Chapter Text
It was two years ago when Doppo Kunikida first noticed the increased difficulty to execute his daily schedule. That is, follow his sequenced activities, arrive and depart locations at predetermined times, with less than three total amendments. Last fortnight, he decided to list the causes, in the possibility of conceiving a means to mitigate the crisis. He wrote the following in his notebook…
The most disruptive factors to Doppo Kunikida’s daily schedule [in order of most to less disruptive]:
1. Dazai Osamu
2. Unforeseen conflicts with the Port Mafia and other illegal organisations, ability-user persecutors, unreported criminals/suspects, and escalated complaints from members of the community
3. Animals
4. Children
Note: Dazai Osamu joined the Armed Detective Agency two years ago.
Additional note: Combine points three and four, and some may argue Atsushi Nakajima can turn into an intensified amalgamation of disruption.
Further note: Due to the extent of Dazai Osamu’s disruptions, with an inflated extremity closely aligning to the trend of a positive exponential graph, the subject has subsequently derailed the weekly, monthly and yearly schedules. Long-term impacts on the decennial schedule are yet to be observed, but the current predictions are grim.
Unfortunately, identifying the causes has not mitigated Kunikida’s recurring crisis. If it had, two of his colleagues wouldn’t have recently shrunken in stature [refer to page 132 about age-reversion incident], specifically his subordinate who is now a third of his height. Nor would Kunikida currently be giving stitches across said subordinate’s back.
From one side of Yosano’s clinic stool, Kenji Miyazawa revolves one palm over the other like they’re somersaulting asteroids. “What animal… is this!”
The shorter and shirtless form of Atsushi Nakajima [Kunikida’s shrunken subordinate] sits on Yosano’s stool, his nose twitching at Kenji’s hand sculpture. “… Bat?”
“Bird! What type of bird?”
Atsushi hesitates. “Duck?”
“Eastern carrion crow! We have plenty in my hometown. When you give the flock fruit and beetles, they’ll start leaving mementos for you, like buttons and bottle li—”
The white-haired boy suddenly hisses, dips his chin between knotted shoulders.
“We’re not going to hurt you, Atsushi-san,” Naomi Tanizaki hushes with a plastic basin near Atsushi’s feet. “This will sting, but you’re almost all clean….” She lifts the dripping cloth. “This towel is getting soiled—”
“Third cabinet from the right,” Kunikida says with needle in hand from Atsushi’s back.
Kenji rearranges his fingers. “What animal… is… this?”
Firstly, Kunikida dips the needle.
Atsushi thinks carefully, “… four… thumbs.”
“These are three legs and this pinkie represents a tail,” Kenji clarifies. “Guess what species too!”
Secondly, Kunikida pulls the thread.
Atsushi dips his head lower between his shoulders. “Three legs… one tail…” Atsushi’s shoulder blades pinch inwards. “… fleshy three legs… fleshy one—” Atsushi’s shoulder blades start shivering.
“This isn’t working Kenji.” Kunikida pauses with a hand over the kid’s wound. “We need to calm him. Try something else.”
“Hmm, when one of our cows is in labour, we just…” The farm boy pats his palm, up and down, over Atsushi’s scalp.
Atsushi’s neck emerges from his hunched posture. Immediately, the shoulder blades unravel.
It works.
Thirdly, Kunikida closes the seam then snips the thread.
“See, needles aren’t dangerous when they’re used properly…” Naomi wrings a fifth towel. “Atsushi-san is so brave!”
“You’ve delivered a beautiful baby calf, cow-san!” Kenji pipes in.
Finally, Kunikida winds bandages around Atsushi’s torso.
“You didn’t even shed a single tear…” Naomi remarks wearily.
“But if you had, that would’ve been okay too,” Kenji adds.
Ideal #323: Emotional control trains the mind, but moments of vulnerability can promote a healthy soul.
Good.
“Naomi, find a fresh set of clothes for Atsushi.” The man requests his colleagues, “And Kenji, good work for the day. Your soba is in the microwave.”
“Okay.”
“Thanks, Kunikida-san!”
Two kids exit Yosano’s clinic. One kid remains in Yosano’s clinic. Doppo Kunikida remains with this one kid in Yosano’s clinic.
Step 1. Stitch Atsushi’s back.
“Are you satisfied with your back stitches?” Kunikida questions the kid.
“I think… so.”
Step complete. The discussion closes, the one adult standing beside the one kid on the stool.
A trolley rolls and rattles down the corridor outside.
This would be a time-effective opportunity to preconceive the number of amendments Kunikida will need to make to today’s schedule [at least twenty-three]. However, Kunikida notices the kid picking at his bandages. “You still appear to be hurting. Where?”
Atsushi’s fingernails catch into a cotton flap.
“You’re clutching your stomach.” Kunikida presses, “Are you hungry? You can’t eat too much until Yosano-sensei gives you a complete examination… Or do you have constip—”
“It’s just…” Atsushi falters, his eyelids dropped. “Kenji-san isn’t patting my head anymore.”
Kunikida steps in front of Atsushi on the stool.
Kunikida sticks his palm over Atsushi’s head.
Atsushi reviews the method, “It’s not the same.”
“I’m bending my right arm with the same obtuse angle.”
Atsushi’s head lops to the side, purple-yellow irises flitting from Kunikida’s right work shoe to his left. Atsushi catches Kunikida’s hand on top of his head. Atsushi uses his smaller hands to rest his claim down onto his lap.
Kunikida bends slightly. “Is that better?”
Atsushi’s smaller hand scoops Kunikida’s palm in the curve of his smaller palm, pasting them together. Atsushi’s other smaller hand meekly prods a pointer finger at the calluses texturing Kunikida’s hand, the knuckles along the back.
Mental note: If Atsushi Nakajima still needs to count the number of knuckles on the average human hand, he should consider taking tutoring lessons on basic anatomy.
Hand secured, the man bobs down before the stool. “Lad, I’m going to ask you some critical questions. Be honest with me, even if you’re not sure. I will listen to everything you have to say.”
The boy clasps both hands around Kunikida’s hand. “Okay, Kunikida-san.”
Kunikida operates the procedure in his mind like pages flipping by the pad of his thumb. “Okay.” He commences, “Has Dazai ever hit you?”
“Never.”
“Spoken words or in a certain way that upset you?”
“No.”
“Ever touched you in a way that made you feel uncomfortable?”
“He hasn’t.”
“Dressed or undressed in a way that made you feel uncomfortable?”
“His bandages look weird,” Atsushi offers.
Kunikida agrees. “Anything else?”
“Nothing else.”
“Have you ever felt like you were lacking something? Like food or warm covering, and he didn’t provide?”
“He ignored me a few times at first,” the boy admits steadily. “But two days after we met… since that time he took me on the flying elephants at the carnival, he has given me everything I’ve asked for and more.”
“Can you recall any situation before today that felt strange or you were fearful? While he was taking substances like alcohol?”
“Nothing I can think of… I haven’t seen Dazai-san drink yet.”
“Has Dazai stopped you from doing anything? Anything?” Kunikida urges, covers all bases in the manual, every inkling of doubt that could possibly creep at the base of his skull. “Has he ever withheld anything from you?”
Atsushi gives his answer, “He stops me from having nightmares.” With this said, all questions answered, Atsushi finds the next activity for the afternoon in Kunikida’s hand. Atsushi shapes and pats it into a fist, running his palms over like manipulating a worn crystal ball — murky and crazed across the surface.
These questions Kunikida has asked Atsushi are child safety protocol, though the truth is he had already predicted the answers the kid would give. He sees these answers routinely, as part of the office hours at the Agency. He sees them each day in Dazai’s raven eye, which instead of scanning case documents [as it should], spends predominant part of the shift resting upon the head of white hair.
It's more than enough to know Atsushi can be left in Dazai’s dorm.
The boy continues to mould his hands over Kunikida’s, and the man sighs, resigning himself to the unfamiliar game underway without study of its rules. The kid’s smock worn just this afternoon has disintegrated to burgundy shreds in Yosano’s sink — strings of dressings from first aid kits sprawled like erratic intestinal surgery — the five used towels thickened to clay in the murky basin. At least the stress of this operation has been quelled by the friendly stranger of Beast Beneath the Moonlight. Its regenerative ability, though partial today, has reduced the impaled torso gouged of its vitals to scarred tissue with arms of a starfish. The remaining back gash which Kunikida stitched had been wide, but only skin-deep.
