Work Text:
Most people said Monday's sucked, but Atsushi didn't really see why. They just felt like every other day to him, but he'd never had a real sense of time or what certain days felt like since they used to feel all the same to him. Which, maybe, caused him to be a little unreliable when it came to the topic. Suddenly, he felt a pair of eyes staring him down which brought upon the feeling of dread and weariness. God, he hated the feeling. But he supposed it was better than falling asleep on cold cement and no blanket. Either way, he knew why he felt like this. There was no other rational explanation.
Dazai was staring at him, wasn't he? He probably wanted something. But the question was, what exactly did he want?
Finally, Dazai leaned over and batted his eyelashes rapidly. He probably thought that was cute.
"Heyyy, Atsushi. Mind doing some math for me? I mean, it's not just standalone math for no reason. It's a part of my work project that I don't feel like doing right now." He asked, still staring Atsushi down with those vacant eyes. He'd kept the 'or ever' left unsaid.
If Atsushi said no, Dazai would play that fake victim card and then somehow manage to be about five hundred percent more annoying than he already was, a real headache. So he'd learned that it was usually better to just agree and play along with it. It was a lesson that he learned pretty early on after seeing the rest of the Agency go along with it. Turning to face him, Atsushi smiled and nodded.
"Sure, just leave it to me." He agreed, immediately hearing a loud gasp from Dazai.
"You're a lifesaver, Atsushi! Here you go! I'll be going out for a bit." Dazai eagerly handed him the sheet of paper he'd previously been staring at blankly for about thirty minutes, then rushed out the door before anyone could ask questions.
Well, Atsushi guessed it was just him and Ranpo in the office now. If he had to guess, he was probably ditching work to go see Chuuya. If Kunikida were here, he'd lose his mind. But who knows, maybe for once he'd be wrong about that assumption.
He turned his eyes toward the paper that Dazai handed him and then immediately felt...lost, like a hanged corpse. This math was...complex, there were symbols he'd never seen in math before. He reread the prompt several times, but his brain still couldn't comprehend the concept of it. Something about funds, something about percentages, none of it made any sense at all to Atsushi. Yes, he understood that he was supposed to add something with something else, but there was parentheses. What was that supposed to signify? Not to mention the other various symbols on the paper. Absentmindedly, he ended up rolling the pen around in his hand as he stared down what was, essentially, a brick wall. Then, a horrible thought struck him.
Was...he supposed to know all of this? Was he supposed to know what each symbol meant and what to do? Did everyone else in the Agency know how to do this type of math? Is that why Dazai passed the responsibility onto him? Because it quickly occurred to him that, no, he didn't know how to do any of it. He didn't even know where to start. Suddenly, he felt like he was the odd one out. Why did it have to be him that was the stupid one? It was something he was unused to pondering. It couldn't have just been basic addition—though he'd struggled with that too in the past—could it? Atsushi bit back a sigh and at least pretended to be writing stuff down. He knew that realistically, Ranpo already knew he wasn't, but he'd still pretend.
What really ended up happening, though, was Atsushi staring blankly at the paper. His hand mimicked the motion of writing, quite easily, but didn't properly write anything down. His mind wandered elsewhere, like how he was suddenly hyperaware of the feeling of having shoes on. It was still kind of a new thing for him, he was used to being barefoot and getting scrapes on the most random parts of his feet due to that. To suddenly have shoes after being neglected and abused for so long felt kind of weird now that he paid attention to it. Not to mention everything else, even that felt odd. Half the time he still expected to get thrown to the ground and yelled at whenever he couldn't meet a deadline.
Yet, the President was always weirdly patient with him. He took in the work and made no comment about how useless he was for being late, it seemed too good to be true. He was so entangled in his own thoughts that he hadn't even heard the door to the office open. In fact, he hadn't even looked up. His stare continued to pierce through the paper.
Poe glanced around, then nearly jumped out of his skin when he'd noticed Atsushi sitting there. He hadn't expected anyone aside from Ranpo to be in the office that day, Ranpo told him there wouldn't be. Quickly, he walked toward Ranpo with urgency.
