Archive of Our Own ^beta

Dazai hated pain. More specifically in this instance, Dazai hated period pain. It was unpredictable, hard to ignore and incredibly annoying, especially paired with everything else that came with it. Luckily for him, he skipped work often enough that he knew not coming in wouldn’t be suspicious to anyone. Unluckily for him, Kunikida had finally had enough. 

After ignoring the first seven calls and deciding that hearing screams wasn’t half as bad on the phone, Dazai had finally picked up. Kunikida’s voice was grating to his ears, too loud and aggressive, and every single part of him wanted to simply throw his phone against the wall and have the satisfaction of seeing shatter, taking the offending noise to hell with it. 

But he had self control. He was an ex-mafioso. He was a master of lies and deception, had his emotions in check, never even wavering in conviction no matter how ridiculous the role he was playing. He was also heavily sleep deprived, out of painkillers, disgustingly hot despite the cold sweat and he felt like his insides were being excavated by a really sharp spoon. So when the silence following Kunikida’s “Well, what do you have to say for yourself?” was broken by his very own, very loud and very aggressive voice, he told himself it wasn’t a loss of control. It was simply a way to let out his pain. And hanging up right after wasn’t panic because of said not-loss-of-control, it was a way to show his lack of care for Kunikida’s precious schedule. 

Kunkida didn’t call back, and Dazai finally fell asleep.

🐟🐟🐟

What took him out of his slumber were steps in front of his door. Not loud enough to be Kunikida, not quiet enough to be someone trying to hide their presence. If the light was any indication, it must have been the middle of the afternoon. Not someone who was needed at their job, or someone who had the freedom to come and go as they pleased. Given the continuous pacing, they weren’t in a hurry either, and probably pretty stressed. No, it wasn’t fast enough for that. They walked in circles in front of his door like someone deeply in thought, or facing a dilemma. 

The steps stopped, there was a crumpling noise, a shadow moving under the slit of his door like someone was crouching, and the steps left. So the mysterious someone (which Dazai suspected to be the sharpest of his new colleagues) had left a mysterious something for him. Getting up slowly with a groan that was perhaps a bit too dramatic given his surprisingly low pain level and a silent “What do we have here?”, Dazai unlocked his door and looked to the floor. 

There was a single, small and slightly melted fish shaped-chocolate with salted caramel filling. It was wrapped in a blue and golden plastic with a drawing of a distorted goldfish saying “I fish you were here” in a cartoonish font. The whole thing was just on the ground, eye-catching in the worst possible way. 

If Dazai had any doubt before that, they all went away as soon as he saw the crime-scene like present; Ranpo knew something he wasn’t supposed to know. 

🐟🐟🐟

After texting Yosano to make sure she didn’t leak his medical record to anyone, Dazai went back to his period induced coma, ignoring the feeling that could be hunger, or simply pain. The now almost unrecognisable chocolate fish stared at him from the floor next to his futon. Ranpo wasn’t one to share his snacks without reason, but if he did, he would definitely give the weird, deformed ones. Like that fish. 

Did he actually deduce what was going on? Or did he think Dazai was ill? Maybe someone else forced him to give away some chocolate, but who? And even if it was the case, Ranpo came alone, and seemingly unsure. His pacing could be explained by his deliberating with himself about whether or not he should share it with Dazai of all people. 

It wasn’t like it was entirely unseen for him to give candies to other people, but in his few months at the agency, Dazai had only seen that happen twice with the director and every so often with Yosano. And oh, how had he not realised? Every so often could more accurately be described as “more or less every month around the same date”. Was Ranpo sharing his sweet as a way to cheer him up during his periods? It would be pretty in character from what Dazai had seen so far, but also weirdly nice toward a new coworker who barely even worked. Not that Ranpo did any more paperwork than him. 

Seeing that there was no way he could sleep any more after that, Dazai headed out to the pharmacy. If he couldn’t get rid of the situation, he could at least get rid of the pain. 

🐸🐸🐸

The following day was pretty fuzzy between the catching up on sleep and the cold-induced fever (because of course, why wouldn’t he have caught a cold?), but one thing remained perfectly clear. The whole thing with probably-Ranpo walking in circles on the other side of the door for almost 20 minutes happened again. 

And sure enough, there was another sweet. It was a small amberish blob in a transparent wrap with the word “Fröschli” written in an elegant white font around it. Upon closer inspection, it was in the shape of a frog. 

For the first time in a while, Dazai was intensely grateful for his past decision of stealing a flip phone that had access to google when he fled the mafia. It was indeed what allowed him to look up what a “Fröschli” could possibly be, what was in it and how Ranpo had found such a clearly not japanese or american-like candy. 

A quick search taught him that a “Fröschli” was a coca-cola flavoured hard candy produced in Switzerland, and seemingly nowhere else. It was in production since 1938 and never stopped selling since. It was even possible to buy a 200 piece box, which was probably the package Ranpo had been waiting for since a week prior. 

After a short deliberation, Dazai voted against eating it, set it down next to the now shapeless chocolate fish and decided to finally eat something that could be considered real food. 

🐸🐸🐸

The day after, which seemed to be the last of Dazai’s periods (thank god), came with much less pain, a bit less fever and slightly more sugar. 

Ranpo had, surprisingly, left a new sweet without waking Dazai up. He wasn’t sure if he should be worried about his lack of vigilance or glad to have gotten a full night of sleep, or rather a full day of sleep, given how chaotic his sleep schedule had been (not that it was any better usually, he simply didn’t sleep as much normally). 

