Work Text:
The text arrived like a death sentence he was expecting for weeks now.
We need to talk.
No emoji. No “oi.” No smug little add-on like bring snacks.
Just four words, neat and terminal.
Dazai stared at the screen until it dimmed, then tapped it back to life, as if a second look might change the sentence into something kinder.
We need to talk.
Dazai’s fingers hovered over the keyboard, the part of him that loved words already lining up a dozen replies—playful ones, bright ones, ones that nudged the conversation sideways until it forgot to be sharp. His thumb even started to type something idiotic.
Dazai: About what?
Delete.
Dazai: Sure! Want snacks?
Delete.
Dazai: Are you dying? Because I’m dying. Together?
Delete.
No. Just no.
He let his phone drop into his pocket like it had burned him.
Dazai exhaled and forced his body to move.
Okay, he told himself brightly, like he was giving a mission briefing to a child. We can do this. We can handle “a talk.” People talk all the time. It’s basically your entire personality.
He went to the kitchen and turned on the light. It was too white, too honest.
He opened the cabinet where he kept the good tea—because Ranpo liked the good tea, because Ranpo had once wrinkled his nose at the cheap stuff and said, “This tastes sad,” and Dazai had never purchased it again.
He set the tin down. Opened it. Inhaled.
The scent was warm and floral and familiar in a way that almost hurt. It made his throat close like someone had pressed a thumb there and held.
His mind, unhelpfully, replayed the last few months in small, vivid cuts, like an editor had sliced out only the parts that hurt.
Weeks. It had been weeks of little things, the kind he’d pretended not to notice until they stacked high enough to topple over him.
It had started with small touches that didn’t return.
Dazai would hook an arm around Ranpo’s shoulders as they walked, light and casual, like it was the most natural thing in the world to keep him close. Ranpo would accept it the way he accepted a coat draped over him.
Once, in the elevator, Dazai had leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to Ranpo’s temple.
He remembered the exact moment Ranpo’s eyes flicked sideways—confused, as if Dazai gave him a type of candy he didn’t bother reaching for in the store—before he said, “You’re getting clingy.”
Dazai had laughed. Of course he had. Ranpo wasn’t mean, not really. Ranpo was Ranpo.
Except… the pattern had started to form.
Sometimes, when Ranpo was tired enough to let his guard slip, Dazai would see it: the way Ranpo leaned into him.
The day after that case with the child—when Ranpo had gone quiet, unusually quiet, his mouth pulled tight like he’d swallowed something sharp—Dazai had wrapped an arm around him without thinking.
Ranpo had hesitated for half a second, then melted.
It had been subtle: a soft exhale; shoulders lowering; his forehead pressing to Dazai’s collarbone as if he’d been holding himself upright by sheer stubbornness and finally decided he didn’t have to.
But other times—too many times—Ranpo would react differently.
A pat on his head when he was irritated about paperwork: Ranpo would glare at you.
A kiss: God the kisses.
At first, Ranpo had kissed him back sometimes. Not with hunger, but with something like compliance. A press of lips. A brief participation. Like a first bite of a new dish you may or may not like.
Dazai had told himself it was cute. That Ranpo was shy, or inexperienced. That Dazai would teach him.
Except, with time Ranpo had stopped kissing, and started only being kissed.
And then there were the nights.
“Hey,” Dazai had said, casual, careful, “wanna spend the night?”
Ranpo, already halfway out the door: “Can’t. Have stuff.”
Ranpo’s “stuff” multiplied beautifully with repetition. A headache. A sudden important craving only satisfiable across town. A promise to check on Poe. A puzzle he “couldn’t abandon” like it would cry if left alone.
Movie nights had become their own kind of landmine.
Dazai would offer—too sweetly, like bait—and Ranpo would stiffen like he’d been asked to walk into an ambush.
“Movie?” Dazai would say. “Just us.”
Ranpo’s eyes would dart to Dazai’s mouth and then away, as if his brain had already sprinted ten steps ahead.
And then the excuses would come, neat and practiced, like he’d rehearsed them in the mirror.
He could tell when Ranpo was avoiding him. Not just the apartment. Not just the late nights. Him.
And the worst part—the thing Dazai couldn’t stop chewing on even when he tried to drown it with jokes—was that Ranpo never initiated.
Not a kiss. Not a touch.
And Dazai, foolish, had let himself hope anyway.
But hope was a fragile thing, and Dazai had never been good at holding fragile things without crushing them.
We need to talk.
Four words. A guillotine.
If I put on his favourite show and set out snacks and act like nothing’s happening, maybe he’ll get distracted and the talk won’t happen.
Or maybe the talk would still happen, and it would just take place with a brighter soundtrack.
He pressed his fingers to his temple.
Coward.
The kettle began to hiss.
His hands shook as he measured tea leaves. Not enough to spill, but enough to remind him that his body was aware of danger even if his mind tried to laugh through it.
He poured the water. Steam rose, curling in pale ribbons. The smell of tea filled the kitchen—warm, grounding. For a second it felt like Ranpo was already here, sitting at the table, complaining about the wait and demanding sugar with all the solemn authority of a king.
