To learn something normal

.

It was an unusually silent day at the Agency.

Only the rain tapping against the window and the occasional lightning followed by a deafening roar disturbed the strange calm that had been born between the people working there; well, that and Dazai's recurring groans as he tried every possible position on his chair. Other than that, several people typing broke the quietness, sometimes Kenji whispered to his plant and every now and then Ranpo would open a new bag of chips and devour them a bit too loudly. But nobody had the energy to reprimand him.

Storms clearly affected their mood.

Kunikida raised his head out of sheer curiosity when the sound of light steps broke the apathy. He almost missed it when Dazai twisted for the umpteenth time on his chair to find a comfortable position (and failed), but the silent figure that stopped before his desk got his attention.

"Kyouka."

The girl didn't even nod in acknowledgement. She had the habit to stare at people and Kunikida didn't know about everyone else, but he definitely got a bit nervous whenever she did that.

His voice immediately attracted every person in the room's gaze; even Kenji stopped whispering to his beloved plant. Kyouka breathed in deeply.

"Is it true you used to be a math teacher?"

Kunikida froze. He wasn't sure what he had expected, but definitely not for Kyouka to bring up his former job.

"How do you know?" he snapped, almost too defensive. They had never done the game of guessing with Kyouka; now that Dazai's past was no longer a mystery nobody really saw the point, so they hadn't even thought about it.

"Atsushi told me about it."

The aforementioned young man fell from his chair and stayed hidden from Kunikida's glare behind his desk. Next to him, Tanizaki bended down a little too, using his laptop as some sort of shelter just in case, which probably meant Atsushi wasn't the only culprit.

"I'm not anymore, so it doesn't matter."

Kyouka drew her dark eyebrows together.

"But you know maths." A bit unsure of what she was getting to, Kunikida nodded. "So you can teach me."

The upper half of Atsushi's head peeked from behind his desk, half curious, half fearful.

Kunikida scratched the back of his head, probably messing up his ponytail but not really caring about it.

"Eh… No." A collective gasp echoed in the room. "What?"

"You're mean, Kunikida," Ranpo stated. "It won't kill you… Here, Kyouka-chan, do you want half a crisp?"

Kyouka ignored him. She hadn't torn her gaze off Kunikida.

"Please."

Her eyes were too blue and too insistent, too big in her too round face. Kunikida knew she was still a child, and he also knew how hard she had fought for her right to be a member of the Agency–– damn, her gaze shouldn't have held that much innocence; despite her young age, she had still killed thirty five people…

"No," Kunikida replied, louder this time. A drop of cold sweat ran down the nape of his neck. "Besides, I have a lot to do right now."

He almost wanted to apologise when Kyouka pouted. The girl looked down as she turned around and dragged her feet back to her desk.

"Hey, Kyouka-chan," Kenji chirped in, "it's not math, but I can teach you about plants."

Kyouka stopped on her tracks, looked at him. "Okay." Her steps were lighter when she approached Kenji's desk. "I don't really mind what I learn as long as it's something normal. I haven't gone to school since the Mafia took me in."

She probably added it simply as an afterthought, but it hurt Kunikida all the same, and even more so when a few glares landed on him. He forced himself to focus on his report again.

"Hey, why are you all so serious?"

Everyone flinched when Yosano stepped into the room. She looked around curiously.

"Kunikida-san doesn't want to teach Kyouka-chan maths," Tanizaki explained.

"Is that so?" Kunikida refused to look at her. "Well, luckily there is a lot of stuff you can learn here. How about human anatomy?" She let a chuckle that seemed to lower the temperature at least ten degrees, sending chills running down everyone's spine. "We can use a volunteer so you understand it better."

"I'm not interested." Kyouka's voice came dispassionate, bored even. "I already know everything I need about anatomy to kill whoever I have to get rid of."

Kunikida's fingers froze over the keyboard. For a second the room was so silent they could discern every raindrop hitting the windows.

Dazai broke the tension with a whistle. "Hey, the Mafia might have a lot of flaws, but nobody can accuse them of teaching useless things."

Yosano didn't look offended, though. She walked to Kenji's desk, paid as much attention to his explanation as Kyouka herself. Little by little everyone resumed what they had been doing before Kyouka disturbed the tranquillity of the office.

"You're cruel, Kunikida-kun," Dazai whispered, though, leaning towards him. Kunikida fought the urge to throw something at his partner. He was the last person in the room with the right to accuse anyone of being cruel. "It won't take long, you know," he continued.

Kunikida exhaled slowly.

"I have my reasons."

Dazai raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, come on, does she need to make an appointment?"

"That's not the problem!" Kunikida hissed, trying to keep his voice quiet, annoyed at the heat creeping up his neck and ears. "It's been more than years since I taught maths, I don't remember––"

"Uh… Can I say something?" Kunikida and Dazai turned towards Atsushi, who had approached them slowly. "I don't think Kyouka-chan needs to know anything too advanced…" He looked away, blushing slightly. "I mean, she was eleven the last time she went to school."

Oh.

Right.

Kunikida covered his face with his hands, partly to hide from Dazai and Atsushi's identical hopeful expressions, partly because now that he thought about it he felt even worse for not having realised before.

"You could have said that sooner," he groaned against his palms. "Alright." He uncovered his face. "Kyouka, come here. And bring a chair."

Sitting on Kenji's desk with a flowerpot on her lap, Kyouka turned her head towards him.

"Why?"

"You want to learn maths, don't you?"

The storm kept raging outside, but Kunikida felt warmer when the girl dragged her chair to his desk, eyes wide with surprise and expectation.

"Are you really going to teach me?"

Kunikida looked aside. "Don't make that face… Anyway, what is the last thing you studied at school? Derivatives? Matrixes? Trigonometry?"

Kyouka stared at him, unblinking. "I… remember equations," she muttered.

First degree equations, Kunikida assumed as he picked a sheet.

"We'll start with that."

Contrary to what everyone seemed to think, Kunikida liked teaching. He liked explaining and answering questions, enjoyed seeing how the confusion in his students' gazes slowly vanished. His patience, while really low depending on what –or who– he had to deal with, had never faltered in his previous job, no matter how much more he liked belonging to the Agency.

And in that stormy day Kyouka's wide eyes, so attentive, so hungry for knowledge, only fed the pleasure he had almost forgotten he felt while teaching.