“Actually, I just remembered…”
Kunikida adjusts focus, returns to the present patient in the doctor’s clinic.
“A few nights ago…” Atsushi begins. “He… I—” The brow under the slanted haircut drops. The boy mutes.
A sudden stain of black. Ink taunts the base of the man’s skull.
“What happened?” Kunikida demands firmly.
But the boy’s collected serenity from moments before now tumbles with trembling lips in the wake of one memory. No one is stitching Atsushi’s back but Atsushi’s chin dips so low it spears his bandaged chest, and Kunikida feels the smaller hands tightening around his fist, accruing wet chills in his crevices.
And everything Kunikida has known, with such undeniable certainty he never felt the need to note it down, threatens to slowly peel from the seams. “You need to tell me, Atsushi,” the man repeats, strains himself from speaking too fast, threading too many words at once. “This will determine whether Dazai should be allowed to see you before this case is over.”
The smaller hands’ knuckles bunch over the fist in triangular knots.
Kunikida’s memory store flashes with all the scenes he’s ever caught of the brunette man beside Atsushi. What had the ideals detective missed? Had he been wrong? And Kunikida’s spare hand that isn’t being gripped by Atsushi pulls a pant leg taut.
Where, in the two years he has known Dazai Osamu, had he gone wron—
“I-I wet the bed!” Atsushi blurts out at once. “Dazai-san was there when it… it happened… I was scared I would get in trouble.” Under the white hair, the boy’s whole face flushes beetroot.
Oh.
Kunikida paces himself, mentally flips to a fresh page. “What did he do?”
“He asked me to help him carry the futon to the dumpster bin. Then he talked to me.”
“What did he talk to you about?”
“He told me a story about his imaginary friends.” Atsushi’s breath tremors but flows free. “And he taught me that wetting the bed is okay. That my body is okay… my body’s okay, even if it’s a bit broken it’s okay. I just need to admit I’ve done something if it accidentally hurts someone.”
The purple-yellow eyes duck, pin themselves to the clinic’s floor tiles. But the smaller hands’ fourteen knuckles soften, Atsushi’s fingers wandering in circles over Kunikida’s fist — the pattern unfolding, repeating.
And everything Kunikida has known, with such undeniable certainty he never felt the need to note it down—
In conclusion, Kunikida had been right from the start.
“Dazai-san didn’t mean to scare me,” Atsushi says as the lump of towels submerges completely in the murky red basin. “When he saw Akutagawa at the harbour, he just…”
Kunikida speaks. “Whether he meant it or not, he made you feel unsafe today. Even if it was just for a moment. Because for that moment, even if none of it was directed at you, he chose to put you in danger.” Lowered before the stool, he studies his subordinate squarely from his glasses. “He hurt you too. I hope you know that, Atsushi.”
The stool creaks beneath the boy and his sinking frame, but he nods. Stripped of all soiled layers except undershorts, his injuries are in ruthless view — the central puncture scar that eats his left foot, the brown ellipses stretched over his ribs from a hot poker. Kunikida must remember the boy here is physically younger yet adorns more wounds in his childhood than from his missions as a detective. And psychologically—
In moments like these — in most moments really but in moments like these particularly, Kunikida must keep himself upright, stand stiff-shouldered. In reaction to what was battered, he cannot afford to lean onto anything except one of his ideals…
Ideal #004: If damage cannot be undone, endeavour not to damage it further and handle with considerate care.
This is the ideal he recalls from Vol. 54 of his notebooks, and this is the ideal which informs his assistance to Atsushi in this clinic, will see him through to the end of this age-reversion case. It is this same ideal that has already counselled him in many working days thus far.
Kunikida’s mobile phone rings in his back pocket. Kunikida takes it out to read the text notification. “Yosano-sensei will give you a complete examination now.”
By the next hour, Atsushi is out of the clinic freshly clothed, wrapped inside a quilt and Kyouka Izumi’s hug. The two kids are napping upright on the sitting-room’s sofa, heads pushed against each other like two teetering playing cards, round mouths hanging agape.
Kunikida steps beside the Armed Detective Agency’s doctor currently supervising them. “Where is he?”
“In the President’s office,” Yosano Akiko says as they stand watching the sofa. “f*ckuzawa-sensei says he will take matters from here.”
To clarify the recount of this day’s events, the individual who Kunikida and Yosano are speaking of is Dazai Osamu. Dazai Osamu, Armed Detective Agency detective and ex-executive of the Port Mafia — the second victim of the age-reversion case. Dazai Osamu had been the trigger for today’s supernatural-induced harbour earthquake [the carrier of the harbour earthquake: Akutagawa Ryuunosuke]. The fiasco has been televised on the news already. The Agency will be lucky if they don’t receive a query from the Special Division for Unusual Powers by this evening, the luckiest still if they are not ordered to compensate for the related construction damages.
But what Dazai had actually done to summon the near collapse of Yokohama’s harbour — only Kunikida had been witness. What Kunikida had seen as the black-suited man confronted Akutagawa, amongst the shadows of mayhem, at the central wound of today’s assault — Yosano doesn’t ask nor does Kunikida say.
“Well, how is it?”
Kunikida turns to Yosano.
“Coddling tiny Atsushi?” The doctor expands, lips peeling wide. “It was only this afternoon he started approaching you. The two of you are already inseparable.”
Despite his obligatory competence at adapting to unprecedented situations as an Agency detective, his flexibility [acquired out of necessity, to his intense dislike] hadn’t prepared him for those decelerated minutes in the clinic, in which his worn calluses were appraised by an inquisitive Atsushi. In the aftermath of those smaller hands, it’s like the next three paragraphs have been swiped from Kunikida’s page.
How is it?
Kunikida pushes back his glasses. “It’ll be easier to supervise his activities and suggest he take anatomical studies,” is his answer before lifting Yosano’s medical bag, transporting it through the office’s exit.
“… Where are you going?”
“The hardware store. You asked me to bring your chainsaw parts but due to the emergency, I was unable to hand it over for repair.” It was the reason Kunikida had driven himself to the shopping district in the first place.
“Oh, don’t worry about it, Kunikida. We’ll get to that together.”
“No, you need to stay here to monitor Atsushi’s health, and you need complete equipment for the check-up at the end of this week.” With that, Kunikida heads out of the sitting-room, out the office building onto the street.
It’s not until later leaving the store that Kunikida remembers his suit vest is still stained with Atsushi’s blood, snot and tears from the shopping district attack earlier.
~.~.~
Ideal #432: A balanced home provides the foundation for a professional, productive lifestyle.
Weretigers are not the same as standard children. Kunikida wishes he had flagged this while annotating his manual on child rearing [published by the Yokohama National University, eighth edition]. The number of dirty crockeries has tripled against initial prediction, kid-sized and yoghurt-smelling footprints must be wiped from both the floorboards and the top of the sliding door, and nap time either extends beyond the scheduled three-to-four p.m. or peppers intermittently in the period allocated for grocery shopping. Kunikida doesn’t sit privately in his private study anymore.
He is back in his usual apartment, having decided that Atsushi would better adjust to the change in carer arrangements if he was removed from the Agency dorms altogether. What the kid isn’t adjusting to, is tonight’s dinner which Kunikida has presented in a Kyoto-stoneware bowl, and soy sauce restrained to the wise serving of one tablespoon.
“Don’t eat all of it at once,” Kunikida repeats for the fifth time from his side of the dining table. “You need to break it apart first.”
The natto beans clump around Atsushi’s chopsticks like wet and hefty fairy floss. Strings of natto stretch higher, the higher Atsushi holds up his goo. “I’m trying…” The boy scrutinises his unknown dinner, his brows pinched with curious offence.
“Don’t think about the stink. It’s healthy for you.”
Excerpt from Doppo Kunikida’s research while meal planning:
200g of fermented natto served at least once a week will substantially decrease Atsushi Nakajima’s risk of strokes and cardiac infarcts for at least 32 years.
