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Fukuzawa Yukichi has never been one to openly hope for unreasonable things. Sure, he dreams about the agency becoming a sort of safe haven for other troubled children like his own — or a reform center, if he thinks about kids like Dazai or Kyoka. It would be nice. Nevertheless, he’s never shown any of this because he is the president. He is in charge. He can’t be seen entertaining delusions of grandeur, lest people think the agency is a silly little blot on a piece of paper.
He’s also never been one to actively delude himself. That’s not to say he doesn’t do it. He’s fully convinced himself that Dazai is not quite unaffected by his ability. He knows, in the back of his mind, that his natural disposition to simply knowing whenever Dazai is in a tight spot or up to something comes with the two years of knowing Dazai as well as he does. But it stays quietly in the back of his mind, shoved behind so many doors that he even forgets that it’s the truth. He simply believes that Dazai, like all the other agency members, is under the effects of his ability.
Both of these will be relevant in a moment.
The office door is shoved open without a knock, which can only mean one of two things; Ranpo wants something, or Dazai has returned. It appears to be the former.
“They’re back!” Yosano chirps. “Kenji was on the roof and said he saw them on their way to the building! We’re going down to meet them. Plus, I may be needed. Kenji says it looked like Chuuya was carrying Dazai, so he might have gotten hurt. Will you join us?”
Fukuzawa is calm as ever as he stands and follows Yosano out. He absolutely cannot be seen running down the way Atsushi and Kyoka just flew past him. He’s supposed to be mature and all that.
He joins Kunikida and Yosano at the doors, though he does give Ranpo a curious look when he passes by the boy — ah, to be fair, Ranpo is no longer just a boy, but that is irrelevant because Ranpo is his little boy — and allows himself a small smile when Atsushi, Kyoka, Kenji and Tanizaki rush towards the pair staggering closer.
What a pair they make. Even tied to different sides of what should be a clear line, Dazai and Chuuya are still Yokohama’s most feared duo. Perhaps, someday, Atsushi and Akutagawa will take that title. Provided they discover the secrets to using their infallible bond effectively instead of only bickering all the time.
Fukuzawa frowns when the younger detectives stop in their tracks, all of them still as statues. Then, as Chuuya draws nearer, not nearly huffing with as much effort to carry Dazai in the state both of them are in as he should be, Fukuzawa sees it. The telltale hue of Chuuya’s ability, shrouding Dazai and holding him aloft.
Now, that shouldn’t be happening.
Ah, perhaps Dazai is so badly hurt that he is on the brink of death. That tiny little window that Yosano and Dazai have often theorized about, a few seconds’ worth of time wherein Dazai’s ability is inactive, but just enough time left for Yosano to use her ability.
“Yosano,” he says, hoping he doesn’t sound as tense as he feels.
She nods, almost like she’s convincing herself she can help, and starts towards Chuuya. He gives her a resigned look when she approaches and shakes his head but lets her try anyway.
Nothing happens.
“Can I just,” Chuuya says, sounding exhausted and pausing to take a deep breath, “can I just take him inside, please?”
Someone lets out a choked sob. Fukuzawa doesn’t know who. He steps to the side to allow Chuuya to get through the doors. He stands outside the agency as everyone files in after Yosano.
Someone taps his arm. It’s Ranpo. He opens his mouth to say something, but Fukuzawa cuts him off.
“I don’t want to hear it.” He shakes his head. “I don’t want to.”
Ranpo closes his mouth and follows Fukuzawa inside.
Grief is a funny thing. People talk about it like the stages of grief are uniform and as if they’re mere stepping stones laid out neatly on a garden path, forgetting that it’s more often a twisted path of flitting between all of it and trying to stay afloat. Or sometimes just giving up and letting it cause one to sink. Fukuzawa is no stranger to grief, but there is something especially harrowing about it this time. Denial settles in quickly, quicker than anything else has ever done, and seems to have such a strong hold on him that every rational corner of his mind has been shut off from him.
“If we could just get him to a hosp-”
“He’s gone ,” Yosano says. She gestures to the door to her rooms, wherein Dazai lays, surely just resting. “He’s in there, dea-”
“Yosano, I would know if one of my detectives were gone. My ability —”
“Didn’t cover Dazai. You know this.”
