Chapter Text
The day started relatively normal at the Armed Detective Agency. There were no missions, no life threatening enemies, no saving Yokohama, just boring paperwork. Of course this also means that specific person was late. Again.
It was nearly 11 am when Dazai finally showed up.
“Dazai, you’re two hours late!” Kunikida screamed, “Where were you!?”
“Oh Kunikida, you wouldn’t understand. I saw the most beautiful river today and-“
“Just get to work, Dazai. The President wants all of us in a meeting in an hour.”
Dazai just shut his mouth and flopped down onto his office chair. He started skimming through his work, while he thought back to this morning.
Dazai awoke slowly when he felt someone pinch his cheek.
“Daddy, wake up.” He wanted to turn around and try to continue sleeping, when poked on his cheek again. “Daddy, wake up. You said you would play with me!”
He slowly opened his eyes when he saw Shuuji, his son, leaning over his face and pouting. “Daddy, you promised me you would play with me before you go to work.”
“Yeah, I’m awake.” He answered, his voice still thick with sleep, “We can play now.” He sat up and brought Shuuji into his arms. Even with his son nearly being 4 years old, he sometimes can’t believe he has a son. Someone like him isn’t supposed to have this kind of domestic life. With a son that looks at him with love and affection without knowing the bad thing he did.
At first he had been scared to be a father, he still is sometimes. He left the mafia alone to fulfill Odasaku’s promise to be a better person. What he didn’t expect was for Chuuya to hunt him down months later to tell him he was pregnant and also leaving the mafia.
That definitely had been a shock for him. But when Shuuji was born, he couldn’t believe that he could love another human being like that (except Chuuya).
“Daddy, come on.” Shuuji whined, dragging the ‘o’ out.
“Yes yes, we’ll play now.” Dazai answered, while securing his son in his arms and walking towards the living room. When he entered, he could see Chuuya in the kitchen cooking breakfast. They had this routine. Usually Dazai plays with their son before he goes to work, while Chuuya makes breakfast. When he’s at work, Chuuya will stay with their son.
Because of their past, they didn’t want to put Shuuji into kindergarten when he was still so small and could barely talk in full sentences, let alone defend himself. He hadn’t even turned 2 years old at the time.So Dazai had joined the ADA alone at 20. Chuuya was fine with looking after Shuuji. It was after all Dazai who wanted to fulfill his dead friend’s wish, not him. He could wait a few years before joining the ADA. Besides, he couldn’t say no to being able to spend more time with his son. Babies grow up so fast.
“Good morning.” Dazai greeted Chuuya. He walked up to him, Shuuji still in his arms, and gave him a kiss on the head.
“Morning, Mackerel.” Chuuya answered. He turned around from the stove to kiss Dazai, before moving on to Shuuji. “Good morning to you too, Shuuji.” He greeted Shuuji, while ruffling his hair and kissing his cheek. “Are you gonna play with your Dad till I finish breakfast?”
“Yup!” Shuuji grinned. “We need to continue where we stopped yesterday. My dinosaurs are waiting!”
Dazai chuckled. “I guess we should start then. We wouldn’t want your dinosaurs to wait for so long.”
They moved to the couch where Shuuji’s dinosaurs from yesterday were still laying. His son quickly collected the dinosaurs, which Dazai was supposed to play and handed them to him. As they began playing, Dazai began thinking about the ADA. Now was probably the best time to introduce his family to his friends. He just needed a fun way to do it.
The meeting had begun. It was about an organization that was bombing people in Yokohama. They supposedly have an ability user who could place bombs on people, without them realizing it, and make them go off in the room in which the victim was in, whenever they wanted.
The only condition: the person, who the user wants to bomb, has to be at a place they’ve been before. If the victim is in a new place, it won’t go off. It is an effective ability for destroying facilities which were hard to get in. You just have to use the ability on a person that can get into the desired place and boom. No trace, no proof and no actual bomb.
The organization was relatively small, but it still has a dangerous ability user. They targeted mostly government facilities, which is why this became a job for the ADA. A dangerous ability user and organization out for the government.
But they already have a plan against them. Ranpo already deduced where the organization has their hideout. The only thing they have to do is to get there, somehow arresting the ability user without getting hit by the ability and therefore bombed and voila, mission completed.
For this mission, they wanted to ambush the enemy in their hideout. Atsushi was supposed to play the bait. He should act like he like a delivery boy to buy some time for the others to get unnoticed into the building. Since none of them had ever been to their hideout, they didn’t have to fear being hit by the ability. Dazai was also there to nullify the user, if they get by the ability.
They just have to arrest the ability user and his organization in their hideout to finish the mission successfully.
Everybody was in their position. Atsushi stood in front of the entrance of the enemy’s hideout. Kunikida, Dazai, Kenji, Tanizaki, Yosano and Kyouka were positioned around the warehouse, which the organization was using as their hideout. They were ready to enter and attack the organization when Atsushi would give the signal.
Ranpo and the President were positioned outside a bit away from the warehouse to lead the mission per communication.
“Atsushi, are you ready to play your role?” Ranpo asked Atsushi over their communication device.
“Eh yeah, I think I’m ready!” He had a package in his hands. His role was to play a delivery boy, who got the wrong address to distract the group.
He knocked on the front door of the warehouse.
Knock. Knock.
The voices of the other became quieter. Footsteps came closer and closer. Someone opened the door.
“Who are you?” The man asked angrily.
“Oh ah, I have a delivery for you, sir!” Atsushi answered politely.
“We didn’t order a package.” From the corner of his eye, Atsushi could see Dazai slowly unlocking the side door of the warehouse with a hair clip. The others also tried to slowly sneak into the warehouse unnoticed.
