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The air in the alleyway was thick and cloying with the smell of rotting meat and garbage. Dazai stepped without looking and his shoe came out of a puddle covered in something warm and a little too viscous to be healthy. He frowned and stomped to shake the liquid off. It didn’t work. Great. His search for Kunikida would end up being a gift of new shoes.
He found the doorway to the bar and pushed the wooden door open. The smell of liquor wafted out into the alley, and he tried not to cough as cigarette smoke assaulted him. He made his way to the bar and flashed a friendly smile to catch the pretty bartender’s attention. She sauntered over with her own smile, but that dropped off her face when Dazai said, “I’m looking for someone.”
Her face darkened even more when he described Kunikida. “Tall, way too skinny, a boring beige suit with dark shirt, and a weird blond ponytail thing that absolutely would look better down, especially if he got the new glasses he desperately needs.” He may have been projecting his current quest to get Kunikida to wear anything different. He might have a secret wish for him to wear jeans. Just once. He was seriously considering buying some and giving him an impromptu present, whether he wanted it or not.
The bartender rolled her eyes, though, and nodded. “He was here. Had a couple drinks and tipped well, even if he does dress a little weird. Didn’t stick around, though. Went and picked a fight with a jerk who was harassing some women. Last I saw them they were brawling in the street, toward the docks.”
Dazai pinched the bridge of his nose and thanked her before shoving his way through the crowd and out into the street. Picking a fight. Idiot. The night air was crisp, and the music from the bar faded as Dazai headed toward the docks. The sounds of boots scraping the concrete and a low stream of foul language got louder, and he rounded a corner to find Kunikida slamming a man a head shorter than him against the alley wall.
“If I catch you in there harassing her again, I swear, you’ll wish I’d called the police,” Kunikida growled, and Dazai had only heard that brittle voice a few times over the course of their partnership. It was never good.
He cleared his throat, and the man Kunikida had pressed to the wall called out. “Get him off of me! Get him off! He’s crazy!”
Kunikida turned and frowned. He threw the man to the ground and stomped past Dazai. “Leave me alone,” he growled.
The man scrambled to his feet and wiped blood from his nose and shouted “Fuck you!” before running the opposite direction.
“You’re welcome!” Dazai called after him.
Dazai turned and kept pace with Kunikida but didn’t approach, just held him in his sights. Soon, they ended up at the edge of the harbor, and Kunikida dropped heavily onto a park bench. Dazai sat down next to him.
“Are you hurt?” Dazai asked.
“No.”
“I thought I might find you drunk under a table.”
“I don’t do that anymore.”
“Fighting instead? How many have you beaten up tonight?”
Kunikida shrugged and offered Dazai a tired smile. “Three.” After a beat, he added, “They all deserved it and I gave them the gift of still walking when I finished with them.”
“How gracious of you,” Dazai replied. He leaned forward. “Let me see.” Kunikida could hold his own in a fight with Chuuya, Dazai had seen it. He had no doubt he could do just as much damage as he wanted to some yahoo off the street.
Kunikida met his gaze and let Dazai grip his chin and turn his face from side to side. “Did one of them have a ring?” He asked, frowning. The gash under Kunikida’s ear was bleeding sluggishly and was too deep for Dazai’s comfort. “We’re not far from your place. You have a first aid kit with sutures there?”
Kunikida jerked away. “I’ll handle it. Go home, Dazai.”
“Go home?” He said, standing. “I knew you’d be getting into something tonight, Kuni, and didn’t stop you. I let you have your anger and now I’m going to stitch that up for you. Come on. You can buy me coffee and pastry after, and I might crash on your couch. . . as payment for my services.”
“Services,” Kunikida mumbled. “Pay for your own damned coffee, you freeloader.”
It was a familiar command, one that actually told Dazai that his help would be accepted, which was all he really cared about. Today was a bad anniversary for his friend, and Dazai knew about bad anniversaries. They walked silently back to Kunikida’s apartment, and when he shut the door behind him, the tension that had built in the streets slipped away in the comfort of the soft light and fresh lavendar scent of the room. Kunikida headed to the bathroom with a grumpy, “Well, come on.”
As he followed, Dazai shrugged his overcoat off and buttoned his shirt sleeves so that they wouldn’t get in the way. He made sure his bandages on his wrists and arms were secure. He waited while Kunikida rummaged through a drawer under the sink and pulled out a clear plastic box of supplies. He set it on the counter and sat down on the toilet and leaned his head back against the wall. He closed his eyes.
Dazai blinked at the sight of Kunikida in the soft light of the bathroom. He never took a view of Kunikida unguarded as anything less than the gift it was, and tonight was no different. The lines around his closed eyes, the soft downturn of his mouth, the way his chest rose and fell with his breath, all were distracting. After a moment, he sighed and shook himself out of his staring and ignored the low curling of want in his chest as he washed his hands before digging into the box and pulling out a package of sutures, some tape, and a sterile needle in a packet.