“I’m not thinking about the stink,” Atsushi insists, his nostrils flaring to half the size of his nose. “It’s tickling my nose.”
“Then stop with the face or at this rate you’ll eat twenty minutes behind schedule. I’m going to make a phone call.” Training himself to be ambidextrous has yielded him a practical skill. Firstly, Kunikida swaps his chopsticks to his left hand. Secondly, he dials his cell phone in his right.
Step 1, for a successful night’s schedule. Get Atsushi to finish his dinner.
“Kunikida-san?” Junichiro Tanizaki answers the phone. “Why are you calling?”
“You didn’t call me at four-forty-seven today.” Kunikida lifts a morsel of rice and natto to his mouth, flicks his watch wrist towards himself.
“You don’t need to tutor me every evening…”
Thirdly, Kunikida drops his watch adorned wrist. Fourth, he addresses the other end of the table. “Eat in twelve minutes,” he tells Atsushi. “It’s almost six, and you need at least two hours and forty-five minutes of digestion for maximised sleep quality.”
Atsushi shoves the stick of clumpy gunk up his mouth.
Fifth, the ideals detective props the phone in the crook of his shoulder so he can open a textbook on the right corner of the dining table. He transitions focus to Tanizaki, “We agreed on thirty-two hours of total consultation, and I won’t be available at the end of this week due to one obligation. Do you want to ace the test or not?”
“Well,” the youth, Tanizaki, hesitates. “You seemed busier than usual today.”
“I’m not busy,” Kunikida says.
“I really think… you are—”
“You’re approaching a T-intersection when a bus pulls up in the lane beside you…”
Kunikida hears the frantic scuffle of note cards and paper on the other end of the call.
Step 2. Tutor Tanizaki for his upcoming driving test.
While waiting, the ideals detective lifts his head, grunts at Atsushi. “Eleven minutes. Why are you bunching the chopsticks together?”
Atsushi has taken the natto out of his mouth and flopped the gob, now coated with saliva, back onto his rice pile. Atsushi makes ant mounds in his dinner, puncturing holes with the chopsticks clenched inside one fist. “My hand hurts when I hold them normally,” the kid says. His eyebrows are so creased he might be mistaken for a little wrinkly man.
“From what? Did you get injured?”
“I think my nails are too pointy.”
“Unacceptable, Atsushi. As a member of the Armed Detective Agency, you should know how to deal with such issues. You bear the reputation of our company. Yokohama depends on your indepen—”
“Is the line for my lane solid or broken, Kunikida-san?” Tanizaki asks from the phone.
“... Solid.” Firstly, Kunikida nudges his bowl aside, gestures to the kid for an item across the kitchen floor, then for the kid himself.
“So, if it’s solid, that means no gaps in the line…”
Step 1, item ‘a’. Help Atsushi eat his dinner so… Step 1, item ‘b’. Atsushi finishes his dinner.
Secondly, Kunikida speaks to the other kid on call, “Just a moment, Tanizaki.” He nudges his seat to stand. “I need to get—”
“Wait, wait, is this the one with moderate traffic? Heavy traffic? I can’t find the diagram on my page.”
Step 2. Help Tanizaki in tandem with Step 1.
“Page forty-six.” Kunikida seats himself before he can properly stand. He produces his notebook from his front pocket, flicks a pen from his ear, tears a page. “Doppo Poet.”
Nail clippers are summoned as Atsushi drops the wastebin between both of their feet. Atsushi clambers onto the man’s lap.
Pages crackle as Tanizaki flips them from his home desk. “… Someone spilled coffee on the picture.”
Kunikida uses his own chopsticks to pick a portion from Atsushi’s bowl, hovers it before the kid perched on his knee. “Chew then swallow.” As Atsushi chews, he drops the chopsticks, angles Atsushi’s left hand over the wastebin to clip the fingernails. He speaks to Tanizaki, “Draw a road with a solid line on the left side and broken on the right.”
“Ah, where’s my ruler…”
“Hold on, I’m getting an incoming call from Ranpo-san. Draw the picture with heavy traffic.” Kunikida puts Tanizaki on hold. “Pinkie,” he prompts Atsushi. He answers the next call.
“It’s happening again, Kunikida.”
Kunikida exhales through his nose, murmurs below his breath, “… Not the witching hour.”
“I’d say sweet tooth hour,” Ranpo from his townhouse corrects. “But even sweeter this hour than most hours. And savoury too.”
Step 3. Minimise interaction time with Ranpo.
“Ranpo-san,” Kunikida starts implementing Step 3. “At the end of this week, I need—”
The phone vibrates.
Step 3, on hold. Kunikida lowers his phone in his palm, switches his call volume on speaker.
Yosano Akiko sent you a message.
Step 7.
No, Kunikida skipped Steps 4, 5, 6… He reads Yosano’s message.
Yosano: [ I forgot to tell you, a burglary gang intercepted and stole our order for office chairs… Should I break into their hideout and butcher them all? ]
You to Yosano: [ Good evening, Yosano-sens|
“Fun,” Ranpo interrupts from the phone speaker. “Are you going to let her ‘beat and treat’ them?
Kunikida’s keypad lags. Kunikida accidentally deletes his reply. “What?”
“Sugary-sodium-tooth hour.”
“Didn’t the President leave you more snacks this morning?” Kunikida asks.
“I left them in the office.”
“Have you checked every corner of every cupboard in your pantry?”
“None of the packets are neon coloured nor look appetising.”
Kunikida mentally scrambles. “Can you walk yourself to the convenience down the road, the one that’s… you know, conveniently open to your neighbourhood twenty-four-seven?”
“Not going!” Ranpo gripes. “This situation calls for your secret stash! Where is it, Kunikida-kun?”
“That’s… Only a last resort,” Kunikida chokes, pleads to the master detective. “We can think of another solution for now.” The secret stash is implemented specifically for nights like this, but at least three weeks are required for Kunikida to devise the next one. Ranpo gutting out the stash will skew Kunikida’s calendar, absolutely disturb the time Kunikida is trying to clear so he can fulfil one obligation at the end of this week. This week. Kunikida can’t fall behind schedule any week but especially not this week.
“I’ve got my glasses here.” On call, Ranpo considers carefully, “I’m swinging them in one hand...”
Kunikida knocks the textbook with his elbow — off the table. “Control yourself just for tonight, and I promise I’ll bring you twice the number of snacks tomorrow!”
“Tempting offer but waiting’s no fun!”
Step 3. For the sake of fulfilling the obligation at the end of this week, minimise interaction with Ranpo.
“Try making your own confectionary!”
“Not interested!”
Atsushi splays out his right fingernails.
“You can read a book!” The ideals detective says, trims Atsushi’s nails. “Review your case files… OR! Even better! Write some ideals!”
“BOO! I’m popping my frames over my nose!”
“I NEED TO CHECK ON TANIZAKI!” Kunikida cries, drops the nail clippers, feeds Atsushi more natto. “DON’T USE YOUR SUPER DEDUCTION—!” He switches call. “How’s your diagram drawing?” Kunikida cordially questions.
“I can’t find my ruler.”
“Use the textbook spine.”
You to Yosano: [ Hello Yosano-sensei, I will consult with the warehouse at 9:07AM tomorrow, so please refrain|
“No, you d-don’t understand,” Tanizaki’s voice quivers. “I can’t find my ruler. It was the ruler Naomi gave me. I can’t use anything that wasn’t from Naomi...”
Step 1, subsection ‘c’. Once again, Kunikida loses the message he was close to sendi—
“Naomi…” The youth on call ponders publicly.
Kunikida types faster.
You to Yosano: [ Don’t butcher!!! ]
Human meat is not permitted for sale.
“... Should I use Light Snow to show Naomi her ruler is still on my desk?”
Sent.
Kunikida’s putting the phone flat beside the natto, picking up the nail clippers in his left hand and slinging Atsushi into his right arm. He’s using Atsushi as an improvised winch, clawing the previously dropped textbook off the floor.
“Be careful,” Kunikida tells the kid.
“Careful…?” Tanizaki utters. “What do you think I’ve been doing for the entirety of this test?”
“No.” Kunikida angles his chin towards his phone. “I was talking to Ats—”
“… But then what if I impulsively decide to use Light Snow when I accidentally run a red light?”
