Until then

.

His head hurts when he comes to, his first conscious thought dedicated to the painkillers he hopes Kunikida hasn't hidden from him again– it's been a while since he mixed them with his favourite bottle of whiskey, so his partner should have already lowered his guard; but Kunikida's conscientiousness when it comes to the notes in his notebook never ceases to amaze Dazai.

Not that he uses it often, these days.

Despite his musings, opening his eyes to a room that isn't his own but has become familiar throughout the latest months comes as a mild surprise; the beginning of a smile carves small wrinkles around his eyes at the memory of Kunikida dragging him towards his home the second Dazai set foot outside the hospital and claiming he couldn't even take care of a cactus, let alone the gunshot wound that isn't entirely healed yet.

Maybe he's just lonely.

Dazai sits up, fingertips gliding over the sheets– the warmth feels foreign, not as if somebody else were describing it to him, but as if it weren't his to touch. The thought is not new, but it's usually laced with a clinginess that scares even himself (because as much as that existence that smelt of tobacco and curry meant to him, he never planned to get close enough to anybody for them to be able to leave him that exposed and vulnerable again); now, however, he can't quite swallow down the idea of him stealing (him) this from a faceless stranger– someone who meets at least a third of Kunikida's ridiculous Fifty Eight Requirements, who is able, perhaps, to let it be enough.

His head perks up at the loud exclamation that shakes the building as he places its source in the kitchen. Hazy eyes blink in sleepy confusion during a short pause, the incongruity between what that sound entails and the sun high on the sky carving a frown between his eyebrows as his head throbs painfully, almost in synch with the wounds on his back and chest– and all of a sudden he remembers why he wanted the painkillers in the first place.

Why is he still here?

Kunikida's voice grows clearer as Dazai walks out of the bedroom, but all he can make out is that the poor soul on the other side of the line is Atsushi; by the time he reaches the kitchen the call is over and grey eyes glare at the phone through crooked glasses, blond hair falling free over his shoulders.

"Good morning, you too," Dazai greets. Kunikida looks at him, mouth opening slightly in surprise.

"It's almost one," he manages.

Dazai is too busy rubbing at his eye to pretend to care even a little. "Oh."

Footstep grow close, a figure stops half a metre away.

"Did I wake you up?" Kunikida asks, and it sounds almost apologetic. Dazai shakes his head, a yawn stopping him from adding a snarky remark. "I made you breakfast. Or, well, lunch, at this point."

Dazai's arm falls limp at his side, out of excuses to postpone looking into Kunikida's eyes anymore. He raises his gaze from the almost imperceptible tension half curling his partner's hands into fists to the uneasiness coiling in his shoulders, beneath his black shirt; to the lips pressed together in anxiousness, the little tired wrinkles around his eyes and mouth, the dying light in that stormy look.

It hurts more than his wounds.

"Why, thank you, Kunikida-kun." His tongue runs on autopilot, wrapped up in a factitious lightness that at this point is like a second skin to him. "But why aren't you working?"

Kunikida raises his eyebrows. "Because it's Sunday."

That is not an answer, and both of them know. Dazai's gaze wanders around, landing for a second on the Ideal laying on the table, and he doesn't know whether he should feel hopeful or scared.

"Any news about Ranpo-san?"

Out of the corner of his eye he catches Kunikida's hands balling into fists. "No. Yosano-san has some ideas about where he might be, though."

Cold sinks its teeth into their skin, despite the warm light bathing the kitchen. It rips at their limbs with unspoken words they both know will have to be pronounced eventually, ideas that struggle to exist no matter the reason is solely interfering between them, increasing the distance Dazai wants to simultaneously keep and kill.

"He'll come back," is all he can say.

It's far from enough, but Kunikida nods.

"Are you hungry?"

Dazai isn't, but he still hums yes.

After sitting down, he sips at his –obviously decaffeinated, you're still convalescent– coffee in silence, watches Kunikida walk up and down while texting and making several calls. He looks satisfied with himself for some seconds whenever he completes any of these tasks, but soon he's frowning again, frantically tapping at his phone and half explaining what he's doing to Dazai, only to trail off mid-sentence with a new displeased grimace.

