a place to rest (I'm just giving in)
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When the hospital called the Armed Detective Agency, Kunikida found himself only mildly concerned.
When from the other side of the line a hesitant, somehow insecure voice explained the reason behind such a call, Kunikida wasn't very surprised; yet something bitter raised to the back of his throat, a cold hand tightening around his stomach as his fingers itched so much he had to curl them into fists.
The President told him and Atsushi to go and leave their current work to Tanizaki and Kyouka. Kunikida tried to argue that it wasn't necessary, that the Agency was too busy with one absence to overload its active members; but even Ranpo pointed out this was more urgent than the drug dealing's case they were investigating.
Despite himself, Kunikida had to agree with him. As the train brought Atsushi and him closer to the hospital, something made of a sticky blackness was slowly eating away the air within his lungs, filling his insides with a dread that left him half angry, half confused.
Because, well.
Let's be clear for a moment here.
Dazai's ability to always find a way to ruin Kunikida's meticulously planned day was nothing out of the ordinary. Dazai's umpteenth suicide attempt should have been nothing short of predictable; that very morning, a part of Kunikida had considered writing it down on his notebook as a 'likely setback'.
What was unexpected was how close to reach his goal Dazai had been this time.
He would step to the edge of a cliff, dance on the rail of a bridge to eventually stop and just look at the abyss beneath him with an almost painful longing; but eventually he would walk back to Kunikida, a bitter grimace that sometimes even resembled an actual smile as he ignored his partner's (annoyed, worried, relieved) stressed scolding and answered with an eyebrow raised in defiance to the overused if you die when we have so much work I swear I'll kill you. He would severe the rope tightened around his neck himself, coughing and complaining about how long and painful that method was as he rubbed at his sore throat and Kunikida briefly considered strangling him.
This time it had been blood loss. As Kunikida and Atsushi approached the room they had been told Dazai was in, the viscous fluid overflowed Kunikida's insides, spilling over in furious, worried huffs.
Dazai was awake, sitting up with his back leaning on a pile of pillows on the bed closest to the window, eyes fixed on the blue sky through the glass. Guessing his expression from the entrance was hard; but if it weren't for the blood flowing from a bag hung over the bed into his arm, Kunikida would have thought the call had been but a joke. Beneath the gown, his body was still wrapped in bandages; only his right forearm was uncovered, skin visible from the tip of his fingers to the elbow fold, where the needle pierced it through. It was impossible to tell where the wounds that had bled enough to land him in the hospital were, and his fair skin easily concealed an almost unnoticeable pallor.
Kunikida cleared his throat when Atsushi and he reached the side of the bed. Dazai flinched, but he didn't look surprised when he turned his head towards them.
Almost immediately, his eyebrows raised and a smile touched his lips as he said something Kunikida was unable to register.
Because in the millisecond it had taken for Dazai to react, Kunikida had seen in his eyes an exhaustion so vast he was scared of even looking at. He swallowed down, angrily staring through the window when he noticed Dazai's too sharp gaze scrutinizing him.
The room was on one of the highest floors of the hospital, so the window offered a privileged sight of Yokohama. The sea could be seen from there, as well as the Ferris wheel and some of the highest buildings of the city. It was a particularly sunny day, one that made the sky look more infinite than usual.
"I got a good room, didn't I?" Dazai chirped, voice so cheerful, so out of place, that Kunikida could only look at him again, dumbfounded. "You didn't have to come; Atsushi-kun says you are quite busy at the Agency."
Kunikida took air in deeply, held his breath as he counted to ten and exhaled slowly, remembering all the reasons why throwing Dazai out of the window would be inappropriate. One, a hospital was a place to save lives; two, he wouldn't give that lunatic what he wanted; three, there were more people in the room; four, Atsushi –inexplicably– appreciated that bandage-wasting device; five––
–– his eyes.
There was no light in them, even as Dazai smirked teasingly, as if daring Kunikida to strangle him. Kunikida didn't want to look at them, didn't want disappointment by being alive to be the first thing he could discern in that usually warm gaze.
"We are," was what Kunikida finally choked out; it wasn't until then that he realised he had said nothing since walking out of the Agency building with Atsushi. "Now even more, with three people doing nothing, instead of just one." He swallowed the knot in his throat, but the nagging feeling he refused to recognise kept souring his mouth. "Meanwhile you are here doing nothing, enjoying the view and getting blood that could have been used for someone who has some will to live."
"I didn't ask for it," Dazai replied, the playful smile gone from his lips.
For a second, Kunikida stopped breathing altogether.
Is he…?
Have I…?
Was Dazai actually able to feel hurt by words alone?
Kunikida looked away, gaze landing on Dazai's uncovered forearm. From up closer, it was marred with scars of cuts and burns; but, like many other questions about the man with an unwanted guardian angel, Kunikida wouldn't voice it.
"But I guess I inconvenienced you, and everybody at the Agency," Dazai murmured after a tense silence. "For that, I owe you an apology."