Step 1, item ‘c’ part ‘i’. Speak sense into Tanizaki. Speak sense to complete Step—
“What if I don’t deserve a reissue of my driver’s licence?” Tanizaki utters grievously. “Should I try driving again?”
Again, a notification blooms on Kunikida’s phone.
Ranpo Edogawa sent you a message.
Ranpo: [ Hi ]
[ Hey ]
Kunikida’s up to Step—
Ranpo: [ You stopped calling me ]
“I’ll drive into another library with another five toddlers inside…” Tanizaki dreads.
Kunikida’s fighting a red itch. Kunikida’s suffering, scarcely suppressing the fiery steam, this hissing heat. Step 3.
Ranpo Edogawa sent you a sticker.
Because Kunikida’s attempting Step 3 after Step 1, item ‘a’ parts ‘i’, ‘ii’, item ‘b’, and Step 1.5 and Step 2—
Ranpo Edogawa sent you a sticker.
Kunikida’s thrusting his middle finger at the screen, tries dismissing the stickers sending.
Dazai, 3 weeks ago: [ ~(,>O<,,*)/ KUUNIKIDA-KYUUU—
Aborting messages with wrong contact. Avoid deleting Yosano’s chat.
“Is it really okay to serve my private interests?” Tanizaki’s downward spiralling.
Ranpo: [ Stop hand feeding Atsushi ]
Still hooked in Kunikida’s arm, Atsushi’s swaying.
“... Even if it poses a threat to the rest of the community?”
Ranpo: [ Tanizaki can cry by himself!! ]
[ Reply to my messages!!!!!!!!!!!! ]
“What are my rules as a law-abiding driver who’s also societally feared as an ability-use—”
“Ranpo’s buzzing me again.” Kunikida excuses — turns off speaker, switches call — no raise in volume nor pay — holds up his phone. “Yes, Ranpo-san?”
The other end of the call responds, intermittently broken by the noise of wrappers and fried crisps.
It is not sustainable to amend Step 3 concurrently with Step 1, Step 1.1 and Step 2.
Kunikida pulls Atsushi back onto his lap. “You deduced the secret stash.”
“Don’t even try putting the next one in a three-lock safe behind my sock drawer. That’s where you were planning to hide the next one, right?”
Attempting Step 3 at the same time as Step—
… attempting step—
Kunikida picks up his pen, opens to page 70 in his notebook, crosses out the list’s latest entry.
Potential locations for Ranpo Edogawa’s secret stash:
A three-lock safe behind the sock drawer.
Step… step…
Kunikida lowers the pen, picks up the chopsticks to feed Atsushi rice and natto, cannot comprehend what else to do next even while referring to his notebook.
“Hey, hey,” Ranpo prods eventually, bursting open another bag. “How old’s Atsushi-kun?”
“He’s, uh, since the age-reversion, he’s...”
“Nah ah, regardless of the case, shouldn’t the date Atsushi was born be the same as it was before? And from the incomplete records, we assume he was born about eighteen years ago.”
The ideals detective angles his elbows, hopes to revise the relevant section in his notebook, finds this unachievable as his table space — arms — hands are occupied with his pen — chopsticks — weretiger. He resorts to memory. “But Yosano-sensei told me that both Atsushi and that imbecile are physically and mentally younger than usual… stop forgetting to treat them like they're younger and not just shorter…”
“Ngm aighth yeerth olf,” Atsushi claims, cheeks swollen with natto.
Kunikida looks down to Atsushi. “You’re eight years old,” Kunikida gently copies while trying to recall the step… what step—
“Me? Eight years old?” Ranpo garbles while likely slurping the Venus jelly, which is unexpected since the master detective can precisely differentiate between several voices and who they’re addressing, though this isn’t the most pressing issue so…
Kunikida lifts his spectacles. “Pardon me, I meant—”
“Looks like you need to revise at least three volumes of your notebooks, Kunikida-kun! Every sentence, where you’ve ever recorded information on the master detective.”
To amend in this week’s schedule:
Revise at least three volumes of personal notebooks, in addition every sentence ever recorded of Ranpo Edogawa, the Master Detective, as directed by the aforementioned superior.
Atsushi has swivelled sideways across his human seat, legs stretched over Kunikida’s shoulder. Kunikida hadn’t noticed when he started clipping Atsushi’s toenails, can’t recall what item this would be under Step 1.
“Don’t eat too many of those Cheesy Comets.” Kunikida pinches out Atsushi’s middle toe.
“No, silly, I’ve finished the bag. I’m eating the daif*cku now!”
[To be edited] Doppo Kunikida’s research for meal planning:
200g of fermented natto served at least once a week will decrease Ranpo Edogawa’s risk of strokes and cardiac infarcts for up to 12 months.
The kid tugs Kunikida’s other hand for more natto.
“Is that all?” Kunikida asks.
“Figure out how old Atsushi-kun is,” Ranpo insists.
“Is it important?”
“It’ll help me sleep without my night light.”
“I’ll get back to you in a timely manner.” Kunikida lowers the phone, glances through his spectacles at the kid lounging on his lap. “No, spit it out!” Kunikida shouts, “Not all of it at once!” He flips the kid onto the kid’s belly, lets the kid regurgitate the oversized wad of beans [with all the auditory pleasantries of a helium-inflated, gagging raccoon] into the wastebin.
Step 1, items ‘ai’, ‘aii’, ‘b’. Incomplete— Step 3, with supplementary duties to be embedded before the end of this week — in disarray — Step… what step—
“Doppo Poet.” The man summons a pack of serviettes, wipes the fermented strings off Atsushi’s nose, past Atsushi’s chin, then again picks up the phone, resumes discussion with the first caller since dinner began, “This is the reason you’ve been upsetting Naomi lately.”
“… What?”
“You’ve been worrying about this test for two months…” Kunikida wedges the nail clippers between two fingers, flips through his phone to satisfy a previous chat.
You to Ranpo: [ This is a reply to your messages, Ranpo-san. ]
Again, he tucks the phone in the crook of his shoulder, pinches the clippers in his right hand. “I know you want to surprise Naomi with a perfect score on top of your re-issued permit, but she doesn’t like you hiding the reason for your obvious stress.” While clipping Atsushi’s toenails, he recalls a note recently taken in the office.
Follow-up: Naomi Tanizaki’s mood has seemed dim over several work shifts. This may negatively affect her general productivity and professional mindset. Raise concern with Junichiro Tanizaki.
The youth on call quietens. “But… but…. I’m doing this for Naomi.”
“I know— left little toe… So why don’t you treat her tonight? Watch her favourite movie together to remind her that her brother is still here and has time to relax.”
Step... Atsushi. Atsushi’s smaller hand twitches for the natto in Kunikida’s bowl. Kunikida sticks his chopsticks into Atsushi’s smaller hand.
Step… Tanizaki. Tanizaki hears the advice, his untethered voice hiccupping by the receiver.
“KUNIKIDA-SAN!” Tanizaki wails from the call, “I knew something felt off with Naomi! This morning she left our dorm so early before I could even serve her. It must’ve put me out of it for the rest of today! Especially when we usually do wake up together, I watch Naomi open her lashes and she’s all my vitamins, and then she comes over to my side in bed and s—”
Kunikida decides this is the appropriate time to hang up the call. He writes on a fresh page in his notebook.
Reminder: Do not assist the Tanizaki siblings further than necessary.
Firstly, he stacks his notebook, secondly the Road Rules textbook in a neat pile at the corner of his dining table, then thirdly observes Atsushi lying sideways across his legs. Atsushi, who is rubbing his own belly after eating more than one serving of natto — is in the nearly complete process of finishing the natto from Kunikida’s bowl.
It’s only then, Kunikida checks the watch on his left wrist. “Six minutes,” Kunikida says.
Six minutes over the time allocated for dinner.
The phone buzzes. Katai Tayama is calling now.
Seventy-four minutes after dinner. Kunikida has had to add another commitment to his afterwork schedule that he hadn’t expected when taking Atsushi in. Atsushi won’t sleep unless he sees Kunikida lying beside him from the second futon, their profiles on the side, facing each other.
“What are you doing, Kunikida-san?” The kid, appearing shrunken by a one-point-five-metres distance, asks behind Kunikida’s palm.