Dazai opened the sugar jar.
His vision blurred.
“Stop that,” he muttered to himself, because scolding was easier than feeling. “You’re going to look ridiculous.”
He blinked hard until the world steadied.
Then the doorbell rang.
Dazai froze so fast it felt like his bones locked.
His heartbeat slammed against his ribs, wild and panicked. The sound was too much—too sharp, too final.
Already? his mind screamed. No. Not yet. Please, not yet.
He was halfway across the room before he realized he hadn’t even put on a real expression. He stopped in front of the door, stared at it like it would lead to a court room, then dragged his mouth up into a smile that felt like it might crack.
He opened it.
A delivery guy stood there holding a box.
Dazai blinked, thrown off-balance so hard he almost laughed.
“Osamu Dazai?” the man asked, scanning the label.
“Yes,” Dazai answered automatically, still trying to recover the portion of his soul that had tried to leave his body.
“Signature.”
Dazai signed with a hand that still trembled, accepted the box, and shut the door again.
Silence.
He stared down at the package.
A game. The new one. The one Ranpo had mentioned once—once—in the middle of a sugar-fuelled rant about how modern puzzles were “cowardly” because they “catered to people who need hints.”
Dazai had preordered it the same night, because of course he had. He had planned to surprise Ranpo on his birthday. Planned to act casual, to toss it to him like it meant nothing, while secretly cherishing the moment Ranpo’s face lit up.
He ran his thumb along the edge of the cardboard.
A laugh bubbled up, thin and wrong.
“Perfect timing,” he whispered to the empty room.
He carried the box to his bedroom like it was fragile, like it might shatter if he moved too quickly. The wardrobe door squeaked when he opened it. He reached up to the top shelf and shoved aside folded clothes.
He slid the game in beneath a stack of pants, stared at it for a beat, then pushed the pants over it and closed the door.
His feet lead him back to the kitchen, because the tea would be bitter if he let it sit, and bitter tea was a crime Ranpo would never forgive.
Dazai took out the leaves and stared at the two cups of tea.
He wondered, briefly, if he should pour his out.
Would it be melodramatic to only have one cup waiting? Would that look like acceptance? Like surrender? Like he had already decided Ranpo was leaving?
Maybe I should look unaffected, he thought. Be graceful. Be charming. Smile and say, “Of course, Ranpo-san. If you want to end things, I understand.”
He imagined it. His own voice, bright and airy and polite.
He imagined Ranpo’s expression in response.
Ranpo hated lies. Ranpo hated performance when it was meant to deceive. Ranpo would see right through him and get angry.
And Dazai—Dazai could handle anger. He could handle Ranpo calling him an idiot, a bastard, a drama queen.
What he couldn’t handle was Ranpo looking at him with pity.
Did he just put up with me over the past few weeks?
He wiped the counter because he needed something to do with his hands. The cloth dragged through a small wet patch. He frowned, swiped at it again, and then watched, irritated, as more drops showed up.
He paused.
Blinked.
The dots on the counter blurred.
He didn’t remember deciding to cry. That was the worst part.
He pressed his palms to his eyes and breathed until the sting faded. When he pulled his hands away, he forced himself into motion again, restless as a cornered animal pretending it’s merely pacing for fun.
Snacks. Ranpo liked snacks. Snacks were safe.
Dazai laid out the familiar offerings: the good crackers, the strawberry mochi, the candy Ranpo hoarded like treasure and then complained no one respected. He hesitated at the fridge, considering whether to add that strange cream soda Ranpo once declared “the only beverage worth existing,” then grabbed it anyway, because if Ranpo was going to leave, at least let him leave hydrated.
He set everything on the table with careful precision—as if arranging it correctly might push him into a timeline where they don’t end things today.
His mind tried, helplessly, to strategize.
What if I make him laugh first? What if I apologize without admitting what I’m apologizing for? What if I say something soft and honest and he decides I’m worth keeping?
Then the darker part of him—old, practiced—offered its familiar tools:
What if you make it hard for him to leave? What if you cry where he can see? What if you say you’ll fall apart without him? What if you remind him how much you’ve done, how much you’ve given?
Dazai’s jaw tightened.
No.
Not with Ranpo.
Ranpo had always been immune to charm when it was used like a weapon. Ranpo could look at Dazai’s most polished performance and say, flatly, “That’s fake,” like it was as obvious as the weather.
And Ranpo deserved better than that.
Sound of knocking cut across the room like a judge’s gavel.
Ah so it’s serious then.
Dazai drew in a careful breath—the kind that was supposed to steady a voice and never quite did.
“Come on in, Ranpo-san!” he called, bright as always. “It’s not like you haven’t already claimed ownership of the place.”
A soft click answered him.
He rushed to the kitchen and reached for the cups. Just a few seconds. One more, and he could put the right expression on his face—something light, something harmless. The porcelain clinked as he set it on the tray, and the smile he wore felt like a mask he’d forgotten was strapped on too tight.
“You’re just on time, Ranpo-san,” he said, glancing sideways at the brown blur by the entrance. “I happened to make tea, and the sweet incentive is already on the table.”