There was lightness in his tone, and now it didn't sound forced, unlike when he had first spoken to Atsushi. Maybe he felt truly sorry, maybe he really needed to take that weight off his chest. In any case, it had something that prompted Atsushi, who had been particularly quiet too, to ask one of the things Kunikida wanted to both know and never find out:
"Just–– why?"
Dazai shifted on the bed. Out of the corner of his eye Kunikida noticed his partner was looking through the window again, and realised it wasn't a coincidence.
"Why not?"
.
It wasn't long until Dazai came back to work.
Kunikida almost craved for the hectic rhythm and sleepless night he had endlessly grumbled about while his partner was recovering; but at the same time there was something calming and oddly relieving in Dazai trying to coax a witness of a kidnapping into committing suicide with him, in the familiarity his annoyingly witty replies came with. It almost vanished Kunikida's natural irritation towards him.
(Almost. Nowhere in his Ideal was written tolerating Dazai's unprofessional behaviour, after all.)
Predictably enough, the two of them had to stay in the Agency until late to catch up with the accumulated work. Kunikida was pleasantly surprised when Dazai didn't complain, but after working in silence for almost half an hour he couldn't resist a curious glance to his partner's desk, in front of him.
He wasn't surprised to confirm Dazai had fallen asleep, using his arms as a makeshift pillow. Looking closely, Kunikida noticed his hand was pressing several keys of his laptop, probably writing a long, unintelligible message.
Lit only by the faint bulb of the desk lamp and the laptop screen and leaning his cheek on his forearm, his fringe covered his right eye; feathery brown locks fell on his cheek, almost touching the corner of his mouth, curved in something that, with a bit of imagination, could be interpreted as the tiniest smile among the intricate web of shadows the scarce light wove over his face.
It was a rare sight; while Dazai had definitely not been made to stay focused on the same task for longer than five minutes, Kunikida couldn't recall a single stance in which his partner had actually fallen asleep in front of him. Dazai usually distracted everyone to decrease their efficiency, as if he didn't want to be the only one achieving nothing, or wandered off and came back hours later.
Maybe the silent realisation had something to do with how the loud protest got stuck in his throat.
Kunikida heard a sigh, felt the air brushing his lips as it exited his mouth, but he was unable to tell when it happened; he could have spent minutes or hours watching his partner's slumped figure, listening to an almost silent breathing and completely ignoring everything he still had to do because Dazai hadn't been considerate enough to try to kill himself at a more appropriate moment.
When he finally moved, it was gentler than he could have anticipated. Kunikida reached out and grabbed Dazai's wrist, pulling at it so he stopped smashing the keyboard.
Immediately he felt muscles tensed under his touch, through the bandages, so suddenly Kunikida was about to let go; and he would have, hadn't Dazai been quick enough to slide his wrist back and curl his fingers around his hand. His head jerked up as he looked around, blinking in confusion until his gaze landed on Kunikida.
"Ah…" he mumbled; but his eyes still looked alert even after the disoriented frown between his eyebrows disappeared. About half a second later he realised the position their hands were in. "What were you doing?" he slurred, letting go of Kunikida's hand slowly.
"Stopping you from writing a novel in your sleep," Kunikida answered, drawing his hand back. It itched where it had met Dazai's.
Dazai frowned at the screen, not moving an inch to fix it as he leaned his head on his arms again.
"Have we finished yet?" he asked.
All trace of tenderness gone, Kunikida threw a pen at his partner on reflex. Dazai didn't even try to dodge it; he only yawned and closed his eyes again.
"If you fall asleep again I'm drowning you in coffee," Kunikida warned. Dazai opened one eye. "You are the reason we're here in the first place, so the least you can do is being a responsible adult and working."
Dazai pouted.
"And then you ask why suicide is so tempting," he mumbled, dragging a hand over the keyboard to delete what he had written on accident.
Kunikida raised an eyebrow. "Would you seriously rather die than work?"
It took some minutes for Dazai to speak again.
"The next time I'll do it when you don't have this much work," he promised, straightening himself up as he focused on his task again. "That way I won't bother any of you."
And now it was Kunikida the one who did nothing, who could only stare at Dazai's tired face as he typed and yawned every now and then.
"If you don't want to bother me, stop trying to kill yourself, for example."
Dazai's fingers froze over the keyboard. He tilted his head to the side, caught a glimpse of a Kunikida that was as surprised by his own words as the man they were directed to. Kunikida prayed it was too dark for the heat colouring his cheeks to be noticed, even though he doubted someone as observant as Dazai would miss something that obvious.
But then Dazai smiled, perhaps the first actual smile Kunikida had seen since the Agency got that call from the hospital; and it occurred to him that Dazai glowed more than the lamp with his lips quirked up like that.
"Good try, Kunikida-kun," he replied in a barely audible whisper, before looking at the screen again.
As Kunikida went back to his own work, he could have sworn something that sounded like maybe I'll give it a thought echoed in the silent room.
Without bothering to look up, Kunikida was sure he wasn't the only one smiling.
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