He hates the way she already talks about him in the past tense. Past tense? Dazai? That can’t be right.
She sighs. “Look, I know it’s difficult — believe me, I know — but we can’t just leave him in there forever.”
“Not forever,” Fukuzawa says. “Just until he recovers. He’s not dead.”
The pity in her eyes is borderline enraging. Anger already?
“He’s not,” Fukuzawa insists. “I’d know if he were.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” she says gently. “Your ability was never over him.”
“Stop talking about him like he’s dead!”
Yosano flinches and Fukuzawa feels absolutely horrible about raising his voice at her, but he can’t find any way to take it back. She keeps trying to tell him that Dazai is dead and he doesn’t understand why she’s lying to him. He doesn’t feel any different than he did this morning when Dazai left with Chuuya. How could Dazai be gone when Fukuzawa didn’t feel it? His ability doesn’t work that way.
“I think,” Yosano says slowly, stepping backwards and resting her hand on the doorknob, “that you should see him for yourself.”
Fukuzawa doesn’t want to. Somewhere in the deepest parts of his mind, he knows the truth. If he goes into that room, he will have to face it and accept reality. Out here, he can cling to his beliefs. (He knows they’re delusions. That doesn’t matter to him right now.)
Yosano opens the door and beckons him in. He doesn’t want to go inside. He does.
She doesn’t give him a chance to back out. She closes the door after him, leaving him alone with Chuuya and the sleeping form of Dazai — he’s just sleeping, Fukuzawa tells himself. He wills himself to believe his own lies.
Chuuya sits in Yosano’s chair. His clothes are still as tattered as they were when he arrived and there are still bloodstains on it and his skin, but there are no visible wounds any longer.
“Y’know,” Chuuya says in an empty, hollow voice, “I thought about finishing the mission with corruption. I’d never come back from that and honestly, I was okay with it. But I thought . . . I thought to myself that someone had to bring him back here. Sitting here, I kind of wish I’d done it. I don’t want to grieve.”
Fukuzawa doesn’t ask Chuuya to tell him more about what happened. He doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t need to, because any moment now, Dazai will take a deep breath and snore a bit before he relaxes again.
Or maybe Fukuzawa will wake up. If this is real, then it has to be a nightmare.
Chuuya stands up slowly. Perhaps being seated all this time has numbed his legs somewhat.
“I’m going to . . . do something.”
“Nothing rash, I hope.”
Chuuya scoffs. “I’d never cause trouble when I am a guest in your offices.”
A guest. As if he’s just here to visit the man he loves.
Ah, there it is. That blunt sword of reality, poking through the careful shield of denial and delusion, to cut deep and jagged.
The man he loves . . . Fukuzawa cannot comprehend how Chuuya can bear to leave the room, to step away from the bedside, to leave this still, unmoving echo of Dazai alone with someone else.
And then Fukuzawa is alone in a room with a corpse.
He’s been to funerals before. Seen death at crime scenes. He’s watched people bid the deceased goodbye. He thinks that he can do it. Perhaps if he says something to the corpse, he will be able to leave the room and start walking towards tomorrow.
There are no words that leave his throat. Maybe he doesn’t have any. If he does, they’re stuck somewhere.
Dazai’s forehead is cool to the touch when Fukuzawa brushes his hair aside.
How long has Dazai been like this? How long did it take for Chuuya to bring him here, knowing all the while that he was carrying a body with no life in it? How did Chuuya do it?
For one shattering moment, Fukuzawa thinks about his other detectives and wonders how they’re doing. Then his gaze flits back to the body and he tries to convince himself that Dazai is just resting.
It’s pitiful. It’s pathetic. It’s the natural response to the death of one’s child.
Say goodbye, a voice in his head tells him. It’ll help.
He opens his mouth, tries to say something, fails again. He cannot. If he speaks, he accepts that it is real. He doesn’t want to do that.
Fukuzawa has always had his suspicions that he’d outlive Dazai. He’s always hoped he’d be wrong.
He’s always hoped for unreasonable things.