“Incentive…” Ranpo’s voice came, raspy and quiet, and still very much near the door.
Dazai turned with the tray balanced in hands he willed not to tremble.
“Won’t you sit down?”
Or will you just say we’re done and leave?
“Obviously,” Ranpo said, finally moving. “I just had to make sure you wouldn’t run the moment I turned my eyes away.”
“Only to the store for more snacks,” Dazai offered, nodding toward the table.
They sat down next to one another, neither daring to look away from their cup.
Dazai kept his hands around the porcelain, smiling internally at the soft burn.
“While you’re already here Ranpo-san,” Dazai began, already getting up and towards the wardrobe. “Why don’t we play that new Duke of Riddles game? It got dropped by my door just minutes before you came. That’s destiny!”
He reached towards the top shelf and picked a game up from underneath a few folded pants that he knew Ranpo wouldn’t steal for himself. He turned around victorious, with a navy disc drive, held up like a trophy.
Ranpo was watching him now, brows knit, eyes stripped of the excitement Dazai was trying to summon.
“Just minutes before I showed up?” Ranpo said, gaze sliding towards the disc. “And in this time you decided to… hide it?”
Rookie mistake, Osamu.
“Time passes differently when you’re not there, my dear,” Dazai said smoothly. He pressed the disc to his chest and nudged the wardrobe door close. “Minutes blur into a grey mass. Might have been seconds, might have been days.”
Ranpo looked at him a beat longer, then pressed his lips together, and dropped his gaze to the table.
Dazai felt his nails scrape the disc box. “Maybe later, then.”
“Yeah. Maybe later,” Ranpo echoed, and took the first sip of his tea.
Dazai sat back down, placing the box beside his thigh.
“Sweet enough?” he asked.
Ranpo hummed in approval.
“Ah the highest praise!” Dazai leaned into it as if it were warmth. “I mixed the white and brown sugar the way that old lady at the stall in Yobuko did. I still remember your face when you took the first sip.” His smile turned real around the edges, despite himself. “You looked like you entered heaven. Not that the angels would notice you weren’t one of them—you’re absolutely ethereal.”
“Thanks,” Ranpo muttered between sips.
The detective’s grip tightened until Dazai half expected the porcelain to crack. Dazai wondered if it was Ranpo’s way of not strangling the ex-mafioso.
“Are you cold?,” Dazai asked, noting the slight tremble in Ranpo’s frame. “Of course you are. You’re gripping that cup like it’s the only source of warmth in the room. How ignorant of me!” He shot up towards the wardrobe again, hand instinctively reaching for the hoodie Ranpo stole on colder nights.
“Osamu—”
“Arms up detective!”
Dazai held the hoodie up, ready to tug it down the smaller man’s frame. Ranpo’s hands though were stubbornly clutching the cup.
“Oh, you don’t have to let go of it,” Dazai said, crouching next to the detective. “I’ll just tug it around you instead!”
He draped the hoodie over Ranpo’s back and shoulders, careful, almost gentle. And then, without thinking—or maybe because thinking would have stopped him—he wrapped his arms around Ranpo from behind.
“There we go. Feeling warm now?”
I do.
“Not really.”
It’s time Osamu. You know what you have to do.
“Do you want me to let go?”
“Yes, please.”
Dazai felt his arms instinctively lock up, squeezing tighter, before he willed them to let go. He slowly moved away, hand reaching for the cup that no longer felt warm.
He took a sip anyway, and the tea tasted like sugar and dread. He let out a breath that shook on the way out, then a quiet laugh that sounded too hollow to belong to him.
“Alright Ranpo-san. Stop the torture and just get it over with.”
Ranpo’s hand shifted, fingers tapping the cup in a relentless staccato.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Pause. Tap. Tap.
“Ranpo-san?” Dazai prompted gently when the silence stretched.
If you could hurry along, that’d be great. Before I start crying into the tea and ruin the blend.
“I don’t…” Ranpo started, then stopped, his mouth flattening into a line. “You’re making it difficult.”
“Will it be easier if I turn around?,” Dazai asked jokingly, already in motion.
“No, I mean sort of, but that’s— ugh,” he took a breath, then tried again, like approaching a locked door with a new key. “Are you happ—no, satisfied? With me?”
“Satisfied? In what sense?”
What is he rating his dating services before he moves on?
“What do you mean in what sense? In that whole relationship sense. Are you okay with where we stand?”
“Where do we stand in your mind Ranpo-san?”
“Don’t ping pong the question to me.”
Dazai’s brows furrowed. His mind, traitorous, started replaying their moments together like an old cassette. The shared evenings, stolen mochies, hushed jokes. The little spark of joy he got each time he entered a bakery with intention of buying every new pastry. The excitement he felt when he preordered the game. The hours that went by while choosing new hoodies Ranpo could steal and not throw away in minutes because they scratch.
Where do we stand?
“I’m not sure where we stand Ranpo-san but wherever it is, I’m happy with that.”
“No.”
Huh?
Dazai blinked. “Pardon?”
“You’re not satisfied with that,” Ranpo said, as if correcting a child who’d gotten an obvious answer wrong.
