Chapter Text
“Ranpo-san said you went on a date yesterday.”
Doppo pretends he isn’t completely blindsided by the new presence at his side. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“You. Dating a rando. Ranpo-san having eyes—”
“That’s not what I was asking.”
Doppo’s typing stalls from his breakneck pace, stumbling over typos as he tries to focus. What had he just been about to write? This report requires far more of his attention than he’s able to afford it with his partner crowing at his shoulder like this.
“I’m talking about how you went on a date this weekend even though you blew me off by saying you were busy. Is a date really more important than helping your partner declassify a cold case?”
“No,” he mutters, “because I didn’t go on one.”
“If Ranpo-san says something—”
His patience and focus is hanging on by a thread. “It was a chance meeting, not a date.”
Dazai frowns. She folds her arms on his desk and sets her cheek atop, observing Doppo clacking away on his keyboard as though she doesn’t have her own work to be doing right now. That cold case she mentioned won’t solve itself. “Ranpo-san said he saw you two giggling and flirting, and that you were stinking up the whole coffee shop—”
Doppo slams his laptop shut.
“Atsushi, get back to work,” he calls, and immediately, both his and all other heads that had been eavesdropping on the conversion whip back around. Doppo swivels his chair to face Dazai, hands laced together, determined to put this incessant badgering to an end. She straightens up in preparation of the incoming explanation. “I was not the one giggling. I went to get coffee on my weekend off, as is one of my civil liberties, and happened to stumble across an old highschool classmate. We caught up in that cafe, as is also a civil liberty, and Ranpo spotted us, apparently. Nothing more.”
“Hm…” Dazai still eyes him suspiciously. “That sounds an awful lot like an impromptu date.”
Doppo scowls. “I don’t know what has you so interested in my non-existent love-life all of a sudden, but it definitely wasn’t. I don’t like him like that, and he doesn’t even fit my criteria for an ideal partner anyway.”
Dazai observes him for another moment before she finally sighs like she’s starting to believe him. “You’re still on that whole list of ideals? You’ll never find someone who fits all of those things.”
Doppo, offended beyond imagination, opens his laptop again. “That’s my business, not yours.”
Dazai rolls her eyes. She pushes off his desk and spins away on her swivel chair.
And then, because he just can’t leave well enough alone: “And for the record,” Doppo says, “You should worry about yourself before me, if we’re discussing love lives.”
He’s made a mistake. He knows it from the moment it leaves his mouth, and it becomes set in stone the second Dazai’s eyes flash before she spins right back to him. He’ll never get his report finished.
“Explain,” she demands immediately. “How dare you doubt my ability to pull! I’ll have you know people adore me.”
“Dazai, go back to your case.”
She scoots even closer, chair squeaking as it moves against the alignment of its wheels, gripping his arm. “Kunikida-kun, look at me. I need an explanation for this slander immediately, you total asshole! How could you say this about me?” Despite the harsh words, her tone is an overdramatic whisper and her pursed lips repress a smile in their curled corners.
Doppo resigns himself to his fate. He turns to look at her. “Sorry if I think you’re the one struggling when you haven’t gone on any dates at all the past two years, even though you were with a new person every week when we first met.”
Dazai’s jaw slackens.
“You piece of shit,” she breathes. “How could you point this out to me!”
Dazai laughs and leans back in her chair, finally letting go of his arm, warm imprints where her hands had been. “It is pathetic, isn’t it? At least I have a reason better than yours, though.”
What reason could possibly be better than his neat schedule for life and list of ideal traits in a partner? (Romantic partner, that is. Dazai is already his regular partner at work, and does not fit into any list of ideals at all. Honestly, it’s a miracle they’re such close friends despite it all.)
“I highly doubt that.”
“Oh, you really shouldn’t. If you knew then you’d agree. And before you ask,” Dazai says preemptively, holding a finger just before his mouth to hush him, “no, I will not be telling you what it is.”
Doppo glares at the finger. With one final bit of resolve to finish his damn report, he pushes her chair away from him and sends her swiveling off back to her desk, like a ship at sea.
“It’s dark outside,” Dazai observes. “Kunikida-kun, escort me.”
“Hold on,” he mutters, focusing on his laptop. He just has one last email to send out and… “There. Fine, get your stuff.”
“Yay,” she cheers unemphatically, but still quirks a smile at him and gets herself together. By the time they lock up the streets are bustling with nightlife and everyone else at the ADA is long gone. Streetlights bright, sidewalk chilly, and scents of warm food wafting from the nearby izakaya, they traverse the incredibly treacherous path back to the dorms.
