Work Text:
William T. Spears always wished to be forgiven.
Everyone did, but Will even more than other reapers. He worked with desperation, with harshness and hope that refused to fade even after years. A workaholic, some said. They were right.
He worked and worked, never brought emotions into his job - and doesn't that remind you of someone? - and he was the epitome of a reaper.
He had to clean up Grell's messes and Ronald's carelessness even though he was from the Management Division. He worked and worked even when he complained about it.
So when he vanished after leaving from work, leaving nothing behind, everyone was shocked. But it didn't take long to realize that he didn't go rogue.
He just moved on.
Kunikda Doppo is born screaming, with his mother's laughs ringing in his newborn ears.
Will screams and screams. He is afraid, this reaper, until he understands. He looks at his mother's smiling face and feels warm and loved and cries.
I'm alive, he thinks, and cries. He blames Grell's influence and love for dramatics. Clearly, he spends too much time with his annoying coworker.
Spent, a voice in his mind corrects, and his heart sinks.
It's strange, and hard, to adapt.
For all the Grim Reaper Dispatch was advanced, this still isn't his time, his world. It's not even his country. Will hears his mother's voice and doesn't understand a word. For the first time, he regrets not having listened to Othello's blabbers about cultural differences and different ways science was done in other countries.
But if Will is something it's dedicated. His mother loves him - how strange - and he wants, needs to understand her words. And compared to his old job, learning a language seems easy.
William T. Spears gives up his name and Kunikida Doppo breathes, and tries to forget about flashy redhead.
He tries to live his life normally, and mostly succeeds. His mother loves him, and he has someone to rely on. It's far more than he had in his first life.
He writes a book on his ideals, makes a list on how he wants this life to go.
His mother laughs gently, and tells him he shouldn't worry so much about his future. That it's her job, and that he still has time before choosing what he wants to do with his life.
Will- Kunikida doesn't know how to tell her about hunger and despair of another time, another place in another era. He doesn't know how to explain the feeling of being alone, knowing that no one will ever come even if he yells for help. He can't tell her about the things that haunt his dreams -demons and reapers and friends united in face of despair. So he doesn't. He just hides his notebooks better.
He doesn't try to see the Japanese reapers, or shinigami as they are called. The English Branch was more connected to Europe than Asia, and he doesn't know anyone who may recognize him. So he stays away.
Sometimes though, he catches a glimpse of people dressed in black running on rooftops. When it happens, he's never sure whether to laugh or cry.
Life goes on.
He discovers his ability by accident.
It became a habit to write in his notebooks. He has many, and they are his refuge. He writes his ideals in Japanese, but the things he can't explain -the feeling of death and waking up with a blurry vision and fighting against a demon in a circus - those he writes in an old code used by reapers. No living person could ever translate it, and that suits him just fine.
He's eighteen and studying to become a teacher when one of the words written starts to glow.
Kunikida stares at the pruner- maller but otherwise dentical to the ones he had as a reaper - and sighs.
So much for a peaceful life.
His mother dies soon after.
It was a long time coming, from an illness she tried to fight in vain. He knew she was losing this battle, could feel death surrounding her, but he still wasn't ready for the shock. It's the first time he loses a parent.
He hadn't lived long enough as Will to lose his mother.
He doesn't stay in the hospital, afraid to see the reaper coming to collect his mother's soul. He goes through the following months in a daze. His classmates are sympathic and his teachers understanding, but they're not close so Kunikida grieves alone.
(He wonders if this is what the others felt when he disappeared.)
He's nineteen when he meets Fukuzawa Yukichi and Edogawa Ranpo.
He moves to Yokohama and lives in a small flat, because he can't stand the pitying glances sent his way and the silence in his childhood home, so he sells it. He knows his mother wouldn't blame him, but he still feels guilty.
He's in a new college and works as a cram school tutor for maths, working part-time on the weekends.
The boy older than him takes him by surprise when he leaves one of his classes. He jumps in front of him with a huge and carefree smile and it takes everything in Kunikida not to punch him.
“So you're the mysterious ability user!” he screams in his ears and Kunikida stares at him blankly.
They go to lunch together. Fukuzawa talks about the Agency, about doing the right thing to save people. A home for ability users.
“Like you and me!” Ranpo adds, and Kunikida frowns, because he can tell when someone has an ability: it marks them, a bit like how he could feel Phantomhive's contract with the demon, but different.
But he glances at Ranpo's bright smile, and stays silent.
He says yes.
Working in the agency is a lot like in working in the Management Division. But this work isn't a prison, and it changes everything. He doesn't feel like the world is on his shoulders when he writes reports.
He still does his best, of course.
The way he works so quickly despite having no training attracts a few curious glances, but they don't say a thing. He catches Ranpo looking at him sometimes, something like sadness and fascination tangled in his expression before turning away. They don't talk about it.
It goes on for a while, and then the President tells him he has a new partner.
The first time Dazai praises suicide in front of him, Kunikida punches him in the face.
He doesn't even think about it, he just acts. Dazai stares at him with wide eyes, obviously not having expected such a reaction, before smiling.
“I was joking!” he says with a smile -fake, so fake, just like his- and Kunikida's anger grows.
“Stop lying.” he says, and turns away.
Their relationship is strange. Kunikida decks him everytime he talks about suicide, which is often, and Dazai asks too many questions.
“What are those notebooks?” he exclaims with a smile and opens it, only to blink when he can't read it: it's one written in the reaper code.
Kunikida yells at him, and Dazai looks at him strangely. He doesn't ask any question about the code, and Kunikida tries not to feel dread.
“Did you know anyone who commited suicide?' he eventually asks one day. Kunikida doesn't know what expression he makes, but it's enough to make Dazai back off. He never asks again.
His partner stops prying after a while though he still sends him strange glances like Ranpo. Kunikida is fairly certain they share theories, but he can't bring himself to care.
All in all, it's a pretty good life, for a second chance.