"Ranpo! I thought you said there'd be no one at the office today..." he whispered, making sure his voice was hushed enough to not be overheard.
Not like it mattered, Atsushi wasn't listening to his surroundings anyway.
Ranpo glanced up and waved.
"It's just Atsushi, he's not gonna bite you. We'll be fine, hand me the novel." He assured, grinning knowingly. Poe sighed, but made no further comment.
Silently, he handed his newly finished book to Ranpo and repositioned Karl slightly—who rested on his shoulders but held no opposition to be interacted with—as a means of keeping his hands busy.
The noise of the raccoon chittering was the one noise that managed to snap Atsushi out of his daze. His neck nearly snapped due to how quick it had moved upward. He found himself making rather awkward eye contact with the raccoon Poe held. This, of course, made Poe jump ever so slightly.
"Oh. I didn't know you'd have company over. I can leave if you two wanna be alone and talk." Atsushi offered, but Ranpo firmly shook his head.
"Nah. Stay, it's fine." He assured, though Atsushi couldn't tell if he was just saying that or if he meant it.
Silently, he nodded and looked back down at Dazai's work project. He'd forgotten about it, but it still looked just as confusing as it did before he zoned out. Something about a third, something about percentages and dividing. But he still wasn't sure how he was supposed to do that, it was like trying to learn a foreign language. He didn't understand a single word that lay on the sheet of paper, which looked back and mocked him silently. Surely, Ranpo knew how to do it. But Atsushi glanced up, he and his guest were busy talking and Atsushi didn't want to disturb them. So he'd, quietly, sighed and looked back down at the paper. He'd figure it out eventually, right? ... Right?
Unfortunately, with Ranpo being a complete genius, he noticed the sigh and turned his head.
"Need some help with that?" Ranpo offered, but the offer itself almost immediately made Atsushi feel bad.
"No, I got it. Thanks for the offer, though." It was a lie, Atsushi knew that. But the words left his mouth before he could stop them.
Awkwardly, he looked back down at the paper and tried to hide his face from Ranpo. He could see the look on his face, the frown that asked a silent question. 'Why wouldn't you want help when you're obviously struggling with it?' It was a question that Atsushi couldn't really answer. Maybe he didn't want to be a burden, maybe he didn't want to disrupt Ranpo and his guest's time. And he could also basically see the big question mark that popped up over his head. God, he shouldn't be bothering other people with the task he willingly took on like that. Not that Dazai would care, as long as someone got it done for him he'd be happy. But even that mindset he didn't really understand.
He'd overheard horror stories from office workers while assigned to certain cases before, about how their bosses would always belittle them despite their efforts. It made Atsushi wonder if Dazai would do the same if he found out how incompetent he actually was when it came to math. Atsushi was promptly snapped out of his thoughts when Ranpo tapped his shoulder, now standing next to him instead of across from him.
"You sure you don't want help with that? Because it sounds like you're lying to me." Ranpo deduced, he was fairly good at that so it didn't really surprise Atsushi or catch him off guard.
He looked down at the paper, then back up at Ranpo and shook his head.
"You have someone over so I don't want to bother you." Atsushi replied, making an expression that made it seem like he understood what was written. But he didn't. They both knew that.
"Too bad!" Ranpo suddenly exclaimed, leaning down to read the paper. As for Poe, he awkwardly stood in the background.
"You wanna start with the numbers inside the parentheses, those come first above everything else. So divide the 2,944 by 596." He carefully instructed.
Even so, Atsushi didn't have a clue on what to do. He didn't know how to divide, he wasn't ever really taught. Which made him wonder, if he'd been taught, would he still be having this much trouble with things that came easy to other people? Or would he still be stupid? It was useless to think about in the long run, but he couldn't stop himself. After about forty seconds of Atsushi just staring, it hit Ranpo.
"Wait, you don't know how to divide?" He asked, tilting his head to the side ever so slightly. Atsushi shook his head, but didn't say anything else.
All he could do was mentally prepare himself for the insults that he was sure were about to come his way.
"What, are you stupid?! Look at me in the eyes when I talk to you!" Before Atsushi had time to react, he felt his face roughly grabbed and forced into the direction of the one who'd screamed.