In all seriousness, he hasn’t had any real reason to still walk Dazai home ever since he moved out to his own apartment last year, an entire subway stop away from the ADA dorms. Before they used to take the short walk together since they both lived there, but now it’s out of the way. And yet, he still braves the inconvenience and sees her to her door before he makes his way back home for the night.
He just wishes he’d had the forethought to bring along a jacket.
“Aw,” Dazai says, stopping mid-stride to pout at him. “Look at you… poor baby.”
“Shut up,” Kunikida hisses, “just hurry up.”
Dazai smiles at him in a way that means she’s heard what he’s said and will not listen to him at all. Before Doppo can grab her arm and pull her along with him, though, she steps forward and unwinds her scarf from around her neck… and then wraps it around his instead.
“What are you doing?”
“Keeping you warm, duh,” Dazai answers. “You’re shivering like a little puppy.” She smiles and pats his head rather condescendingly, then links her arm with his to walk him forward. Doppo doesn’t budge.
“I wouldn’t be this cold if you hadn’t interrupted me earlier and made me work overtime,” he retorts back. He reaches up to give the scarf back to her but Dazai grabs his hand before he can.
“Keep it.”
“But it’s cold!”
“Exactly.”
“Come on, I can’t just take a girl’s scarf.”
Dazai’s eyebrows raise in brief surprise, before she stares up at him in silence for long enough that Doppo starts to feel embarrassed at his own words. (Maybe it’s a bit old-fashioned, but he’s supposed to be the one handing over jackets to drape over his partner’s shoulder and the like, not Dazai!) After far too long a moment, a small bubble of laughter finally bursts from her lips. “How chivalrous,” she croons, “and possibly a tiny bit misogynistic, maybe.” Doppo feels his face heat up in embarrassment. It’s hard to argue with her about things like these. “That’s sweet, Kunikida-kun, but I can assure you that I’m perfectly fine. I don’t get cold easily,” Dazai says, and then unbuttons her blazer as if to prove it.
“Stop that,” Doppo yelps, going to close the buttons up again for her. “You’ve made your point, don’t just— you’ll get sick—”
Dazai laughs again, shoulders shaking, breath warm where it puffs against Doppo’s neck.
“You’re such a mom,” she tells him.
“And you’re an idiot,” he responds.
“Mother,” she calls, mocking, “you can’t call me by such rude names. Especially not when I’m so heartbroken at you trying to find me another father.”
Doppo almost groans. This again?
“Stop talking like that, it’s creepy,” he tells her.
“Sorry,” she says, flippant. Her grin, as she waits for him to say his piece, is about as dry as a desert, and she’s clearly not sorry nor caring.
“Give it a rest already,” he sighs. He starts walking again, and Dazai stays glued to his side. “That wasn’t a date. I’m not even looking to date anyone right now, anyway.”
“Are you sure about that? The longer you wait the harder it’ll be, you know, and you’re already getting pretty up there in years.
Doppo glances at her in disgruntled bewilderment. “We’re the same age!”
“Didn’t your little book of ideals say you’d start dating around now?”
“Not yet. Why are you so interested in that lately, anyway?” Doppo thinks back to earlier today, when she’d been so concerned about him potentially having gone on just a single date. Does Dazai think him so incapable of romance that she wants to meddle? Is that what this is?
Dazai shrugs. “I’m just looking out for you, Kunikida-kun. God only knows who you’d be able to con into marrying you with a list like that.”
“My list is perfectly fine!”
“Your list is perfectly insane.”
Doppo tries not to let the statement get to him. After all, what does Dazai of all people know about love anyway? He turns his head away and focuses squarely on the street in front of him, but Dazai nudges him until he looks back at her. “Hair,” she says solemnly, “you have the length of their hair planned out.”
That… can’t be right. Why would their hair matter? Dazai must notice his blank expression because she sighs. “Rule number 23,” she tells him, and shoos him away with a wave of her hand telling him to check his book.
“‘Hair to the waist’,” Doppo reads once he finds the page, and cannot for the life of him remember why he wrote that down. Sure, he likes longer hair, but it’s certainly not an end-all-be-all. People can look good with shorter hair. Even Dazai beside him has barely shoulder-length hair, and she looks—
…fine. She looks perfectly okay.
Doppo retrieves his pen and draws a little question mark next to this rule.
“The list must need some updating,” he admits. “Some of these items have been on here since highschool. But,” he’s quick to add, “that doesn’t mean it’s all wrong.”
“Sure,” Dazai says lightly. And after a moment, says, “Rule number 35: must enjoy black tea.”
“Why would I—”
“Because you want to be able to share your favorite afternoon teas with them, without them wincing at a sip of chai.”