Dazai’s mind lagged. The words didn’t register at first—like someone had typed them and forgotten to hit send.
“I… Ranpo-san I adore you think my mind works as fast as yours, but I’m not following.”
Ranpo’s lips pressed together. “I asked if you’re satisfied. With…this.” His hand made a vague, circular motion between them. “With us. With how things are.”
“And I told you I am.”
“But you’re clearly not.”
“But I’m am,” Dazai insisted, puzzled at the route the conversation took. “Why are you trying to convince me otherwise?”
“I’m not convincing you to anything.” Ranpo’s voice sharpened, frustration scraping at the edges. “I’m stating facts.”
“Fact is, I like you.”
“Fact is,” Ranpo shot back, “you want more.”
Dazai’s mouth opened, then closed. His throat felt suddenly too tight for easy jokes.
“Even if I want more,” he said carefully, “that doesn’t mean I can’t be happy with what I have.”
“I—,” Ranpo stumbled, as though someone took away base argument and the rest fall apart without it. “You can’t be content if you want more, that’s not how happiness works.”
Dazai watched him for a beat, the tap-tap of Ranpo’s fingers syncing with the thud-thud of his own pulse.
“What do you think I want Ranpo-san?”
Ranpo finally looked at him properly.
Green eyes, sharp as ever, but the usual cocky shine was missing.
“I mean, you’re not exactly subtle,” Ranpo said at last, as if that explained everything.
“Sunshine,” Dazai sighed, tipping his head with the kind of fond exasperation that usually got him out of trouble, “I thought we agreed the moment you took the three years I spent hiding after the mafia—clearing my past—and threw them out the window with one glance, that subtlety was not on the table.”
“It’s not my fault you guys are so easy to read,” Ranpo mumbled, turning away. A huff escaped him before he could swallow it back down.
“I don’t think that’s how the rest of us sees that,” Dazai countered under his breath, eyes flicking aside and returning. “That still doesn’t answer my question. What do you think I want?”
“Sex.”
The answer came loaded like a bomb thrown between them.
Dazai felt the air leave his lungs in a quiet, surprised huff. “That’s very direct. Much like you Ranpo-san. Is it too early? Are we not there yet?”
“I don’t know if we’ll ever be there.”
Dazai’s heart dropped so sharply it almost heard it shatter in his ears.
“So you don’t want me like that.”
“I don’t want that.”
“You don’t want that…” Dazai echoed, and the shape of the sentence shifted in his mouth until it became something else entirely.
Oh. OH.
“Wait so you mean you don’t—”
“Yes.”
“Not just with me, but with anyone.”
“Yes.”
Dazai stared at him. Not really at him—more like through him, past him, trying to rearrange the pieces of the puzzle into something that made sense.
Ranpo didn’t shift under the stare. His shoulders were hunched, cape pooled around him like a fortress. His hands had stopped tapping; they were just clenched now, around the cup, white-knuckled.
He isn’t repulsed by you, he’s just not fond of that one activity. It’s not you. It’s that one thing.
“Why are you telling me this now?” Dazai asked softly. “I mean, of course I’m glad you’re telling me, but you’ve had months.”
Ranpo’s mouth twisted. “I was hoping it’d change.” His gaze slid away, toward the window like the answer might be written on the glass. “That it was just… I don’t know. Nerves. Inexperience. Not finding the ‘right one’ everyone keeps raving about.”
“And you thought I might be the one?”
“I hoped.” Ranpo’s voice thinned on the word. He still didn’t look back. “I like spending time with you. I think about you. I wonder what gifts to get you, places to take you, things to do with you.” A disillusioned sigh slipped out. “But it never crossed my mind to kiss you. Or have sex with you.”
He turned his gaze to look straight at Dazai, eyes scanning him up and down.
“It’s not that you’re not attractive, I can see you are. I’m not blind,” Ranpo continued, hands trying to grasp at concepts his words couldn’t yet. “But that’s it.”
So not everyone’s thought process is the same. You analyse it for a living and you forgot to include a case of attraction in it. Another rookie mistake, Osamu.
“You can see I’m attractive. But do you find me attractive?” Dazai tried, carefully aiming for Ranpo’s angle.
“I’m not sure I understand,” Ranpo said after a short pause.
“Do you feel any pull?”
“I told you I don’t,” Ranpo answered, then flinched at his harsh tone. “Not physically at least.”
Dazai nodded, prompting him to continue.
“I mean, you’re interesting, and I care about you and I want to see you happy,” Ranpo went on, fingers grasping and letting go off his coat. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here having that conversation with you.”
Silence settled, the steam from their cups thinned into nothing.
Dazai watched him, trying to line everything up.
Ranpo hadn’t flinched from him. He’d flinched from expectations. From the idea of Dazai’s expectations itself.
So all those times he just… stood there while I kissed him. Each time he didn’t respond to my flirting. He just couldn’t. It’s not a language he understands.
The realization hurt in a strange, double-edged way. Part of him winced at the thought of Ranpo doing things he thought he should want, and feeling bad for not doing so. Another part loosened, just a fraction. Because now he knows. And he can adapt.
