Chapter Text
Fukuzawa looks out the window. It’s raining. It’s always raining lately. Still, he feels like taking a walk.
Ranpo and Yosano are already asleep anyway. He really should stop worrying about them — they’re practically adults, after all.
A smile tugs at his lips. No matter how often Ranpo says that, it doesn’t make it any more true. They still have a lot to learn before Fukuzawa will call them that.
He stands and leaves his office, pulling on a light green coat. Even though it’s raining, it doesn’t look cold outside.
He’ll never know how much difference his decision to take that walk will make.
He takes the same route as always — along a path lined with sakura trees, his umbrella shielding him from the rain. The path always makes him sentimental. It reminds him of an old friend he used to walk beside, long ago.
After half an hour, he reaches his favorite part — an old bridge spanning a wild river, the current pulling everything it touches along with it. And for the first time on this walk, he’s not alone.
The boy is too skinny, and his clothes are too big, slipping off one of his bony shoulders. He sits on the railing and doesn’t look up when he hears Fukuzawa’s footsteps. He’s staring into the current — a concerning curiosity in his eyes.
Fukuzawa doesn’t say anything. He simply steps forward and holds his umbrella over the kid. Because that’s what he is. A kid. Even younger than the two waiting for Fukuzawa at home.
“You won’t find what you’re looking for down there,” Fukuzawa says after a while.
The boy still doesn’t look up.
“But I won’t find it up here either,” he replies. Despite the situation, his voice carries a touch of humor. His eyes glint when he finally turns toward Fukuzawa.
“How do you know that?”
“Well, I tried for fourteen years,” the boy says. “That has to count for something. And I have it on good authority that I’m unlovable. Also incapable of love.” He tilts his head. “If the media is to be believed, love is the key to happiness, isn’t it?”
“What sources do you have that you’re unlovable?”
“Well, my own parents, for one. And shouldn’t a parent’s love be unconditional? Or something like that?”
Fukuzawa’s eyes fall on the bruises around the boy’s neck and the ones littering his arms.
“In a perfect world, it should be... but is your answer really the easy way out? The cowardly way?”
“Aww, I know,” the boy whines, an exaggerated pout on his lips, “but I tried! Orphanages only mean bad touches and even worse food.”
Fukuzawa’s heart breaks for the small boy who so obviously doesn’t really want to jump.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“Dazai,” the boy answers. “Dazai Osamu.”
Fukuzawa smiles warmly. “It’s nice to meet you, Osamu. I’m Fukuzawa — but you can call me Yukichi, if you want.”
Dazai bows his head theatrically. “The pleasure is all mine, I presume.”
“You’re a real jokester, aren’t you?” Fukuzawa chuckles. “You’d get along with Ranpo — maybe a bit too well.”
“Ranpo? Who’s that?” Dazai asks curiously.
“My son. Or… my mentee, I guess. Just feels like he’s my son, in a way.”
For the first time, a real smile strays onto Dazai’s face.
“He must be lucky. You seem like a good dad.”
“Thanks,” Fukuzawa says.
For a moment, they just study each other.
Fukuzawa feels like he’s being tested — though he doesn’t know what Dazai is looking for. But his eyes are far too intelligent for a fourteen-year-old.
He would really get along with Ranpo.
“I have a proposition for you,” Fukuzawa says.
“You do?”
“Yeah. Come with me. Give it one last chance.”
Fukuzawa’s eyes don’t leave Dazai. He tries to show him all the sincerity he means with his words.
“Just until you’re of age. And if you still want to die then… I won’t stop you.”
“Huh? Going home with a stranger?” Dazai laughs. “My mother taught me better!”
He frowns. “Well… maybe not my mother, but the internet, I guess.”
“Just one chance,” Fukuzawa repeats, his gaze drifting over the river below.
“Meet Ranpo and Yosano — my other mentee. I think you’re going to get along like a house on fire. You could even become a detective — only if you want to, of course.”
“A detective?”
“Yeah. Didn’t I already mention it? I have an agency. The Armed Detective Agency.”
“The one for gifted people?” Dazai asks.
Fukuzawa nods. “So, you’ve already heard of us?”
Dazai nods.
“You have a gift too, don’t you?”
“I do,” Dazai says, and for the first time, there’s something vulnerable in his voice. “But it’s called No Longer Human... it means I’m not really human.”
Fukuzawa raises his eyebrows. Whoever hurt this kid — he wants them to pay.
“Give me your hand,” he says.
Dazai blinks, confused, but places his hand against Fukuzawa’s larger, steadier one.
“We both have skin, don’t we?” Fukuzawa says. “Bones. Five fingers. We’re not different, are we? And I have it on good authority that I’m a human.”
Dazai stares at their hands, and Fukuzawa wonders when someone last touched him without the intent to hurt.
“Come down from there, Osamu,” he says gently. “Give it one more chance. Come with me.”
“You really mean that?” Dazai whispers, so quietly Fukuzawa almost doesn’t hear him.
Fukuzawa nods. “I do. I really do.”
Dazai wipes at his eyes, but it’s not the rain he’s brushing away.
“Okay,” he says. “One last chance.”
As soon as he climbs down from the railing, Fukuzawa wraps his coat around him. Dazai is shivering and stumbling.
“Do you want me to carry you?”
Dazai’s eyes are shiny and desperate when he looks up at the man.
“…Yeah.”