Doppo’s frantic flipping lands him on exactly that page, the words written in permanent ink and his own script, as accurate as though Dazai had dictated them originally. After an internal struggle, he concedes, “Well, that would be nice, but I wouldn’t say it’s a requirement.”
“I like chai,” Dazai muses. “And Darjeerling, and Oolong, thought I suppose that’s neither black nor green. Anyway, rule number 59—”
“Dazai, you can stop—”
“They must have nice penmanship.”
Sure enough, there it is. Doppo closes his notebook and privately despairs at how embarrassing and completely unnecessary some of these rules are, in hindsight. At least he remembers why he’d added this one. It’d been when Dazai and he had first started working together and she’d given him the notes she’d taken for a case, handwritten and utterly illegible. It’d taken him two hours to decipher because Dazai wasn’t at work and had her phone off too, so he’d fumed and grumbled and pulled open his notebook to furiously jot this down.
“In my defense,” he starts, about to recite the story, but Dazai’s unimpressed expression stops him in his tracks. He clears his throat and tries again. “Fine. They may not all be winners.”
“Mhm.”
“Some of them are still valid, though,” Doppo insists. He feels a terrible need to defend himself when his character is currently being butchered so thoroughly by his closest friend. “Look, rule number 12—”
“Must be able to cook,” Dazai recites. “I’m well aware of all these rules, Kunikida-kun. I wouldn’t say this one is particularly necessary either, though.”
“It absolutely is,” Doppo says solemnly. “I can’t take care of a household entirely by myself, and I refuse to let family eat out often. It’s unhealthy.” The last bit is a jab at her, because Dazai’s eating habits are stunted by her inability to cook. (She’s the type to make pots and pans explode in the kitchen. Doppo can attest to this, he’s seen it happen.)
Dazai knows what he intends by it too, but her expression is carefully blank. “They don’t have to cook,” she says. “They could help you out in other ways.”
“Cooking is a requirement,” Doppo says with an air of finality, and finally tucks his notebook away again. The statement is still a part of the last-ditch effort to defend himself, if he’s being honest, because what Dazai had said is reasonable: he doesn’t need his hypothetical spouse to actually be able to cook for them to be a good life partner. On the other hand, he’s been served too many losses in this conversation to admit defeat. To change the subject, he asks, “Why do you even know all of my rules anyway? Even I don’t have them memorized.”
“Who knows,” Dazai replies. They turn a corner and the agency dorms come into view. Before Doppo can walk Dazai the rest of the way or even say goodbye, she jogs ahead of him. “I have my reasons” she says mysteriously, all quiet seriousness for a beat. And then she breaks into a cheeky smile as she winks.
Doppo watches her dart into the yard and up the stairs, locking the gate back up for her. She waves at him from her door, and it’s only after he’s gotten halfway to the subway station that he realizes she never took her scarf back.
Two days later, he walks into the office to a commotion.
“Oh wow,” he hears Atusushi say, voice cracking. “Um. It’s—”
“Something,” Naomi pipes up, sounding awed. “What did you even put in this?”
The reply gets drowned in the rest of the chaos and chatter, and Doppo gives the group a curious eye as he sets his laptop bag beside his desk. He shuffles through some newspapers from last night, ready to continue his research from where he left off, before he gets pulled into the mess.
“Kunikida-kun!” Dazai calls, emerging from the crowd, more than ruffled. (He wants very badly to fix the awful state of her appearance immediately, but he resists the urge because it probably wouldn’t be appropriate to run his hands through his coworker’s hair like that, close friend or not.) “Come try this! I need the expert’s opinion.”
And it’s only then that Doppo notices the bento box she’s holding in her hands.
“You tried to cook?” he accuses, and it comes out more horrified than intended, but who can even blame him.
“I just had some free time,” she says, waving his distress off like she’s being humble in the face of a compliment instead. And then she shoves a pair of chopsticks into his hands. “Tell me how I did?”
Doppo takes the chopsticks gingerly and stares at the boxed lunch. It looks innocuous enough, which is surprising considering her reputation for burning things to an unrecognizable crisp, but that just makes it even more concerning and suspicious. There’s a nervous pit of dread forming in his stomach.
“I don’t have all day,” Dazai says, holding the box closer.
He knows he really shouldn’t, but Doppo looks at the rare earnestness in her eyes and decides it’s fine if this is the day he dies. He bites the bullet (or rather, the tamagoyaki.)
It’s… devastatingly salty and spicy both, and also undercooked, but actually edible!
“It’s awful,” he says, disgusted, and Dazai’s expression immediately drops— “But good job.”