Can you though?
He heard Ranpo’s voice in his mind, the detective’s eyes piercing through his soul as though daring him to deny it.
“No need to glare at me from inside my own skull, Ranpo-san,” Dazai said lightly, letting the humour cover the tremor. “I’m thinking.”
Ranpo snorted, short and disbelieving. “Didn’t know you could do that.”
Dazai let the jab roll over him, feeling familiar warmth from the banter. That’s the warmth he thought Ranpo felt as well when he hugged or kissed him. But if that wasn’t the case…
“Ranpo-san when I kissed you all those times, did I—”
“No, you didn’t hurt me in any way,” Ranpo said, eyes crystal clear for the first time during that conversation. “I didn’t really want it, but I didn’t not want it either. I just didn’t care.”
“What a terrifying review of my kissing skills,” Dazai tried, voice coming out thinner than he intended. Still a soft huff escaped Ranpo’s lips. The room warmed a degree.
A cold shiver crawled up Dazai’s spine.
“Why then,” he asked quietly, “did you let me keep doing it?”
Ranpo flinched. “Because that’s what people do when they date,” he shot back, as if it were obvious. “That’s what everyone does, right? You hold hands, kiss, eventually have sex, get married, buy a house, so on.”
“So you let me kiss you because that’s what couples do.”
“And I told you already, that I hoped after a few times I’d begin to like it.”
“And got nervous and avoidant when you didn’t,” Dazai supplied. Ranpo didn’t correct him.
“Did you want to start to like it?” Dazai asked, searching Ranpo’s face.
Ranpo’s eyes flashed, irritated—at Dazai, at himself, at the loop the conversation took. “You already know my answer to that.”
Dazai exhaled slowly through his nose, looking for words that wouldn’t corner Ranpo again.
Each meeting became a waiting game you anxiously took part in instead of enjoying it. I thought you were annoyed by me, but you were irritated by the fact you didn’t care about things you thought you should like. No wonder you didn’t want to meet up.
“You know,” he said, tone carefully light, “usually if you go on a date with someone and don’t feel like you want to learn more about them after the first meeting, you don’t keep going on the second, third and fourth just to see if you hopefully change your mind.”
Ranpo’s brows twitched. “That’s a stupid system. You can’t gather enough data from one date.”
“Spoken like someone who wants to interrogate their partner with a questionnaire,” Dazai murmured. Then, softer, “But people are allowed to not like things, Ranpo-san. You don’t need to brute force yourself into enjoying them.”
“But if everyone else enjoys it,” Ranpo fired back, glare dropping to the floor, “then why should I be any special?”
“Everyone around me loves tomatoes and I don’t,” Dazai said promptly.
That got Ranpo to look up, if only out of pure offense.
“Why do I get to be special?” Dazai continued, voice steady now, almost gentle. “Why do you have to accept that every time we order a pizza, you can’t eat it the way you want because of me?”
“That’s a stupid comparison,” Ranpo snapped. “It doesn’t hurt me that I don’t get to eat tomatoes on pizza with you.”
“You may be shocked, but not having sex with you won’t hurt me either,” Dazai said, tone serious and completely confident.
Ranpo blinked once. Twice.
Opened his mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again only to let out a frustrated noise instead of a counterargument.
Dazai watched the soundless struggle with something like awe.
Ranpo Edogawa, national menace, terror of the police station, the man who could reduce hardened officers to tears with a single sentence— rendered speechless by a one as well.
A flush crept up Ranpo’s neck, colouring his cheeks and ears a soft pink.
“…you’re lying,” he muttered at last.
“I’m really not,” Dazai replied, keeping his tone gentle. “You’d know if I was, wouldn’t you, greatest detective?”
Ranpo’s eyes shot up, green irises piercing though his very soul. If Dazai didn’t know any better he’d say Ranpo looked gorgeous now.
“But that—you can’t just—you’re not—you’re supposed to be mad now!” Ranpo stubbornly stumbled his way to the only outcome his mind accepted as reasonable at the moment.
Dazai stared at him for a beat.
Then, to his own surprise, he laughed. It came out shaky, but genuine, curling around the edges of his words.
“Ah, so this time I’m the one failing expectations. Tragic.”
Ranpo shot him a sharp look at that. Dazai met it head-on, smile smaller now, thinner around the edges.
“Alright detective, why would I be mad?” He tilted his head, the usual teasing cadence toned down to something closer to careful.
“You’re not stupid.” Ranpo’s jaw clenched. “Don’t make me spell it out.”
“I want you to spell it out,” Dazai replied.
Ranpo scowled at him.
“I hate explaining things that are obvious,” he muttered.
Obvious? Or have you started to realise how stupid your arguments are?
“Well,” Dazai said mildly, “unfortunately, your boyfriend is an idiot. Tragic, I know. Please walk him through the basics.”
Ranpo looked as though he wanted to strangle him. He didn’t even bother hiding it—his eyes narrowed, his mouth drew tight, and the air around him took on that familiar I am restraining myself through sheer willpower density.