His eyes were watery, but he couldn't do much about it now. All he could do was blink it away.
"I'm sorry, I'll do it from now on..." an apology that was barely heard before he'd been forced to the ground. His face red and bruised. The headmaster looked down upon him with an angry frown, it gave away a slight clue.
"You're 'sorry'? Then fucking prove it, don't just sit there and whine at me!"
A voice that boomed throughout the room, one that would easily scare any child. And of course it scared Atsushi, it always did. All he could do was stay curled up into a ball, aiming to protect himself from whatever physical damage was inflicted. It did little to stop the stinging, both in his eyes and from the injuries he'd collected over time.
But the insults never came. It confused him. He'd been expecting be to be called lots of things, but instead all Ranpo did was sigh and stand up straighter.
"Well, damn. I wish Kunikida was here, he's better at teaching than I am." Ranpo commented, kicking the edge of the desk.
Atsushi blinked, once, then twice. No comment about how he was a lost cause, better off dead, or called words that he hadn't understood as a child? It was pretty standard for the others, but he expected someone as smart as Ranpo to easily look down on him. But he hadn't. Ranpo's own comment seemed to have inspired him.
"Oh! I know! Why don't you go find him and get some help with it? I'll do what I can on this in the meantime." It wasn't a suggestion, he was telling Atsushi to find Kunikida. So he listened and quickly fled the room, leaving Ranpo and Poe alone together.
Walking along the streets, Atsushi felt his nerves suddenly flare up. Usually, he had no problem talking to Kunikida, but for some reason it felt embarrassing for someone his age to ask for help with math. It wasn't like he was a kid anymore, he was a working adult. Most working adults didn't need help with what was probably basic math.
It didn't take long for him to find Kunikida and Dazai bickering with each other. Dazai, purposefully ragebaiting, and Kunikida who fell for it every time. Odd, he assumed Dazai wandered out to go find Chuuya. Apparently he hadn't. Oh well, the thought could be swallowed. Dazai's eyes moved from Kunikida to Atsushi and waved with a grin on his face. Immediately, he felt the spotlight on him and sweat forming on his neck.
"Atsushi! How's that project coming along? Did you finish it already?" He asked, tilting his head. Kunikida, too, turned around.
That's what scared Atsushi.
He was about to admit to two of his extremely successful coworkers that he was actually stupid and unable to do math they found easy.
"It's going fine, I guess." But even that sounded shaky, which Dazai had noticed.
"Why exactly are you doing Dazai's work for him?" Kunikida finally asked, giving a massive side glare toward the mentioned brunet.
Atsushi's mouth went dry. He wasn't sure how to answer, his stomach decided now was a great time to be active. He could feel the impending judgement, the immediate negative reaction and refusal to help. The way he should just understand it because it wasn't that hard. It ached and created a light nauseous feeling, just as Frankenstein's monster had been created in a lab, so he'd ended up standing there awkwardly without saying anything as the two went back at it. On one hand, he still had time to escape this situation and pretended he'd never approached them at all. But his feet wouldn't move, he was completely frozen in place. His mouth attempted to hydrate itself, but he swallowed before it had the chance to properly do so. Even more thoughts about the outcome of his admission thrust themselves into hus poor mind, about how they'd surely get him dropped from the agency due to his stupidity being a liability and burden on them.
So Atsushi didn't speak, he simply stood in place and lightly trembled.
"You're such a waste of space."
"You're better off dead with how useless you are."
"Nobody wants a slow kid who can't make proper eye contact."
"You'd be dead if it weren't for me, so quit complaining and take your punishment."
"Your whining is bothering everybody, can't you just shut the fuck up?!"
"Worthless child."
"Why dont you just go die already!?"
"You're lucky we didn't leave you in a ditch."
"You'll never be wanted anywhere in the world."