“Are you serious?” Atsushi asks from across the room, staring at him like he’s told a serial killer he’s proud of them. Which might as well have happened, if they’re all being honest.
“It’s the best thing she’s ever made,” he defends.
“What the hell,” Yosano yells more than asks, shaking her head in disappointment.
“I’m not wrong!” He turns back to Dazai and tells her, “Next time, don’t go overboard with the seasoning, and try to cook it for longer. You didn’t leave it on for long because you were scared to burn it, right?” She nods mutely, staring at him with silent, starry-eyed surprise. The expression is so foreign on her that it makes the back of his neck prickle hotly. “Right, well… if you cook it at a lower temperature then you won’t have to worry about that as much.”
“So,” she says, after carefully packing the bento up again, and Doppo looks up while his laptop loads. “If I bring another one in next time, will you try it again?”
“Absolutely not.” Doppo may have survived one attempted murder today, but to expect Dazai’s cooking to get that much better that quickly is a fool’s dream. “Your food is disgusting.”
Dazai’s expression immediately flattens. “Hey! At least I tried since you said— since you kept calling me out on it,” she stutters.
“And I’m thrilled that you’re taking steps to improve yourself,” Doppo responds, and then turns back to his laptop. “Good luck with your endeavor.”
Dazai lingers at his desk for a moment, and Doppo tries not to wonder what expression she’s making while he pulls up all his documents from yesterday. Finally, she mutters out a bitter “you asshole ” before stomping back to her desk.
Doppo’s getting coffee at the cafe downstairs later that day when he bumps into Dazai again.
She’s speaking to Tanizaki, advising him on how to proceed with the case he’s been assigned to, and doesn’t even glance at Doppo. That’s fine. What’s not fine is when she grabs whatever drink gets placed in front of her at the counter, and without even waiting to make sure it’s hers, chugs it. She pauses. Looks down at the coffee and licks her lips slowly, like she’s processing the taste and only now realizing it isn’t straight black. Then she looks up at Doppo and says, “Whoops, sorry, was that yours?” and smiles brilliantly and overturns the cup to show him that it’s emptied. How the hell she even managed to down the whole thing that quickly, Doppo will never know.
A couple of hours later she ignores him when he asks her to get the pen that’d rolled over to her desk (“Oh, sorry, I was just so engrossed in my work”) and then again when he grabs some binders off the top shelves of a cabinet for her. She just ducks her head and marches off away from him without so much as a thank you. The only indication she even noticed him was the way she’d frozen for a second when he’d leaned over her shoulder.
Doppo stares after her in irritation.
“What’s her problem?” he grumbles, and startles when he actually gets an answer.
“You, clearly,” Yosano says from behind him. She’s leaning her hip on the counter and her arms are crossed, head tilted at him in pity. “Don’t worry about it too much. Dazai’s just petty.”
“I already knew that.”
“Then you should probably also know better by now than to be so tactless,” Yosano retorts.
Alright, Doppo gets it. This might just all be his fault.
“Dazai,” he says, calling her back before she leaves for the day. “Wait for me to file these forms. I’ll walk you back.”
There’s a moment of silence where Doppo thinks she’s ignoring him again, but then she says, “What if I say no?”
Doppo stops what he’s doing and just glares up at her. Dazai revels in his irritation. She smiles and walks back over to his desk, sitting on top of it right beside his stack of papers, kicking her feet like a schoolgirl. She waves goodbye to everyone else as they pass by, and yet again, Doppo and her are the last ones to leave.
Doppo gathers all his courage as they walk. Like stepping on hot coals, doing his utmost to ignore his dread and the sirens screaming warnings in his mind, he grits out between his teeth, “...I’ll try your cooking again—” Dazai’s eyes widen “—but only if you actually follow a recipe.”
“I already do!”
“You clearly don’t!”
Doppo sighs, long-suffering, and rubs his temples. “Listen, I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings earlier today. That was not my intention. But you need to realize that me telling you you’re bad at cooking wasn’t supposed to be a personal attack. It’s not that big of a deal.”
Dazai flushes, cheeks turning blotchy pink under the streetlights. “I know that!” she insists.
Doppo levels her with a stare, because by her actions today, it really doesn’t seem like she does.
“Ughh, shut uuuup,” she moans, shoving his shoulder.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking it. I know you weren’t attacking me, alright, I just… got hurt because I tried really hard, and I wanted you to say it was good.” Dazai says the last bit very quickly, staring furiously at the sidewalk as she does, as though the words were painful to get out.
“I can’t lie to you,” Doppo tells her, because her cooking truly is awful. “I told you that you did a good job, anyway!”