“Because you give,” he said bluntly. “All the time. You plan dates, you get me snacks, you buy games I say I want once and never mention again, you listen to me rant, you let me drag you on cases even when you’re exhausted, you let me steal your most comfortable clothes, you… all that.”
The way he said it, it sounded like a list of crimes.
“And I don’t give you anything back,” Ranpo continued, jaw clenching. “Not really. I just… show up. And now I’m telling you I don’t want to do the one thing everyone says is proof of a romantic relationship. So I’m taking, you’re giving, and then I also say ‘no sex, thanks’. That’s…” His throat bobbed. “…selfish.”
The last word came out clipped, sharp-edged, like he’d already stabbed himself with it a few times before bringing it out.
Dazai blinked at the avalanche, at the strange way Ranpo’s logic had built a guillotine and then marched himself beneath it.
He let out a low whistle.
“That’s quite the charge list, detective,” Dazai said lightly. “You’ve been busy building a case against yourself.”
“It’s true,” Ranpo muttered. “Anyone else would’ve called me out on it already. Or left.”
“Well then detective,” Dazai started as he stretched his arms above his head. “I suppose I have no other choice but to defend my case.”
“You don’t have to make anything up just because you don’t want me to feel bad,” Ranpo shot back, eyes hard.
“I’m not making anything up,” Dazai said. His voice came out softer than he planned, the theatrics scraped away. “I’m very bad at lying to you, remember? You’ve proven it repeatedly, very rudely, in front of witnesses.”
A faint twitch at the corner of Ranpo’s mouth.
Dazai took that as permission to continue.
“You say you ‘just show up’,” he began, fingers tapping the table once before stilling again. “As if that’s nothing. Ranpo-san… you show up for me.”
“Well that’s because you make me feel good,” Ranpo cut in, not letting him have it.
“And you showing up makes me feel good too. See? We’re both getting something out of this equation.”
Ranpo opened his mouth, but Dazai held up his hand, so all that left the detective was a strangled noise.
“You’re the one who texts me ‘go home’ when it hits midnight and I’m still at the Agency,” Dazai went on. “You’re the one who steals my reports and hides them on top of the bookshelf where you know I won’t bother to reach them when you decide I’ve worked enough. You drag me out for sweets when you notice I haven’t eaten all day. You enchant kittens to catch and let me pet them when you can tell my head’s getting too dark.”
He sucked in a breath, the memories piling up faster than he could sort them.
“And you listen,” Dazai added. “You’ll pretend you don’t care, pretend you’re bored, but when I say something stupid at three in the morning a week later, you throw it back in my face with perfect accuracy. You remember what I say, even when I wish you didn’t.”
His throat felt tight.
Ranpo’s eyes darted away, as if the floor suddenly became the most fascinating suspect in the room.
“That’s just baseline,” he said, sounding almost offended. “That’s what you do when you care about someone. That doesn’t count.”
“By that logic I’m also giving you just a baseline,” Dazai pointed out. “So you’re not taking if we’re both at the same level.”
“But we’re not,” Ranpo countered, stubbornly not letting go. “For me that’s enough. I don’t want more from you Osamu, what you give is a hundred percent for me already. But you want more, so I only give you a fraction.”
Dazai took a breath to give himself a second to choose his next words carefully.
“Okay, help me understand something,” he started gently. “You think that because I want more, that means that your efforts that are the same as mine—we already proved that in the previous step so don’t argue now— are worth less.”
Ranpo’s nose wrinkled. “When you say it like that it sounds dumb.”
“That’s because it is dumb,” Dazai said mildly.
Ranpo glared at him with enough force to incinerate a lesser man. Dazai, unfortunately, had long since stopped qualifying.
“But you could have it all if you chose anyone else,” Ranpo insisted, voice harsh with fear wearing logic as a disguise. “Investing in me won’t provide you what you want.”
“Ah,” Dazai sighed, deadpan, “how lovely that you think you’re stocks I’ve put all my life’s savings into.”
Ranpo looked like he didn’t just want, but was actively considering strangling Dazai.
“Alright one last metaphor, I promise,” he said, placing a hand over his heart. “Let’s say we both have ten snacks. I give you ten, you get satisfied with ten. You give me ten, but I’m bigger, I could feel fuller with twelve. Does that make you selfish, or me more hungry?”
“…more hungry,” Ranpo admitted through gritted teeth.
“Exactly.” Dazai spread his hands, as if presenting the obvious. “So why are you putting ‘selfish’ on your charge list?”
“Because other people could give you what I can’t,” Ranpo shot back immediately.
“But you can’t,” Dazai replied, simple and unwavering. “Just like someone without a home can’t offer me a spare room for the night. I wouldn’t call either of you selfish.”
Ranpo stared at him like he’d just suggested solving a triple homicide with a horoscope.
His eyes narrowed, working through the analogy the way he’d pick apart a crime scene.
Dazai watched him, heartbeat ticking loud in his own ears.
“That homeless guy doesn’t go around apologizing for not being able to crash people for a night, does he?” Dazai added, hoping to clear up the image he was trying to convey.
“That would be stupid,” Ranpo muttered.
“And apologizing for not wanting sex is the same level of stupid,” Dazai said, soft but firm.