He just had to stall more time for them to get into their positions. “Well um this is the address which is on this package.”
“We didn’t order a package, especially not to this place. Now piss off or we’ll make you leave!” He didn’t have a lot of time before this man would surely hit him. Hopefully the others are in position. He had to give the signal now.
“Okay, well I have to leave the package here” Atsushi dropped the package. They had previously filled it with metal objects, so it made a loud bang when dropped.
Bang.
“What the hell, kid!?” The man shouted. The other men in the warehouse heard the sounds and came to the entrance.
“What’s going on?” Some other guy asked.
“Now!” Ranpo signaled for the others to get out of their positions. Dazai, Kunikida, Kenji, Tanizaki, Yosano and Kyouka jumped out of their spots and began fighting the organization.
The men quickly pulled out their guns and fought back. Atsushi scanned the area for the ability user they had to capture first. Damn, he couldn't find him!
Suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder. “Are you searching for me?” The voice behind him asked.
He quickly spun around, but-
“Shit, I got hit by his ability!” Atsushi shouted over the communication device. If the ability user would run now, he couldn’t follow him.
And of course, with Atsushi’s luck, that’s exactly what he did.
“Guys, someone has to follow him!”
The others had just finished defeating the rest of the group. Right now, they were being bound together by Kenji.
Kyouka came running to him. “Where did he go?”
“He-“ Atsushi looked back, but there was no one in sight anymore. “I don’t know.”
“It’s okay” Ranpo entered the warehouse with Fukuzawa. “We captured the rest of them. The police will come and arrest them.” He took a lollipop out of his pocket and put it in his mouth.
“Yeah, don’t look so down, Atsushi. We now only need to capture one more.” Dazai interjected when he noticed his protege looking disappointed.
“We can do this!”, agreed Kyouka.
“But I got hit with the ability! I can’t help you guys. I have to stay here.” Atsushi frowned. Because he got hit with the ability, he can’t go to a place he’s been before. This means he can’t go to their office, his and Kyouka’s apartment and a lot of places in the city. The ability user will probably stay at a popular place in the city, where he’s been before. Therefore he can’t help the others with this case.
“Oh, nonsense, you can help us. We'll come up with a plan together.” Ranpo commented. “But firstly, we have to get somewhere safe. Somewhere Atsushi has never been to.”
“But where do we go now? We can’t go to our office or they will use the ability and blow us up!” Atsushi exclaimed. “You could just leave me here and get me when Dazai nullified the ability.”
Kunikida frowned.“No, we will not leave you here alone. We will just have to go to a different place to plan our next move. But the place where we’ll stay is indeed a problem. President do we have a-“
“I have the perfect place where we can hide for a while.” Dazai said, smiling.
Fukuzawa turned to Dazai. “You do? That would be great, Dazai. Thank you”
“No problem. Now hop hop. We have to get going. Everyone follow me!” He promptly turned around and began walking in a different direction. Everyone was stunned for a moment, before hastily following him.
After following Dazai for a bit, Atsushi realized that he had never been in this part of the city. There were mostly houses, family houses. Weird. What kind of place would they stay at? Does his mentor know somebody here? Before he could question his mentor any further, said mentor stopped walking.
“Alright we’re here” he exclaimed happily. They were in front of a house. It looked like a typical suburban family house. That kind of house that screamed normal, perfect, domestic life. Something probably neither of them all had experienced.
“We’re here?” Kunikida questioned. Everyone was kind of confused. Who lives here and what kind of relation does Dazai have to this place? Dazai didn’t seem like he would have a house in the suburbs of Yokohama.
“What are we doing here?” Yosano asked, “A random house in the suburbs doesn’t seem like a good hideout.”
“This is not a random house. This is my house.”
What?
Dazai, THE Dazai just randomly owns a house in the suburbs. Like it’s a normal thing to do? Doesn’t he earn the same amount of money as them!? How do you casually have a house in such an area? Atsushi was glad when had enough money to buy some healthy food.
No way! This can’t be real.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS IS YOUR HOUSE?”
“Oh did I not tell you? Sorry, my bad.” He definitely wasn’t sorry, Atsushi thought.
“What-“ Kunikida began, but was promptly cut off by Dazai.
“He should probably go in now. We wouldn’t want to be accidentally be found by the ability user now, would we?” He fished a key out of his coat and began to open the door of the house.
“Come in, into my beautiful home~!” Dazai holds the door open for everyone to enter. The other detectives were still looking at him like he was crazy, which he probably is, but complied and entered Dazai’s house.
“And please take off your shoes~” Dazai said, before walking out of the genkan into the house. Atsushi shared a look with Kunikida, who just shrugged. Well, whatever. The good thing is that they have a place to stay at the moment. No time to question what other secrets Dazai might have. Atsushi takes off his shoes and follows Dazai into the house, like the rest of them.
They entered the living room of the house. It looked pretty cosy. There was a couch, a coffee table, a television and toys on the ground? It certainly looked like toys for children, small dinosaurs in different shades and forms. Weird, why does Dazai have toys seemingly for children in his living room?
“You can get yourself comfortable.” Dazai remarked.
It was then that Atsushi heard a door being opened and somebody began walking towards the living room. But who could be in the house? Is someone after them? Shouldn’t they be safe here? Dazai said so himself! Maybe-
A small boy entered the living room. A kid. He was dressed in a blue pajama with dinosaurs on it. In his right hand, he held a brown teddy bear. The boy looked curious. He scanned the room full of people, before his eyes landed on Dazai. His eyes immediately lit up.
“Daddy! You’re back!”
Everyone turned towards the little boy, who began running towards Dazai. But it was then, when the ADA realized what the boy had called Dazai. Daddy. Dazai Osamu. A father. NO WAY.
“WHAT?!”