“We’re on a tight schedule.” Kunikida flexes his palm in the junction between their beds, like the act alone could physically shut Atsushi’s eyelids. “You have eighteen seconds to enter the NREM sleep stage.”
The man had ironed his pyjama set before lying down. Atsushi’s too. Tomorrow morning, Kunikida will rise an hour earlier than the regular schedule to wash his face, comb his hair, change into his uniform and maintain proper appearances as he wakes Atsushi, has him complete the same fundamental process. Kunikida will carry this out as planned yesterday and the day before, knowing too well the execution will likely zigzag with the kid in tow. Because Atsushi’s work ethic doesn’t function with discipline [as it should] like Kunikida’s. Instead of crisp pen nibs and margins, the kid runs on raw feeling — a gut clench that tosses him overboard to save the drowning — survival probabilities scraped thin — a peculiar scent that makes him puke his heart onto bare hands. Kunikida could measure him by the minute but Atsushi’s pulse springs without pattern.
In bed, the man pushes back his glasses [for those who ask and will keep asking, Kunikida wears his glasses to bed], checks the alarm clock by his pillow.
Seven seconds.
If they stop talking, the boy in the spare futon, his stubbornly open eyes, should be idle enough to go to sleep on schedule.
“What’s the matter?” Kunikida makes himself ask, alternatively.
“Dazai-san hasn’t seen the rest of the Agency for a while.”
Dazai. That mushroom-high snigg*r hindering Kunikida’s career. If the ideals detective could deduce what that waste-of-bandages operates on, the Agency would be filing twice the number of reports. Of course, that man’s motive to work productively [not suicide, which depletes the rate of filed reports] remains foggy. It’s a private case Kunikida’s been squinting at with insubstantial progress, the question scrawled doggedly in his mind but the answer space left blank.
When Doppo Kunikida sees that bandaged man again, he’ll do what he hasn’t done in two years. Dazai won’t evade him this time. The single obligation at the end of this week will unscramble that man’s shadowed outline, put one stop to the snowballing reminders in Kunikida’s notes.
Tomorrow, he’ll disclose to the Armed Detective Agency what happened at the harbour.
If the ideals detective kept quiet in his futon now, his other colleague could still fall asleep within the night’s schedule.
Ideal #121: Abide by the principle behind your work.
“I spoke with the President on the phone this morning,” Kunikida informs the boy instead. “Dazai is fine.”
Atsushi hears this. And those eyes. Their fiery orbs surpass the warmth of the nearby andon lamp.
“Dazai is fine…” The mouth in the other futon echoes that sentence, the purple-yellow cosmos from that small face aglow. “Then I want to see him again.”
The alarm clock by Kunikida’s head blinks. Far longer than seven seconds.
The damage can’t be undone, so the man will handle it with considerate care.
The binary stars of Atsushi’s eyes set, tuck themselves under the spare duvet. Then Kunikida gets up from bed, returns to his private study, resumes the pending administrative tasks originally assigned to ADA members Dazai Osamu and Atsushi Nakajima, as result of their special leave from employee assignments. As with previous nights since the age-reversion incident, he postpones his bedtime.
~.~.~
One day and twenty hours later, Kunikida prepares to end the day’s shift by zipping up his trolley bag. “Ready to go?” He asks the two other remaining inhabitants at the Armed Detective Agency office.
Atsushi leans into Kyouka’s side by the exit door, the height of his uneven bangs not even reaching the bag’s pulley handle. “We didn’t take your car to the office today,” he mentions. “How will we get back to your apartment?”
“We’re going to the dorms which are walking distance. Dazai has returned as of yesterday afternoon.” Kunikida straightens himself from his luggage, turns his profile to regard Atsushi carefully. “Do you still want to go back?”
Ideal #307: An attentive ear waits patiently for the other person’s consent, only to forget and ask again.
It is late afternoon, the window light paving trapeziums the colour of peach bums. Atsushi is diagonally saturated in the portioned sun. Atsushi co*cks his head to think carefully. In the reinstatement of previous carer arrangements, with that black-suited executive he hasn’t since the harbour, he raises one concern, “Are we still making the strawberry cake like you said we would tonight?”
“We’ll buy the ingredients on the way.” Kunikida squats down, turns his back with arms beckoning.
Results from medical examination:
Atsushi Nakajima is in healthy condition. Ensure he avoids overexertion for the rest of this week.
Out of the office, two-and-a-half human shadows traverse the pink tinted walls along the sidewalk — the first belonging to Kyouka as she lugs the trolley bag, the second Kunikida who carries Atsushi on his back.
In the late afternoon, on the way to the local grocery store and then the Agency dorms, the plastic wheels of Kunikida’s bag bumble furiously through loose pebbles.
In the late afternoon, as Kunikida walks with someone’s shorter arms clung to his shoulders, he feels the brush of a kid’s sniffing nose, wiggling his ponytail. A forehead buries itself into the small of his back.
Kunikida thinks of a way he could capture this in neat, coherent sentences — fitted within poetic schemes to be exhibited coherently in rectangular frame.
The moment fails him.
~.~.~
Kunikida raises the foreign thing in his hands, a contraption. “Since when did we need a tin foil roof over the cake pan?” He reviews his open notebook on the kitchen bench, at the shortcake recipe concocted after consulting four cookbooks and five baking websites, with a minimum of three creditable prizes or one Michelin star.
Between dorm kitchen benches, Kyouka’s eyes and an aluminium roll glint expectantly upwards, at their improvised craft which Kunikida now holds — its crisp folds informed under the origami tutelage from Haruno. “The trapped heat will make the sponge fluffier,” the girl in her pink home kimono alleges.
“The cake would rise regardless of the foil being there or not.” Kunikida turns to the extracted sponge now resting on the bench. “Not only that. The cake is already baked.”
“Fluffier sponge,” Kyouka repeats, her cobalt irises staring. “Fluffier sponge.”
Ideal #465: Sometimes, a lie provides better service than forced fact.
“This is the best cake I’ve ever eaten, Kunikida-san!” Atsushi proclaims while squatting with two legs and one hand, his fork scraping every burnt batter strip in the round tin [on the floor, wrapped in a towel with firm warning of its hot surface].
“That’s because it’s homemade.” Kunikida fixes Kyouka’s foil roof over the cake sponge. “Wait till you try the actual cake.”
The boy in the metallic spacesuit onesie [Naomi and Ranpo’s latest purchase] co*cks his head up to the bench, his knee proceeding to flap like the presence of the cake slab had been instantaneously forgotten and rediscovered. Atsushi had let his jaw hang ajar for the entire cake procedure, having mentioned that he didn’t know what many of the kitchen appliances were until Dazai showed him.
Kunikida doesn’t want to know what the children were fed in the orphanage.
Atsushi from the floor stalks the cake on the bench. Atsushi’s cut nails prowl from the countertop edge, his nostrils stealing the steamy wisps rolling off the buttered sponge. “Is Dazai-san going to eat with us?” He asks.
No one answered when they rang the doorbell. Once they used the spare key, they found the bathroom door shut.
“If he comes out from the bathroom,” Kunikida answers.
“I’ll get him!” Atsushi drops back onto the floor. Atsushi scampers out the kitchen on arms and legs.
“Atsushi, wait—” But in that same moment, Kunikida notices the bowl of whipped cream melting on the warm surface of the stovetop. He snatches it off, frantically beats the whisk through it, then once he manages to salvage it, collects the fork and cake tin [scraped clean by the kid]. He returns these to the middle kitchen island, fixes the hem of his apron, turns to Kyouka who is chopping strawberries. “You haven’t had your fortnightly crepe with Atsushi,” he says.
Kyouka nods.
Kunikida opens the fridge, swaps out the whipped cream bowl for a bakery box. “I hope this suffices.” He opens the box by Kyouka’s chopping board, unveils the chef-grade crepe from the higher end of Yokohama.
Notes for managing this week’s budget:
Personal expenses will need to be limited, involving abstaining from Uzumaki’s coffees and purchasing the inferior brand of laundry powder.