“But a person who wants to crash real bad will just move on to a different person.” Ranpo didn’t falter, he breathed stubbornness like oxygen.
“Good thing I like the guy’s companionship more than a bed to crash at.”
Dazai watched the words land between them like a coin dropped into deep water—no splash, just the faint ripple of impact.
Ranpo stared at him, or rather through him, eyes distant and glazed over. He slowly lowered his gaze, brows furrowing slightly.
Dazai could see the gears spinning in his head, and was sure the detective would come up with another argument.
The incredulous huff that escaped his lips only seemed to prove Dazai’s thesis.
Until the first tear followed.
Did I say something wrong?
Is it overload?
Please don’t cry because of me…
“Sunshine,” Dazai said softly, trying to catch his attention.
Ranpo’s gaze drifted, unfocused for a heartbeat, then snapped back with almost painful sharpness. He inhaled too quickly, the breath hitching at the top of his lungs. His hand pushed his hair back, and for a moment Dazai saw his face clearly.
A laugh slipped out of him. Soft, disbelieving, barely more than a breath.
Then another, strangled halfway into a hiccup.
He didn’t seem to be aware of the tears flowing down his cheeks.
He looks… high?
Dazai slowly move closer, wanting to be near in case the detective fainted.
Ranpo’s hand coming up to his chest only made him worry more.
“Ranpo-san,” Dazai tried gently again. “Can you breath? Does it hurt anywhere?”
Ranpo’s laugh came out wrong.
Dazai knew Ranpo’s laughs: the smug little chuckle when he blindsides a rookie cop; the sharp, barking one when someone says something really idiotic; the delighted, high one that occasionally slipped out when a snack exceeded expectations.
This one was none of those.
It was breathless, almost soundless, like air escaping a balloon pinched too tight. His shoulders shook with it, but there was no humour there—just a wild, stretched kind of relief.
“Uh oh,” Dazai said softly, because if he didn’t joke he’d either panic or start clapping out of sheer disbelief. “I think I’ve crashed the system.”
The detective seemed to vibrate in place, unsure whether to curl up or explode outward. His fingers tapped an erratic pattern on his knee, then drummed on the table, then returned to gripping his cup before abandoning it entirely.
“It’s so stupid,” he breathed, voice shaky but threaded with something sounding suspiciously like joy. “It’s so stupid it makes me dizzy.”
Dazai moved without thinking, closing the distance between them in seconds.
Ranpo had always been animated, but this was different—his hands jittered with too much energy, laughter spilling out in these thin, broken strips that set off every alarm Dazai had.
Before the thought fully formed, he’d already wrapped his arms around Ranpo, pulling him into a firm, grounding hug. One hand cupped the back of Ranpo’s head, guiding it gently down, the other banded low around his back, holding him together as much as holding him close.
“It’s alright,” Dazai murmured into his hair. “You’re not in trouble. There’s no catch. I promise.”
Ranpo made a strangled half-laugh, half-sob, shoulders shaking again. He shifted, turning his face so his cheek rested against Dazai’s chest, ear over his heart. Whether consciously or not, he seemed to be listening.
Dazai swallowed around the lump in his throat.
Slow down your pulse, he ordered himself. You’re going to give him the wrong data set.
They stayed like that for a stretch of time Dazai didn’t bother trying to measure. Gradually, Ranpo’s breathing evened out. The wild, buzzing energy eased, not gone but corralled, like a storm finally moving offshore.
Dazai could almost feel the moment the initial shock settled and the analytical part of Ranpo’s brain tugged the reins back.
“That’s stupid,” he whispered. “That’s… that’s not how relationships are supposed to work.”
“Good thing, then,” Dazai murmured with a small smile, “I’m famously bad at doing what I’m supposed to.”
Ranpo let out a choked sound that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob. His fingers bunched in the fabric of Dazai’s shirt, right over his ribs, holding on like an anchor.
“Idiot,” he mumbled, voice cracking around the word. “You’re supposed to want… all of it. To get everything you can. That’s how people are.”
“Greedy, manipulative, morally flexible,” Dazai said lightly. His hand moved in small, steady circles between Ranpo’s shoulder blades, more instinct than thought. “I’m starting to think you spend too much time with criminals.”
Dazai felt an elbow jab him between his ribs.
“That still make no sense why you’d be happy with that,” Ranpo grumbled, stubborn even now.
“Why not?”
“Because people date for romance and sex,” Ranpo said, like he was reciting from a manual. “If you take sex out you’re left with…” his hands flapped vaguely, “hanging out.”
Dazai blinked.
“…Are you telling me you think we’ve just been ‘hanging out’ for months?”
Ranpo let out a shaky breath. “Well I mean, that’s what it is. You show up, we do stuff, we eat, we talk, you flirt for some reason, I ignore you, we go home.”
Dazai’s hand stalled at Ranpo’s back.
Oh my god.
“Ranpo-san,” he said slowly. “We are dating.”
“I know that,” Ranpo snapped back, bristling. “I’m not stupid. I mean that what we’ve been doing is just hanging out.”