He'd barely noticed it, but his breathing was light. It felt impossible, trying to grab air that just wasn't there. Voices overlapped in his head, and he couldn't possibly escape them. Loud and intruding. Memories that made his skin burn and old scars feel fresh, he didn't like them. He never did. The recollection of being beaten and hit repeatedly plagued him, he wanted nothing more than to run away from his own brain. But he couldn't, that was the most painful part about it. Abruptly, he felt like he was a little kid again, trying to get out any words and phrases without success. He flinched, though he wasn't sure what exactly he'd flinched at.
Before Atsushi could do or say anything, his eyes closed automatically and he toppled over. Thankfully, Kunikida caught him before he could hit the ground in what would've been an extremely rough fall. Dazai's teasing seemed to fade as the situation unfolded itself, realising that he and Kunikida's back and forth could wait for a better moment.
"Was he like this when you left?" Kunikida asked, his question directed toward Dazai. A few passing folk would turn to look, but their concern didn't last long.
"No, he wasn't. He was pretty smiley when I gave my project over to him." He replied, with an oddly serious tone. Normally he'd fuck around, but not now.
"I see." Kunikida sighed, turning his attention back onto Atsushi. Carefully, he laid him flat on the ground. He held little to no care for the stares he got.
Thankfully, Dazai dealt with that problem by using his facial features that made him look like a tormented soul to his advantage.
When Atsushi came to after several seconds, a heavy daze had draped itself over his head like a transparent blanket. He hardly remembered what he was doing before he blacked out. All he remembered was the difficulty to breathe and shaky hands, but not what he'd even been doing out here to begin with. With Kunikida's help, he managed to sit up and rub his head slightly. Right, now he recalled. He was going to ask Kunikida for help with math, then never got a chance to because he'd frozen like a coward.
"Are you alright? People don't just faint for no reason." Kunikida asked, though Atsushi noted that his tone held less hostility than it typically did.
"I... I'm fine, I think." Atsushi mumbled, not admitting what he'd come over here for yet. At his lack of certainty, Kunikida raised an eyebrow.
"You think? Never mind, what did you want to say before you passed out?" Kunikida asked. Damn it, Atsushi was hoping he wouldn't ask. But that was a foolish mindset, of course he would.
Now he had to figure out how to formulate thoughts and turn them into words. His mind was still kind of stuck in a haze, so his thoughts didn't really come to him yet. He could either beat around the bush and get yelled at, or be honest about it and get yelled at. His fainting spell had kind of knocked most of his previous energy out of him, so he figured he didn't have much to lose at that point.
"I was coming over because..." still, he hesitated despite what he'd told himself. "I'm not good at math at all, I didn't understand a word of what was on that paper." He'd said it, then waited for what he thought was inevitable.
The two were silent, then Dazai blinked and scratched his head in an almost uncharacteristically perplexed manner.
"Wait, that's what you fainted over? Not being good at math?" The confusion in his voice was obvious, but Atsushi still didn't really let his guard down. For all he knew, this was just bait.
"Yeah, I guess it makes me look more useless than I already am." He hadn't even really meant to say that out loud at all, but there was still a slight dizziness messing with him.
Dazai narrowed his eyes, though subtly. When he'd first met Atsushi and heard his initial story about being kicked out and the whole tiger fiasco, he thought it didn't track. Which it didn't, at least not fully, there were inconsistencies. But him being thrown out of the orphanage wasn't one of them, he'd come to figure out. In truth, the treatment he faced was probably much worse than he ever said it was. Because for those who've been beaten down time and time again, they come to expect it going forward even when they leave that situation. Dazai was no expert on psychology or anything of the sort, but he noticed that behaviour with Atsushi, too. He was quick to blame himself and write himself off as useless, a sign of a severe lack of self-worth.
That fainting spell hadn't come from nowhere nor some unknown medical condition like Kunikida had thought it did. His brain had shut down trying to protect itself from what it thought would come next: physical 'punishment' (another word for abuse, really) for such a small-scale problem he'd run into. It had created a worst case scenario and began eating itself alive in the process, thus causing the fainting spell. Fainting from distress was rather uncommon, but it was a very real phenomenon that did impact people.
"Atsushi." Dazai started, taking two steps closer. Once he had his attention, he continued.
"You know our jobs aren't to hit you, right?"