Kyouka’s fingers are still drenched red from strawberry juice as she flits from the cutting board and snags her syrup-drizzled victim. Kunikida completes the job with the strawberries, silently impressed by the culinary consistency of Kyouka’s cut quarters [how she developed such precise slicing skills… he doesn’t dwell on it for long].
“Dazai-san is out!” Spacesuit-wearing Atsushi zips back into the kitchen, to the cake on the rack.
“Make him do something else,” Kunikida tells Kyouka. “He’ll roast his eyes by staring at the cake so avidly.”
As the kids bumble to the dining to set the table and take turns munching the crepe, Kunikida takes the opportunity to wash his hands and step out into the hallway. He walks around the dorm, examines the vacated bathroom — bathwater suds dotting the floors, leaving a phantom trail to the bedroom door now closed. Then the trolley bag leaning against the wall demands Kunikida’s attention and the man takes out the office folders, brings them back into the kitchen.
Three orange-stained dinner plates and three slices of decorated, gourmet cake later, Kyouka and Atsushi have transported themselves to the adjoining living area directly across the dining. The living room stays obscured in dark as Atsushi kneels before the television and Kyouka fiddles behind the monitor.
The screen bursts in technicolour.
Atsushi’s eyes must have too. Atsushi launches at the TV. Atsushi’s hands and face flatten to pancakes against the lit rectangle.
“Not too close.” Kyouka hauls him backwards along the floor.
Atsushi listens and stays a suitable two metres from the TV beam. It doesn’t stop his elastic neck from stretching forward, nor his bottom bouncing from the floor.
At the back, Kunikida stays at the kitchen bench. Having wiped the tabletops and stacked all the dishes [with exception to one seat at the table], he can finally continue the paperwork he had brought from work. Specifically, Dazai’s lodging charts, written cancellations of Atsushi’s bodyguard jobs, Dazai’s revisions of joint operations… Daza’s formal apologies to parties involved in joint operations for his fashionable neglig—
Kunikida smooths out his office folders, quells the desire to crush them. Due to the added tasks of replacing Ranpo’s secret stash and revising all archived data about the master detective, Kunikida’s endeavour to complete all administration papers has been delayed even with earlier risings and elongated nights, but he is determined to finalise these tonight. It’s a must if he’s going to dedicate his whole time to a single obligation tomorrow. Though the current working conditions aren’t desirable, given the shrilly platoon of music from the running TV cartoon — affirming war in the sparkling names of PEACE, HARMONY~ and FRIENDSHIP!. Atsushi might pounce up the walls and Kyouka could summon Demon Snow for no apparent reason.
Note: Ex-assassins are not the same as standard children.
But under his apron, ADA detective, Doppo Kunikida is wearing his work uniform. His formal suit vest will maintain an attitude for workplace proficiency. Kunikida handles the first folder over the benchtop, extracts the slab of documents from Atsushi Nakajima: pending administration tasks… except, the documents meant to be assigned to Atsushi Nakajima are unexpectedly error printouts from the photocopier. He flips through the pile, spots a sticky note slipped in the middle…
Message on handwritten sticky note:
There was no way I was going to let you take the brunt of the work on your own. I’ll cover Atsushi’s admin from here. x
Yosano Akiko. Red hand smears adorn the two documents enclosing the sticky note. The ideals detective deeply regrets not checking the folder contents while packing his trolley bag but felt cramped under Ranpo’s deadlines. The next folder he extracts isn’t even filled with mock documents. Instead of the paperwork allotted to Dazai Osamu: overdue, a commercial cat treat sample slides out onto Kunikida’s palm.
Sassy salmon-flavoured!
Kunikida considers requesting an appointment to dissuade his Boss from doing work allocated to lower staff, remembers that this is his Boss and can’t immediately decide on how to amend this universe inverted. But then he doesn’t decide on it any further because from the blurred corner of his glasses, crossing the space behind his folders a shadow slinks, spectral bones entering periphery.
A clump of brunette locks. Excess bathwater dulling the neck bandages.
It is the dark figure none of the Agency workers have seen for several days, the pest perpetually sending Kunikida’s schedules into affray — his detective partner who wobbles like free-floating characters that cannot be pinned down in stable grid lines. Dazai Osamu steps into the kitchen, the slightly shorter form that is, with his cheek patch and that bandaged eye that could potentially be covering a stye [to be confirmed]. Dazai has entered, neither facing the benches or the living area across. He simply stands. Facing one side. Before one of his dorm’s unlimited blank walls.
Doppo Kunikida’s New Year’s resolution:
Refrain from shouting at your colleagues.
Amendment: Unless necessary.
Further amendment: Or keep incidents of shouting to a minimum.
So far, sticking to the resolution hasn’t lasted longer than a day. This year’s resolution is the same as last year’s resolution.
Ideal #786: Accept that your shortcomings are as much a part of you as your assets.
But with the situation at hand, he has managed this goal at his mind’s forefront, for several days that Atsushi has stayed at his apartment — since the day a group of ADA members took their lunch break at the shopping district… The ideals detective lowers the cat treat and documents used as blood wipes, notes the soggy human mop is wearing the fresh sweatpants, the navy t-shirt. “You’re wearing the clothes Yosano-sensei bought you,” Kunikida comments.
The dorm’s tenant stays standing. Facing his walls. “It was the only option someone left in the cabinet.”
Auditory cannons blow from the living area, subsequently paired with twinkle effects. A shrunken boy cheers and a teenage girl presumably turns the TV volume louder, yet Dazai doesn’t turn to see who these other dorm visitors are.
In the meantime, the ideals detective walks through the kitchen and extracts the fourth dinner serving from the oven. His detective partner looms right where the dining table is and he arrives at this spot, sets the dish before him.
Dazai lowers his chin. Towards the waft of spice only to immediately freeze over.
“What?” Kunikida questions.
The villain from the TV cartoon chortles while gargling on soap bubbles.
At the sight on the table, Dazai’s posture has reverted to that of a statue. Stone still. With joints chiselled in every inch of hostility. Strained in the impossible effort to back away.
“What is it?” Kunikida peers back down to tonight’s dish. “Is it not to your taste? I don’t think a drying rack for bandages requires any sophisticated menu.”
He expects Dazai to quip him about this, for the infuriating voice to crack into borderline singsong while listing off the best meals ever feasted by walking through the restaurant’s back door, but the man by the dining doesn’t whine, doesn’t flail upon collision with the insult. Dazai doesn’t speak of anything at the boiled potatoes and carrots, which are smothered in brown sauce.
Nothing.
The bandaged fool drips in nothing. As he stands.
Staring down at the plate of curry.
Another twinkle cannon blasts from the nearby cartoon. Sound relapses and Dazai settles down at the dining. Rejects the dinner plate’s existence by poking a fork through the spare cake slice left on the table. He carves out some sponge, kneads it between steel prongs, reversing the bicarbonate soda by mushing it through red-polluted cream. It’s only then, he skewers the defiled cake knob. Pops it into his mouth.
Ideal #099: Good food, especially if thoughtfully prepared by someone else, is a gift to your current existence. Honour the meal as so.
This is Dazai, alright, though the rendering of that raven eye pupil has slightly changed since this age-reversion nonsense began. It’s the raven pupil Kunikida first saw those two years ago upon meeting the Agency’s newest recruit. Now the certain dark pupil has returned — the paradox of its convex form that seems to hollow inwards, the angle of its lens undirected, suspended in fleeting eye motions — as though the eye struggles to function because it’s missing something. Only remembered this evening what it was.
Kunikida steps up to Dazai’s seat at the dining.
He slips his palm under Dazai’s fringe.
Dazai’s fork shrieks against the porcelain, the mutilation of strawberry and deflated cream at an instant halt.
A voice resurfaces. “… what are you doing?”
“Recording your temperature,” Kunikida answers quite obviously. With his free hand, he produces his notebook from his apron pocket to record any discernible health data.
The cartoon voices from the living area seem to be brewing some sort of starry tornado. It’s likely the montage of a magical transformation.
