higher, planting a foot against one of the chair legs for leverage. The chair wobbled ominously.
“Dazai-san!” Atsushi grabbed the edge of the table with one hand, trying to keep them both upright. “We’re going to fall!”
“If we do,” Dazai said thoughtfully, “we’ll fall together. How romantic.”
“That’s not romantic! That’s dangerous!”
Dazai ignored him completely and leaned further, half draped across Atsushi’s back now. Atsushi could feel the weight pressing down between his shoulders, warm and solid and entirely too real. It wasn’t heavy—Dazai was deceptively lean—but it was enough to throw off his balance.
“Are you trying to prove something?” Atsushi demanded.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“That you are, in fact, a suitable climbing structure.”
Atsushi sputtered. “I’m not a structure!”
Dazai tapped his shoulder thoughtfully. “Hmm. Moderate stability. Slight trembling.”
“I’m trembling because you’re on me!”
The chair gave another ominous scrape.
From the doorway came a dry voice. “What on earth are you two doing?”
Atsushi twisted his head just enough to see Doppo Kunikida standing there, notebook in hand, glasses glinting dangerously in the morning light.
“Good morning, Kunikida-kun!” Dazai chirped.
Kunikida stared at the scene: Atsushi seated at the table, bowl clutched tightly; Dazai halfway up his back like he was scaling a tree; the chair threatening collapse.
“This,” Kunikida said slowly, “was not in my schedule.”
Atsushi looked near tears. “It wasn’t in mine either!”
Dazai waved one hand lazily. “You should really add ‘spontaneous bonding exercises’ to your morning routine, Kunikida-kun.”
“Get down,” Kunikida said flatly.
“But I’m almost at the summit.”
“You are not climbing him.”
Dazai sighed dramatically but made no move to dismount. Instead, he shifted again, attempting to hook an arm more securely over Atsushi’s shoulder. Atsushi yelped as his balance tipped forward, and his chopsticks finally slipped from his fingers, clattering into the bowl.
“My breakfast!” he cried.
Dazai peered down. “Ah. The tofu has perished.”
“I didn’t even eat it!”
“Tragic.”
Atsushi tried to stand up, thinking that might dislodge him, but the moment he did, Dazai clung tighter with a startled “Oh!” and wrapped both arms fully around Atsushi’s torso.
“Don’t shake the tree while I’m climbing it,” Dazai scolded lightly.
“I am not a tree!”
Kunikida pinched the bridge of his nose. “Dazai.”
“Yes?”
“If you do not remove yourself from Atsushi this instant, I will personally throw you out the window.”
There was a thoughtful pause.
Dazai considered this.
Then, with exaggerated reluctance, he slid back down, landing lightly on his feet behind Atsushi as though nothing unusual had occurred.
Atsushi immediately collapsed back into his chair, shoulders sagging in relief. He turned slowly, staring at Dazai with a mixture of disbelief and lingering indignation.
“Why?” he asked, exhausted. “Just… why?”
Dazai tilted his head, expression softening just slightly—so subtly that if Atsushi hadn’t been looking directly at him, he might have missed it.
“You looked too serious,” Dazai said simply.
Atsushi blinked.
“You were staring at your breakfast like it held the secrets of the universe. I couldn’t allow that.”
“That’s not a reason to climb me!”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Dazai smiled faintly. “You’re not frowning anymore.”
Atsushi realized, with mild horror, that he wasn’t.
He was flushed. Frazzled. Slightly offended. But not brooding over tofu.
“That’s not—” he started, then stopped.
Dazai reached forward suddenly and flicked Atsushi lightly on the forehead. “You think too much in the mornings, Atsushi-kun.”
Atsushi swatted his hand away. “You don’t think at all!”
“Incorrect,” Dazai said, placing a hand dramatically over his heart. “I think constantly. Mostly about dramatic exits and creative inconveniences.”
Kunikida snapped his notebook shut with a sharp clap. “If you two are finished with whatever this was, we have work.”
“Yes, yes,” Dazai replied breezily, already drifting toward the door. “Come along, Atsushi-kun. You can contemplate tofu later.”
Atsushi looked down at his abandoned bowl. The tofu cube had indeed lost its cat-like shape, now broken by the fallen chopsticks.
He sighed.
Then he stood.
As he passed Dazai, he hesitated. “You’re not climbing me again.”
“No promises,” Dazai said lightly.
Atsushi narrowed his eyes.
Dazai smiled—bright, mischievous, and faintly inscrutable.
And as they walked out of the kitchen together, Atsushi couldn’t shake the feeling that, somehow, being used as an impromptu climbing structure was going to become a recurring part of his mornings.