Dazai stared at him for a moment, then scrubbed a hand over his own face, fighting a hysterical bubble of laughter.
“Okay,” Dazai said, mastering himself. “Let me rephrase. Did you, at any point during these past months, go do ‘stuff’ with anyone else the way you do with me?”
Ranpo frowned. “Obviously not.”
“So we’re exclusive.”
“We are,” Ranpo said, reflexively—then his eyes narrowed as his brain caught up.
“So,” Dazai concluded, not even trying to hide the amused triumph in his tone, “we’re dating.”
Ranpo blinked up at him, then just let his forehead drop onto Dazai’s shoulder. “My head hurts.”
Dazai huffed a small laugh and adjusted his grip, one arm looping properly around Ranpo’s back, the other coming up to cradle the back of his head.
“Then stop using it,” he murmured into black hair, “you overclock it enough as it is.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” came the muffled, automatic reply.
Dazai smiled into his hair. The fight had gone out of Ranpo’s voice. What was left was frayed and exhausted and… lighter, somehow.
Dazai closed his eyes for a beat.
He’s not leaving, the thought whispered, tentative, like a stray cat peeking out from under a dumpster.
He hadn’t realized how loud the other track had been until now—the one that kept chanting he’ll leave, he’ll leave, he’ll leave in the back of his skull. It dimmed, not completely gone, but muffled, as if someone had shut a door on it.
“Do you want me to stop talking altogether?” Dazai asked softly. “I can do that, you know. Contrary to popular belief.”
Ranpo snorted against his shoulder. “You physically can’t.”
“Wanna bet?”
Ranpo’s grip tightened, just a little. “No more talking,” he muttered. “Not now. My head’s… full. It’s enough.”
Enough.
Dazai let the word settle between them.
“Alright,” he said. “Then we call it here for today.”
Ranpo didn’t answer, but he didn’t pull away either. His breathing, which had been too quick, too sharp, gradually evened out against Dazai’s chest.
He shifted them gently so Ranpo was more propped against the back of the couch than relying entirely on him. Ranpo made a faint protesting noise, so Dazai stopped there, adjusting just enough that neither of their limbs would go completely numb.
The room fell into a soft hush. The tiny ticking of the cheap wall clock. The faint hum of the fridge. Ranpo’s breathing.
So. He doesn’t want sex. With anyone. Not just me.
That’s a boundary, not a rejection. I can work with that.
It was strange, having something so clear to hold onto. He’d spent so much of his life in grey areas, in ambiguities sharp enough to cut. This was almost refreshingly simple.
He wanted Ranpo. Ranpo wanted him. They also wanted different things from the physical side of a relationship. They’d have to talk more. About what Ranpo did want, what felt good, what didn’t. About what Dazai needed and how to keep it from curdling into resentment.
But not now. Now, Ranpo’s brain had clearly waved a little white flag and gone on strike.
And frankly, Dazai’s wasn’t far behind.
He reached out with his free hand and nudged the sweet tray closer with a finger, plucking up one of the remaining mochi. Ranpo shifted at the movement, grumbling faintly without lifting his head.
“I’m getting us sugar, not abandoning you,” Dazai murmured. “You’re safe.”
He took a bite of mochi and hummed thoughtfully.
“Ranpo-san,” he said after a while, voice low enough not to jar. “You know, by your logic earlier, I’ve been an absolutely terrible boyfriend.”
“Mmf,” Ranpo replied into his shoulder, which Dazai generously interpreted as elaborate.
“I’ve been kissing you when I wanted to,” Dazai said. “Hugging you when I felt like it. Enjoying it. If we go by that ‘one person gives, one person takes’ framework, that makes me the selfish one, doesn’t it?”
Ranpo groaned and dropped his face back into Dazai’s shoulder, clearly done with conscious thought for the evening.
“Understandable,” Dazai muttered , and let the silence sit.
He thought, briefly, of the afternoon he’d spent working himself in knots over that text.
We need to talk.
How he’d paced, rehearsed confessions and counterarguments and emergency exit strategies. How his stomach had twisted every time he’d imagined Ranpo’s mouth forming the words this isn’t working.
And you were sitting somewhere thinking I’d be the one to dump you.
Truly, a match made in catastrophic miscommunication.
He tucked his chin slightly so it rested against Ranpo’s hair.
They stayed like that as the light outside the window shifted, dimming into early night. At some point, Dazai managed to lean back enough to snag the remote and flick the TV on low, not really paying attention to whatever late rerun flickered onto the screen. Just background noise. Something to float on.
Ranpo’s breathing slowed, not quite asleep, but hovering in that liminal space where thoughts were soft and slow and heavy. Every so often, his fingers would twitch in Dazai’s shirt, as if checking he was still there.
He always was.
Time blurred. Minutes, maybe an hour. Hard to tell when his own brain was quietly powering down.
“Oh and Ranpo-san,” Dazai murmured after a while, voice low enough not to startle.
A noncommittal noise. Awake, then. Barely.
”Don’t ever text me ‘we need to talk’ again. I thought you were going to dump me and my heart can only take so much stress.”
It took Ranpo’s brain exactly three seconds to catch up.
“Wait—what?!”