Kunikida is only touching one part of Dazai yet he feels his detective partner’s entire frame tighten underneath. A nearly undetectable vibration. This would make an interesting observation in his notes. Ah, the raven pupil’s look has shifted again, the dark hole shrivelled in diameter, quaking in all directions like it’s about to detonate off its centre. It’s only on the rarest occasion that Kunikida catches this manic gaze in Dazai’s eye, let alone so close and directly targeted at him. Actually, he’s already observed this phenomenon only recently. Its closest resemblance — he would have only seen a few days ago, at the harbour—
“Get your hand off me,” the voice under the brunette fringe utters, teeth gritting to forebode the clean carnage of Kunikida’s severed wrist, far worse.
“If you had a thermometer in this dorm, I wouldn’t need to hold my hand here for another fourteen seconds.” And Kunikida would prefer to hold it for this duration but relents. He walks to the opposing end of the table, bends down to retrieve stock from under. “Your shopping trip in the central district was interrupted but I managed to purchase your items today… These are from the pharmacy.” After the shopping bags, he hefts a larger box onto the dinning, its cardboard splitting at the creases and cube form closely bulging to that of a plush sphere. “This.” He pats the bloated package with freshly bought bedding. “You wasted a perfectly good futon by dumping it in the bin.”
Under the curtain of trickling brunette hair, the raven pupil withdraws. The damp man resumes eating his cake.
“Where have you been sleeping?” Kunikida asks.
Dazai mashes more cake sponge.
Kunikida glances back to the hallway, leading down to the bathroom. “How long were you in there?”
Kunikida recorded that he, Kyouka and Atsushi arrived at Dazai’s dorm at three-past-six. He doesn’t know how early Dazai ran the bath.
“You’ll have nothing substantial here for your notes,” the man sitting at the dining tells him now. “Unless you’re here to tase me again, go find a different specimen.” Dazai drags his little fork through the cake sludge, lifts and waves it to shoo him dismissively, “I take no pleasure in sharing my domestic details with another man.”
“It’s not like I want you to, you nitwit.”
“No, you don’t.” The brunette man drops his fork against the plate — sharp steel winking in the light, pricking the porcelain.
And as Kunikida sees this, he must privately relay this year’s new resolution three times. Seeing this itches the hard-to-reach spot behind his shoulder, nips his nerves inflaming up his temple because…
1. That is the improper way to lower your fork, let alone how to treat personal crockery [the defacing of the homemade shortcake to be expanded in a written note].
2. Dazai Osamu is about to flip the questions, reverse the interrogation onto him.
Mental note: It spontaneously shocks Doppo Kunikida, how he sometimes knows his detective partner better than he realises.
Further mental note: This irritates him more than it shocks him.
Dazai laces his hands over the table. Fixes his raven eye to the dorm’s visitor across the table and Kunikida’s right. Dazai does what Kunikida expects he will do.
“So what liquid explosive am I formulating in my bathtub?” The bandaged man ricochets with the first question. “What Port Mafia executive activity have you detected after you searched through my dorm?”
Kunikida is presented this.
And he’s bursting to shout at Dazai. Since when did Dazai make explosives? Kunikida hadn’t expected this information in the questions. It whips Kunikida like a rocket spinning his office chair and Kunikida’s close to beating the bandaged lump into perfectly unrolled and ironed strips before handing him over to police for illegal weapon-making — or if [so help him] it turns out the buffoon somehow has some sort of licence for bomb production, from whatever mistaken approval [as with his driving], Kunikida is certain that even Dazai can’t produce bombs in his bathtub, in close proximity to other civilians—
New Year’s resolution: Refrain from shouting at your colleagues.
“… At least inform the Agency about it,” Kunikida responds, composing his volume with an effort that dizzies him. “We’ll need to implement safety measures…” [All the phone calls over potential work-property damage he’ll have to make… the long-term risks of chemical waste…] “And we haven’t been working with the Port Mafia recently, so there shouldn’t be executive activity in this dorm. Your last question doesn’t make sense.”
Dazai motions lazily to the shopping on the table. “Then you have no reason to charade this compassion project to me. You’re trying to slot me between your ideals but I’ll tell you, it won’t work.” The raven pupil hardens. “Drop it now. And don’t even try convincing me that you were scared because I was toying with suicide.”
“What you were doing wasn’t one of your pranks. If it had been, you would have jumped into the river… or stuck your head out of a plane.”
It’s still there. That look of loss… of being lost? The ideals detective is still specifying the nuance in Dazai’s raven eye. Because it doesn’t take a large-scale detonantion to realise a bath filled only by a quarter decreases a person’s ease at drowning. An expert at suicide should know this much [though Dazai’s unsuccess could indicate an incompetence]. Festering in the bath is a nasty appetiser but procrastinates fatality — the complete course that finishes the diner.
So, if not to die.
Kunikida can suspect the other reasons.
“Tell me what symptoms of cold you’re experiencing now,” Kunikida asks again, notebook and pen ready. “This will provide more reasons to have your health checked with the Agency’s clinic, and I must add, the list has never expanded more than this week alone.”
But once again, Dazai’s slipping from his notes — his gaze. Dazai’s shadow — his presence is like loose pages shedding from a book.
Dazai stands from the dining table. “This is pointless.”
The ideals detective isn’t going to curse, won’t allow himself to shout. Kunikida’s close to cracking the first page but his detective partner’s drifting in evasion.
“We’re turning back next week, right?” Dazai reasons with no one, turns away for the cool bathwater dripping down the hallway. “Trying to get a check-up would be redundant.”
The ideals detective lowers his notebook and pen, places his palms across the table. He’s going to fulfil the one obligation he hasn’t for two years. He’ll do this one thing for an idiot — the one moron he’s failed the most of everyone at the Agency.
“I’ll be your normal, silly Dazai in no time!” The back of Dazai chides cheerily. “Don’t bother with this version of me. Even you’re sensible enough to know not to waste your precious doctor’s ti—”
“In the two years since your employment, with exception to life-saving operations outside your consent, you have not had a single check-up with Yosano-sensei.”
Dazai pauses.
Kunikida grips the edge of the dining table like he’s hanging off a rooftop.
He does not expand his point further.
In the nonsensical storm of cartoon heroes waging war against war, in a fourth repeat of the opening theme song, Dazai stops in his departure. He might have guessed the fact presented, though it’s more likely Dazai Osamu didn’t believe his days due for a check-up were recorded since Day 1, the exact date he first entered the office. Paid little thought to Kunikida counting the days for every employee at the Agency — that Kunikida hasn’t stopped counting for one member.
This evening, this section of Kunikida’s notes is finally being used.
“Have your check-up with Yosano-sensei tomorrow,” Kunikida says, straightens up from the dining. “She’ll unlikely use Thou Shalt Not Die due to your nullification ability. I will be supervising both you and Atsushi for the whole office shift, so I’ll know whether you follow my instructions.”
What had Kunikida seen that day at the harbour? In the wailing eye of the shopping district assault — the concrete torn by histories and a Port Mafia leader’s ruptured veins? What Kunikida saw that day has finally allowed him to do what he hasn’t done in two years. It’s the reason he has denied his detective partner the comfort of dodging a question by asking another, suppressed his temper to vocal extremes which should be considered inhuman — the reason he’ll let Yosano and the President cover his paperwork this one instance.
Kunikida sees the man standing at the unlit, kitchen exit, recalls the day at the harbour.
The black-suited figure who stood over Akutagawa’s blood had been bearing something that always was but hadn’t been quite visible for the Agency to locate and touch — unexpectedly bared open that day like one of Atsushi’s animalistic snarls. What once appeared an enigma, a black spill of ink and paper shreds, is now a four-letter word circled from a paragraph. That day, Atsushi had seen it too.
Dazai stood at the harbour.
And Kunikida saw
Ideal #004: If damage cannot be undone, endeavour not to damage it further and handle with considerate care.
Here is Dazai now, water from the back of his brunette hair falling like tiny rocks, greyed cotton spirals held sparingly intact in shivering orbit. He does not return to the dining but nor does he fade from the dorm.
“So, this is what it’s like at this place now,” the brunette stick man eventually says, and the other almost thinks he hears him chuckle. “You’re not doing this for me.”
Kunikida isn’t making Dazai do this for himself. If Dazai had been asked to have a check-up for Dazai, Dazai would certainly not have a check-up — would conversely try the exact opposite of preserving his life span. Since Dazai’s absence, Kunikida has spent the past days clearing appointments, rescheduling meetings, filing tasks which would’ve been set tomorrow, so tomorrow he can commit to his one obligation of watching Dazai enter that clinic — and staying.