This one was somewhat familiar to Dazai already: it was a jawbreaker. While Dazai himself never tried any, Chuuya used to have a particular liking for this specific sweet, until he learned that someone had to get plastic surgery because a jawbreaker exploded in their face. Dazai hadn’t seen him eat any since. 

The one Ranpo had given him was around 5 centimeters of diameter, not the biggest one he’d seen but far from the smallest. If the other two candies had seemed unappealing when he found them, this one felt more like a curse than a gift. The sheer amount of sugar was enough to give anyone a headache, and the time it took to eat the candy was simply criminal. It’s only merit was that the sight of it was enough to make him realise he hadn’t drunk water in way too long, and it probably explained the part of his headache that wasn’t due to his fever. 

His discovery of the sweet was followed by a long awaited answer from Yosano assuring him that no, she hadn’t shared any of his medical information, and what made him ask that? If anyone had looked around her medical records, she would make sure the pain would make them forget anything they could have read about Dazai (or any other patients, for that matter). 

That could only mean one thing: Ranpo’s deduction, no matter how right he actually was, came purely from Dazai’s actions and reactions. Was he not careful enough? Had he accidentally forgotten to take a sick leave between two of his periods to make it harder to trace? Was he that obvious when he came in the month before despite the remnant of pain?

And then the answer hit him in the face. He yelled at Kunkida. 

Sure, his coworker may have deserved it, and had it coming with all the times he yelled at Dazai. But Dazai wasn’t one to scream or raise his voice. He would usually muster a shit eating grin, big enough that it could be heard on the phone and push all of Kunikida’s buttons until he found the right one and made him give up, or gave in while still somehow making it his own win. Rage wasn’t an emotion that could be associated with him. It wasn’t a reaction that could be associated with him. He was calm, ever in control. He toyed with others like Ranpo played with the little gifts they put inside of kinder surprise whenever he wanted to show he wasn’t listening. 

Of course they had noticed something was wrong. As to how Ranpo knew what exactly, Dazai was just about to find out. 

⚪⚪⚪

Dazai’s return to the agency was welcomed in a multitude of ways. Kunikida had, to Dazai’s surprise, apologised for his behavior. As soon as he was finished, he lectured him about his own behavior, accountability, his responsibility as an agency member and so many other things that went in one ear and out the other. Yosano gave him a sympathetic smile followed by a wink while she pointed at her machete, which he assumed (and hoped) to mean she would dismember whoever read Dazai’s record. 

The others simply glanced at him, waived and went back to work. The only person missing, apart from Fukuzawa who was rarely in the main room, was Ranpo. 

The morning was excruciatingly slow despite the fact that he only showed up at 11am. Lunch break was even worse, seeing as many of his coworkers had sweets with their lunch, keeping him from distracting himself. As always, Dazai whistled his way through it, earning a really aggressive glare from Kunkida and a barely repressed want to come over and hit his desk hard enough to make everyone jump in their seats. Aside from that, everything was normal, except for Ranpo’s absence. 

He finally showed himself at almost 2pm, slightly surprised to see Dazai at his desk. He didn’t say anything, but his expression screamed “I didn’t realise you were back”. Perhaps the loss of three candies had been as distracting to him as their apparition had been to Dazai. 

Ranpo made his way to his own desk and started working (read: take a glance at a case and decide it was uninteresting), ignoring Dazai staring at him, standing up and waiting in front of his desk for a few minutes. Ranpo was the first one to break, looking up and sighing. 

“So, did you like the candies?”

“I didn’t eat them.”

A tense silence floated between them for a few seconds. 

“Could I have them back, then?”

All traces of tension had disappeared from Ranpo’s voice, like the answer was so obvious he was only asking to be polite. The smile on Dazai’s face after his question made his certainty waver.

“Sure, but I need to talk to you first. Do you have a minute?”

Despite the temptation to answer “We’re already talking”, Ranpo stood up and walked to the empty nursery. He didn’t wait for his colleague to plop down on the bed and watched as Dazai closed the door behind him, his fake cordiality immediately melting to reveal a gaze that would have made most people crumble and beg for their lives. Ranpo simply raised an eyebrow. 

“Whatever you think you discovered and however you found out about it, if the word gets out I’ll make sure that you don’t.”

“What, that you’re trans?”

The quickly controlled widening of Dazai’s eyes was enough to show he was much more panicked than Ranpo realised. Even his voice was quiet in the way only a repressed scream is when he started his next sentence.

“Don’t you-”

“You don’t have to worry. I won’t say anything about you,” Ranpo interrupted him before he could get too far into his head.

“Not that it matters, but nobody would have an issue with it even if they discovered it. I’m not going to out anyone, but most of us aren’t entirely cishet anyway. And Tanizaki is pretty open about being trans too, and the worst he’s seen was Kunikida trying to hug him on trans day of visibility.” He snorted. “Even I was embarrassed for him. Anyway, what I mean is that this isn’t something that’s ever going to be used against you here. If anything, knowing about it could make some of them more understanding of your monthly disappearance.”

Dazai’s face was back to his usual neutrally amused face, but the shift in the atmosphere was clear enough to show how relieved he was. There was probably some surprise that he couldn’t hide too. “This isn’t something that’s ever going to be used against you” wasn’t a sentence he was used to hearing, and much less to believing. 

“Good to know. Why did you give me candies tho?”

“Well, Yosano always craves sugar when she’s on her periods, so I assumed you would be the same. But since you’re not, I’m just going to keep them in the future,” Ranpo finished with a grin. 

Dazai simply nodded and left the nursery. When Ranpo got back to his desk, there was a blob of chocolate in a fish themed wrapper, a coca cola frog and a jawbreaker waiting for him.