He tore open the packet and tore off a few strips of tape for after. He found a bandage, too. “Peroxide?” He asked, and Kunikida wordlessly pointed to another drawer. Dazai dug out the bottle and worked to thread the needle. He took a washcloth from a stack behind the sink and carefully cleaned the would before tipping Kunikida’s head back and working the needle through as quickly as he could. He ignored the hiss of pain and the way Kunikida gripped the edge of the toilet white-knuckled. Mori had been good at teaching a few things, so he knew how to do this fast. He finished and cleaned it again, with peroxide, and taped a bandage over it.
“There! Good as new!” He exclaimed with fake cheer.
Kunikida glared and let go of the toilet. He stood like he was going to storm past, but he wavered on his feet, and the blood drained from his face, leaving him pale and waxy.
“Whoa,” Dazai siad. “Sit back down for a minute, okay?” He guided Kunikida back down to sit. “Deep breaths. You’ve had a rough night, you big idiot.” He rinsed out the washcloth he’d been using and gently pulled Kunikida’s glasses off and wiped his face with cool water. When he was done, he commanded, “Stay,” and headed to the kitchen for a glass of water. After Kunikida had sipped a little, he pulled him to his feet again and guided him by his elbow to the couch.
They sat, and Kunikda dropped his head back on the soft, green cushions. “Thank you,” he said.
“Well,” Dazai replied, reaching down and taking off his shoes before moving to pull Kunikida’s shoes off as well, “I think you may have fallen over on the street if I hadn’t come along. I saved you. It’s what any good person would do.”
Kunikida opened one eye and raised his eyebrow. “And that’s you, you miscreant?”
There was no heat in the insult, so Dazai ignored it. “I’ll have you know that a member of the Armed Detective Agency should not let down his guard on a park bench near the docks. That’s simply gift-wrapping trouble. If I hadn’t been there, you might have found yourself pierced by Rashouman or squashed by Chuyya-san.” He grinned and glanced at Kunikida out of the corner of his eye.
“Squashed by Chuyya-san? Does he know that’s how you refer to his ability?”
Dazai waved his hand. “Eh, it’s accurate. I wouldn’t want you squashed by him. Your fine features would not look good squashed.”
Kunikida stifled a laugh and Dazai counted it as a victory.
Kunikida asked quietly after a moment, “Did you really think you’d find me drunk in a bar, Dazai?”
Dazai rubbed his hand across his face and stared at his feet. “Yes. It’s been a year since the Azure Messenger. Rokuzo was important to you.”
Kunikida didn’t answer for several minutes, and then he leaned forward and put his head in his hands. “When I checked on Taguchi the first time after his father died, he screamed at me and shoved me down the steps to his apartment.” He ran his hand through his hair. “The second time I checked on him I took groceries and a movie to watch. He took the groceries and slammed his door in my face.” He swallowed and his Adam’s apple bobbed sharply. “The third time I went, I took a bottle of whiskey and takeout from the American restaurant he stupidly loved. He left the door open and got two glasses out. We drank the whole bottle and I slept on his couch.”
Dazai bit his lip. He wasn’t very good at this sort of conversation. He had no idea what to say, but it didn’t matter because it was like a floodgate opened in Kunikida, another rare gift Dazai wasn’t going to squander.
“I didn’t go often, and sometimes he still slammed the door in my face. But sometimes he let me in, and I made sure he got work when I could send it his way, and I made sure to take him groceries as often as I could. Even when he slammed the door, I’d set the groceries on his step before I left.”
“How do you know the neighbors didn’t take them?”
“What?”
Dazai shrugged. “The neighbors. They could have taken the groceries you left.”
Kunikida glared at him. “I don’t know. I’m going to assume he got the groceries.”
“Oh. Okay.” Dazai supposed not everyone held his own pessimistic view of how people would typically behave. He had never been able to shake that tendency in himself.
There was an awkward pause. “He said, once,” Kunikida said, his voice low, “That he didn’t blame me for his father’s death. That I shouldn’t come around to see him anymore.”
After a few moments of silence, Dazai prodded, “Did you stop going?”
Kunikida laughed bitterly. “No. I kept going until,” he stopped and took a shuddering breath. “Until he died.” He leaned back again, closed his eyes and reached up and took his glasses off. He didn’t say anything else. He let Dazai help him down to the futon after while, and Dazai stretched out on the couch.
“Coffee and breakfast in the morning, Kunikida-san?” Dazai said as Kunikida pulled his blanket tight around his chin on the floor.
“Freeloader.”
“Helpful friend,” Dazai replied as he settled down on the couch and turned the lamp off. He waited, hoping that particular word would be okay for him to use now, and to hear Kunikda’s breathing even out in sleep. Dazai was definitely going to make him cook breakfast in the morning, and they’d probably fight over it out of habit, but it was nice to relax in Kunikida’s space for now.
“G’night, Osamu,” Kunikikda muttered as his eyes closed and he shifted into sleep. “Thank you for looking for me earlier.”
Dazai held his breath and listened as Kunikida slipped into sleep.
‘Osamu,’ when Doppo said it, was like a delicately wrapped present for Dazai to hold carefully in his hands, and he was unwilling to disturb its beauty by opening it and looking too closely. Instead, he closed his eyes and held the gift carefully in his mind until he, too, slipped into sleep.