“Yeah, yeah. I just wanted it to be enough to meet your… high standards or whatever.” She kicks a pebble, and it goes skittering off into the road. Doppo drops behind her briefly to reinsert himself between her and the edge. “Whatever. It’s not like it really matters anyway, I don’t know why I even cared.”
Doppo really doesn’t either. Dazai’s never seemed like she cares very much for anyone’s approval at all. (The closest he’s ever seen her come to it is the way she acts around Fukuzawa, but who can blame her. There’s not a soul in the office who doesn’t look up to the President.)
“Have you rethought your list at all?” Dazai asks all of a sudden.
“No,” Doppo answers reflexively. “Wait, which list?”
Dazai rolls her eyes. “The one any other woman would look at and run screaming from,” she clarifies. Doppo does not take kindly to that description.
“It’s not that bad. I did start to go through it again, though.”
“Have you now? How many items have you dropped so far?”
“...Only 6,” Doppo says. She raises her eyebrows. He tenses and admits, “Out of 13.”
Dazai bursts into laughter beside him, bumping shoulders and gripping at his sleeve to steady herself. “I knew it,” she breathes. “I told you, your dream person can’t be determined by some inflexible list. You just need to meet someone and give her a chance.” She pulls away again, putting her hands into her pockets and looking up at the haze of what might be stars, if they weren’t in such a light-polluted city. Her next words, when she says them, are a bit strained. “She might even be right under your nose.”
Doppo watches Dazai closely. She’s been so oddly insistent on these things, lately. He’s thoroughly convinced now that she’s taken him under her wing, so to speak, and sees him as a pet project to be fixed or the like. Her choice of words is strange, though.
“Or him,” Doppo says carefully. “Or them. Why do you keep assuming it’ll be a woman?”
Dazai’s steps stutter for a second before her gait smooths out again. “I didn’t mean much by it,” she says lightly. “I just thought you wanted kids.”
For some reason, the explanation doesn’t sit quite right with him. “I’m fine with adopting. Besides, it’s not even like all women can have children anyway.” Doppo sends her a pointed look.
Dazai smiles back at him wryly. She doesn’t care much for children of her own, as far as he can tell; otherwise he wouldn't have been so blunt. She doesn’t say anything else about the topic though, so Doppo is left to wonder if she sort of thinks he could never actually choose a man anyway. (He gets that he may not seem particularly bisexual to most other people, but that’s what he is, and he would’ve thought Dazai would be more sensitive to that since she is too. He’s about to build up the bite to confront her about it when she speaks instead.)
“I could adopt,” She murmurs under her breath, quiet and letting out a cloud of white in the cold air. Doppo doesn't know if it's even meant for him. “In the future, maybe at 30… no, way too soon. 35? 40? That might be too late. How does 37 sound?” Dazai asks, turning to him. So he had been meant to hear after all.
Doppo’s not sure what good his input is supposed to do, but he responds anyway. “Would you still be able to see much of your grandchildren at that point, though? I'd rather aim for 33.”
Dazai contemplates this. “In a decade, huh? Well, I suppose anyone can change enough in that amount of time.” She closes her eyes, thinking, still striding confidently forward without one missed step. Doppo grabs her arm to maneuver her around a streetlight. “Parenthood… motherhood… maybe I’ll just adopt Atsushi-kun.”
“He's only four years your junior,” Doppo reminds her flatly.
Dazai opens her eyes, looking back at him. She smiles at Doppo for pretty much no reason, expression genuine and open again, after whatever it’d been before. “Then Kyouka-chan, maybe.”
“I doubt she wants that,” Doppo says, aggrieved. “If you really want to adopt then just do it through foster care, with kids who won’t be too old for you to parent.”
“We’ll tackle it when the time comes,” Dazai says, and stretches her arms over her head. She yawns, and picks up her pace as the turn to the dorms approaches. It’s clear she’s done talking about this, and when Dazai is done with something that means everyone else is too. She has a knack for changing topics and also being particularly stubborn. “Thank you for walking me back,” she tells him, which is the unusual icing on the cake of this whole unusual conversation.
“You’re welcome,” Doppo says, a bit confused.
“Do you want to have dinner together tomorrow?” she asks. “I’ll pay.”
Doppo frowns. “You don’t have to do that.”
“It’s an apology for murdering your taste buds earlier.”
Doppo knows already that when Dazai gets like this, strange and insistent and unexpectedly nice, the best thing to do is usually to go along with it. So that’s what he does. “Alright,” he gives in. “Let’s go out.”
Dazai’s grin is about as bright as the stars might look if they could see them, Doppo imagines.