So, for who? It's something the rest of the ADA office will certainly notice tomorrow. It might ease the cramp in their shoulders.
The man wearing the t-shirt and sweatpants gestures back to the shopping. “There was only ever one futon. When the first one was soiled, we replaced it with Atsushi-kun’s from his and Kyouka’s usual dorm.” His eye peeks at the largest package with the futon. “That’ll be more special for the kid in case he wets the mattress again. He’s never had a brand-new bed before… not his younger self anyway.” Then the man presumes travelling through the dorm but across the kitchen. “And there’s no explosives in my bathtub,” Dazai adds with a lackadaisical wave. “What I said before was meant to be rhetorical.”
Kunikida picks up his notebook to revoke the latest item from his EXTREME CONCERNS IN EXTRAORDINARY CIRc*msTANCES WHICH REQUIRE ABSOLUTE AND IMMEDIATE ATTENTION list. He still believes Dazai would be idiotic enough to build a bomb in his bathtub, but he’s relieved knowing that even this individual isn’t qualified to hold some explosive-manufacturing licence. Actually, he doesn’t know that for certain. He should ask Dazai now to confirm.
Kunikida lifts his spectacles to the danger hazard in the navy t-shirt, a dark patch of water seeped into the back collar. The back of Dazai has slunk to the edge, fixed towards the space past the dining, the couch, into the living room. Kyouka has long dozed off in the seatless movie theatre, her silhouette retired as a sideways pebble outside the triangle of TV projection.
The only figure left bouncing, lit up in colourful frame, is Atsushi Nakajima.
The bandaged man drips in the kitchen-dining. A bandaged forearm clung to the far wall. He’s identified the weretiger with burning hydrogen for eyes. Those child eyes that had looked up at him at the harbour and—
No part of Dazai moves except the pinkie from his raised arm. Slightly shifting. Its barest tip itching to trace. Find. Some notch in the perfectly plain wall.
Kunikida removes his glasses.
Wipes his glasses with a clean corner of his apron.
Returns his glasses on his face.
Dazai Osamu, who throws himself at every billboard promising delightful suicide. Dazai Osamu, who deplores safety and embraces desirably death-inducing behaviours like frivolous lovers.
The bandaged man by the wall cannot bring himself to enter the living room.
Mental note [to be confirmed]: The man by the wall is indeed Dazai Osamu, and this scene supposedly resembles some fragment of reality.
“Atsushi’s request alone wouldn’t have been enough to bring the two of you back together,” Kunikida hears himself telling Dazai. “We all appealed for your return to President f*ckuzawa.”
Dazai by the wall registers this, his head tilting askew. The slim hand clung to the wall slides off.
The television screen is a kaleidoscopic wheel as the taller figure, from behind in the dark, approaches the child transfixed to the cartoon. Dazai gets closer. He ambles slower. His spine crouches incrementally as though he’s a photographer wary of the unfortunate myth. Vanishing upon discovery [vice versa].
Atsushi pays no attention as Dazai finally lowers and sits across him, albeit a three metres gap between them. It doesn’t bother the hypnotised kid, whose head of white hair whirls with the televised rainbow.
Kunikida hears crockery clack behind him, averts his vision.
Kyouka has appeared behind the kitchen island, stacking dishes for the sink.
Kunikida only notices now her pebbled-shaped shadow has vacated the living room. She hadn’t dozed off for as long as he assumed. He clears Dazai’s food from the table, flicks back to the navy-swathed living room before proceeding to join the girl in washing up the dishes.
Atsushi points a finger at the TV. “The spy blasted away a gazillion ninja butterflies.” In the show’s fighting-dance sequence, the boy’s metallic spacesuit reflects a crayon-array of comets. “She reminds me of your friend!” Atsushi exclaims and Atsushi spins, projects colour onto the shadow wearing sweatpants. “My favourite friend from your stories.”
And the bandaged man tenses into granite, freezes in the same way he had when presented a plate of curry, but then he faces Atsushi who keeps pointing at the TV — Atsushi’s untamed spark. Slowly, the dark figure loosens.
(Kunikida wonders who the mentioned friend could be from the Agency.)
Dazai angles closer towards the kid, inches from the far side of the living room to catch the action on screen. “How so?” He poses.
~.~.~
Firstly, the kitchen-dining has been cleaned, secondly the apron hooked and thirdly uneaten food wrapped away in the fridge. The marathon of the same cartoon has ended, its prize only bleary-eyed exhaustion, and it’s way past the bedtime Kunikida once scheduled for Atsushi.
Kunikida stands at the doorway, trolley handle extended in his grasp. He cannot leave until Kyouka and Atsushi have finished their farewells but every time their bodies manage to dislodge from each other, they snap back together in another infinite hug.
“Enough,” the ideals detective tries prodding them from the background. “You’ll see each other tomorrow.” Then he hears a knife knocking against the chopping board and he exhales loudly with the mental premonition of stained dishes and more cleaning, until it occurs to him who the only person could possibly be doing this and leans past the two kids, peers back into the kitchen-dining.
In the kitchen, Dazai is cubing the leftover strawberries and chopping other fruits. Kunikida can’t see the raven eye from here, just the [potentially] stye-infected eye patch as it angles downwards to gather the pieces over the chopping board. The shopping bags have been opened and the bandaged man deposits the dripping blocks into the jumbo ice-cube tray Kenji had added on discount.
The ideals detective from the doorway witnesses this activity. Sadly, it is not office work that the man should have undertaken so long ago instead of the Boss, but then Kunikida thinks, Dazai is working in the kitchen.
Dazai is—
But only because Dazai wondered what the shorter version of his colleague should drink in the warm weather tomorrow. He wouldn’t have obtained the tumbler bottle for himself if he hadn’t seen there was a second one for Atsushi.
Question [noted two nights ago]: What is the motive for Dazai’s work?
The private case that Kunikida has been working on finally falls into place. And the truth is, he had always known the answer behind the bandaged man’s operations.
He simply never felt the need to note it down.
“Kunikida-san,” the boy, Atsushi, calls for him.
Kunikida leans back from the view of the kitchen-dining, finds that Kyouka has already stepped out the dorm and is waiting for him in the chilly outdoors. He pushes his spectacles back up his nose, starts pulling his trolley bag though this isn’t the reason Atsushi has called him.
The ideals detective doesn’t quite make it through the doorway when the boy entraps him in a metal vise squeeze. Locked around his vest suit torso, like several days before but no longer screaming wet or bruised — Atsushi Nakajima. A shorter Atsushi with shorter arms, but the same mostly, with that frog-lipped smile tugged across his cheeks — currently mushed into Kunikida’s ribs.
Kunikida can’t ignore this. Not this time, nor can he summarise this in his notes. Yet he doesn’t find himself scrambling to thread words or flipping documents to regulate the bewildering sensations he now hiccups with. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. He nudges the kid back, unable to hold his breath longer. “I expect to see your hair properly combed in the morning,” he tells Atsushi to bid goodbye.
Then the door to Dazai Osamu’s [and temporarily Atsushi Nakajima’s] dorm closes for the night, and Kunikida must remind himself to close his fist around the bag handle as he walks Kyouka to her door, and once he says goodnight her, he hauls the luggage down the concrete steps, past Kenji’s door — the contents of his toiletries and study essentials crashing into each other as he moves himself back into the spare dorm at the building’s bottom corner, the dorm he’ll be returning to and staying for the rest of the age-reversion case. And perhaps the ideals detective doesn’t operate on solely discipline — there’s a quieter purpose compelling him to amend his schedule again and again — go as far as to abandon it altogether with immense disdain but choice, nonetheless.
Maybe the source for all of Doppo Kunikida’s work is closer to his detective partner’s than he once thought, but as the man jerks his personal belongings diagonally through the dorm’s slanted doorframe, he refuses to underline his motive in too obvious characters, will never print it in permanent ink for the page to gawk back at him in disbelief.
The closest thing he can reference is an ideal in his notebook…
Ideal [no. unknown]: If the ideals man is to ever encounter an ample sense of fulfilment in his work, he first begins by caring for his people.
~.~.~