The expression that he saw when Atsushi looked up was only confusion. No relief that he wouldn't be attacked, no immediate smile. Confusion, defined by a lack of ability to understand something. It was rather pitiful, honestly. But the reasoning was clear— he'd expected to be hit and written off as a burden. Because he'd probably been told that his entire life, he had no reason to expect anything else. A rather sad fate for someone so young, Dazai had thought to himself.
"What?" The question slipped from Atsushi's mouth before he could stop it from doing so. The one word question said it all.
"But you guys are smarter than me, you're not stupid like I am." Atsushi added, glancing down at the sidewalk.
Stupid. Dazai felt conflicted with the word at the moment. While yes, it could be used lightheartedly and unseriously, it was so clearly being used in place of a much less kinder word. One that plagued many wherever they followed, beaten into their skulls to make them convinced that they give nothing to society and therefore ending their lives too shortly. One he was sure those people would call him over and over again until he couldn't hold in tears. Of course, a child wouldn't understand the meaning behind it or why he was being called it. But a grown adult like Dazai would understand the intention with the word, and the why. It was obvious to see, those people wouldn't survive long in Dazai's head.
"We're not gods, Atsushi. We don't hold the divine judgement that they do." Dazai started, fully standing in front of him at that point.
"We're just as human as you are despite our abilities. We're good at what we're taught, and we're bad at what we aren't. I assume you weren't taught the same things me or Kunikida were, it's only natural you're struggling." He explained throughly, earning a nod from Kunikida.
Though, to be honest, a part of him was to blame for this sudden crisis. He'd passed on his project to Atsushi without considering that, perhaps, he wasn't taught any of that.
"But it's just gonna slow you down, isn't it? If I can't do math quickly, I'll screw up some job one day." Atsushi asked, still not quite convinced. Many would've written him off as attention seeking and annoying, but not Dazai. Nor Kunikida, really.
Dazai went to speak, but was beaten by Kunikida—who'd remained silent for most of the conversation, yet couldn't remain—instead.
"How does it slow us down? It's not like we're chemists, math isn't that ingrained in most of the jobs we take."
There was a light pause, then Kunikida would continue.
"At least, not a lot of them. Some, yes, but usually someone else takes them. It's a difference in skill, yes, but skill takes time to build up. It won't happen overnight, I'll teach you myself." He replied, adjusting his glasses.
Atsushi couldn't say much, how could he? So all he could do was nod silently.
But as the days went on, it became incredibly clear that Atsushi's lack of comprehension when it came to math wasn't soley for the fact he'd never been taught it. Even the most basic level math would leave him struggling, and despite this, Kunikida didn't find himself too frustrated. He had long since accepted that some people simply learned differently, expecting people to stay in a rigid position in society was rather stupid.
One afternoon, he approached Dazai after Atsushi left for a case, rubbing his forehead. The sky outside was gray, overcast. As if the sun were afraid to show itself to the human eye. Whatever the case, the two still stood in that rather neglected hallway that almost nobody used. It almost made Kunikida wonder why Dazai was even in it to begin with when, like mentioned, nobody usually used it for anything.
"I am getting increasingly concerned about him. It doesn't seem to be clicking at all." His tone was less frustrated and more so exasperated, there was a key difference between the two in Kunikida's eyes.
Dazai glanced over at him, eyeing him up and down for no real particular reason other than he could, then the bastard shrugged. Kunikida almost wanted to strangle him, but he'd probably like that, so he held back.
"You'll figure it out. Don't stress yourself, Kunikida. Our little tiger will get the hang of it someday." Dazai half-assedly assured. Kunikida's eye twitched.
"Don't call him that, it sounds degrading." Kunikida retorted with a heavy sigh, leaning against one of the windows in the hallway, he'd glance out at the people walking by.
Dont stress yourself, huh? It was easier said than done. Especially when you're Kunikida Doppo and has a tendency to experience stress. Sure, maybe it wasn't the best thing for him, but Dazai certainly wasn't a help in lowering that stress. The guy procrastinated his paperwork daily and expected him to be regular about it.
But Kunikida also knew he was right, he would figure it out eventually. Even if it took several weeks to.