Dazai swallows down the pill Kunikida has been kind enough to find for him, fixes his gaze on the half empty cup because his partner's inability to calm himself down is making him nervous.

This is not how he imagined Kunikida would succeed Fukuzawa; ever since that conversation with Dostoyevsky nothing has quite happened the way he expected it to. But with the President gone, Ranpo missing and that rat still out there, the Armed Detective Agency is pretty much a broken machine; Dazai can't blame Kunikida for his desperation to keep himself too busy to think about any of that.

But he doesn't know how to help him, either.

One of these days, Kunikida will calm down enough to realise. One of these days, he'll find someone who isn't a complete inept at speaking the words he needs to hear; and that day Dazai will lose the right he doesn't think he has to enjoy all the sides of Kunikida he never thought he would get to see.

It's nothing new.

Kunikida's grumbling about how Dazai should eat more if he wants to get better soon as he takes the dish with fruit salad back into the fridge brings him back to reality, glazed eyes focused on his now empty cup.

Dazai looks up, sighs in frustration when Kunikida grabs his phone from his pocket once again. It's speeding his pulse up more than the caffeine he has not taken, and perhaps irritation is what fuels him to stand up and ignore the pain piercing through his chest, wordlessly approach his partner and snatch the device off his grasp, determined brown meeting confused grey as Kunikida struggles to make any coherent sound.

"You are doing fine," Dazai snaps, almost aggressively, taking a step towards Kunikida.

His partner draws back, and Dazai advances again; the improvised dance doesn't last much, though, ending abruptly when Kunikida's lower back hits the countertop and Dazai's toes brush his.

"Huh– what?"

"You are doing fine," Dazai repeats, softer this time. "At the Agency," he adds quietly.

Kunikida's eyes widen a fraction before drifting down. "If you don't know how to be nice, it's fine; you don't have to lie."

Dazai clenches his teeth. There is someone, out there, who could make these words sound comforting, maybe even believable to Kunikida's ears– despite there is nothing in Dazai that doubts them, not even for a second.

"I'm not lying."

I miss you, is what Dazai wants to scream at the shell of the man Dostoyevsky wasn't able to completely break despite all his efforts. He misses Kunikida's short fuse, how easily anger comes to him at the slightest taunt when nothing is weighing him down. He misses the reprimands that include quotes from an Ideal he barely opens anymore, hates it when his partner spaces out because now you are too far for me to reach and bring you back.

"You avoided an open war with the Mafia; it's thanks to you that Dostoyevsky is cornered and about to be caught by either them or us."

But only cold facts stumble out of Dazai's lips, helpless at not being able to say anything else, hopeful because objective information is not something Kunikida can dismiss as easily as his mere opinion.

Kunikida dares look at him again, pained and confused as his arms, half raised as if to grab his phone back, drop to his sides.

"I guess," he breathes out, defeated. "Still, if I hadn't– after the child… if I had gone with the others––"

"Regretting the past is useless," Dazai mumbles, fingers curling tighter around Kunikida's phone. For a second he can swear he feels the rough side of a matchbox; he has to force himself to not look away.

And he bites his tongue, because the words Kunikida has repeated to Atsushi countless times float between them, loud enough to be heard without his voice to carry them.

"I guess," Kunikida repeats quietly. "Can you give my phone back?"

Dazai frowns. "No. It's Sunday and you're getting on my nerves."

His eyes widen when Kunikida's arms bring him close, barely able to hug his partner back as his blond head rests on his shoulder. His hands come to rest on Kunikida's back, one of them tangling with his hair.

"Now you know how it feels," comes a tired retort.

It's not solved, it's not enough– it's probably not even better than before. For having such a sharp tongue, Dazai never seems to be able to put it to a good use.

But until Kunikida finds someone who is, this belongs entirely to him.

What did you think about it?