//
Only half an hour later, a doctor comes to the same bridge and looks down into the current, remembering an old friend he used to walk this path with, a long time ago.
//
Five years later
The orphanage doesn’t look any nicer than the ones Dazai had lived in — and the staff doesn’t seem any friendlier either.
“Why did we have to come here?” Ranpo whines. “We already cracked this case before stepping one foot into the building. And it’s depressing me.”
Dazai rolls his eyes. “Because we want to find the gifted kid and help him, remember?”
Ranpo shrugs. “It’s the white-haired one. The one trembling in the corner when we got here.”
“And you couldn’t have just said that before we searched the entire orphanage?”
“Well, I had to make you pay for dragging me here!”
“As if I could make you do anything,” Dazai chuckles.
He can’t really be annoyed with Ranpo. He knows the only reason the other man is here is because he’s worried about him. They’ve never talked about it — but there’s no hiding anything from Ranpo. He knows everything about Dazai’s unfortunate past… and his experiences with orphanages.
“Which room is the kid’s?”
“Third one, second floor,” Ranpo yawns. “You’re too soft on children, you know?”
“I’m not!” Dazai objects.
“Sure. Not like you bullied Kyouka into joining the Agency two months ago.”
“That was different… she was a danger to people around her!”
“Hm. And she should be in a special prison for gifted people. Instead, you blackmailed the government into deleting her files.”
Dazai shrugs. “Well, they shouldn’t make it so easy.”
He knocks on the door of the room where Ranpo said he’d find the tiger. When no one answers they let themselves in.
It doesn’t even take a second to spot the kid trembling under the blanket on the cheap wooden bed in the corner of the room.
“Huh,” Dazai says. “Room seems to be empty.”
Ranpo flops down on another bed across the room with a dramatic sigh. “Guess we came all this way for nothing. Time to go home.”
“Tragic,” Dazai murmurs. “And just when we really wanted to help the orphanage with their little tiger problem.” He crouches beside the bed where the kid is hiding. “You know, I heard hiding under blankets doesn’t really help with predators. They can smell your fear.”
There’s no response. Just a rustle — obvious, even to the untrained ear.
“But,” Dazai continues lightly, “luckily, we’re here to help anyone who might be scared.”
The blanket shifts slightly.
A pause. Then a whisper: “Are you… the police?”
“Nope.” Dazai smiles. “Worse. Civil servants.”
Ranpo snorts from across the room.
“We’re from the Armed Detective Agency,” Dazai adds. “And we really just want to help.”
Another pause. Then the blanket slowly slides down. A pale, wide-eyed face peeks out. The kid is too thin, too uncertain.
“I swear I don’t know why it’s following me!” he whines. “Please don’t tell the supervisors. They’ll throw me out!”
“Huh,” Dazai says gently, trying to imitate the same soft look Fukuzawa gave him five years ago. “Why do you think it’s following you?”
“Because it’s always where I am! I’m cursed.”
“Hi, Cursed,” Dazai says with a smile. “I’m Osamu.” He gestures toward his colleague. “And that’s Ranpo.”
Ranpo waves lazily, chewing loudly on a lollipop.
“And I don’t think the tiger is following you.”
The boy blinks.
“And I think, deep down, you know that too.”
“What do you mean?” the kid whispers.
“Like I said, we’re from the Armed Detective Agency. Most people that work there have gifts — special talents no one else has.”
The boy blinks again.
“You’re not cursed. You’re gifted."
“I don’t… I don’t understand.”
“Are you stupid?” Ranpo asks, as tactfully as ever. “The tiger doesn’t follow you. You are the tiger.”
“What?! No!”
Dazai gives Ranpo an exasperated look as the boy starts to cry.
“That’s not true! Is it?” He gives Dazai a desperate look. “Right? Mr. Osamu?”
“Well…” Dazai sighs.
Then he sits cross-legged on the floor, placing himself at the boy’s level.
“You know, when I was your age,” he says softly, “I thought something inside me made me wrong. That I was dangerous just by existing. People told me I was broken. Some didn’t say it — but they made sure I felt it.”
The boy sniffles, staring at him.
“And then someone told me that maybe… I wasn’t broken. And I didn’t believe him either.”
A long pause.
“Your gift is powerful," Dazai says. “But it doesn’t make you a monster. It makes you someone worth protecting — and teaching.”
“Ugh,” Ranpo groans. “You are such a sap.”
Dazai gives him another annoyed look.
Atsushi hesitates, his eyes still shiny, voice small. “You’re not lying?”
Dazai shakes his head. “No. I’m not lying. We really just want to help. And we can do that — if you come with us.”
“But what… what if I hurt you? If you’re right — if I’m really the tiger…”
“You’re not going to hurt us,” Dazai promises. “My gift nullifies other abilities. Even if you snap, I can stop you. You won’t be a danger to anyone — I’ll make sure of it.”
The kid sniffles again. “…What’s the catch?”
Dazai shrugs. “You’ll have to put up with Ranpo.”
“Hey!”
“That’s it? You swear?”
“I even pinky promise,” Dazai says, holding out his pinky.
The boy ignores the hand and throws himself into Dazai’s arms, full-on weeping.
Dazai looks back at Ranpo, who silently mouths the word softie at him. He sticks out his tongue in response.
“What’s your real name? I doubt it’s actually Cursed.”
“Atsushi,” the kid gets out between sobs.
“Wonderful meeting you, Atsushi,” Dazai says, gently running a hand through his hair.