HI THERE!! Sorry this is so late omg it’s been almost half a year but BLESS!!! It’s always good to have more people who like the Bungalow Wild Pups 😀 hello Mrs. Kunikida it’s a pleasure to meet you as well, I’ll be sure to tell Dazai to attend to the case of Kunikida’s missing notebook XD And yes !! You may of course, have your request! I think it’s not as fluffy and one-on-one as you wanted, but I had a lot of fun writing, so thank you for requesting and I do hope you enjoy it as much as I did typing it up!!

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This Can’t End Well

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pairing: none that are mentioned!
⋆ characters: Doppo Kunikida, Osamu Dazai, Akiko Yosano (main); Atsushi Nakajima, Junichirou Tanizaki, Kenji Miyazawa, Edogawa Ranpo, OC (secondary); Fukuzawa Yukichi, Kirako Haruno and the clerks (mentioned)
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genre: mostly comedy, fluff near the end

⋆ rating: K+
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warnings: mentions of vomiting and other sickness symptoms
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words: 2051
→  summary: Kunikida’s definitely sick, and neither the Agency nor he himself are entirely certain what to do. Dazai, however, has a plan…

---

   

This couldn’t end well.

   

He didn’t want to admit it. It was shameful, and he had work to do! He couldn’t just slack off, couldn’t just stay at home… He had a schedule to keep to, an ideal — there was no way he could allow himself to be lazy, no way he could allow himself to act like…

   

Dazai pinches his cheek, “Kunikida-kuuuun. You look awfully red.”

   

Kunikida growls, “Well. Maybe if someone weren’t standing here trying to annoy me to death, my complexion would be a lot paler.”

   

“I don’t think it’s just that,” Dazai hums, moving his hand from his cheek to his forehead, Kunikida doing everything in his power to keep typing and not snap Dazai’s wrist. “Kunikida-kun, I think you have a fever!”

   

“Absolutely not,” Kunikida quickly swats his hand away before returning to his ever-important document. Click-clack, click-clack…

   

“I think maybe Yosano-sensei should take a look at you.”

   

“Absolutely not.”

   

And then, to Kunikida’s horror, his body completely betrays him. His nose seizes, his lip quivers, his face scrunches up…

   

He does an awful, awful thing.

   

He sneezes.

   

“Bless you, Kunikida-san!” Comes Atsushi’s voice from across the desk, from where the tiger boy is sitting, on the other chair.

   

Kunikida swiftly wipes his nose with a hanky, returning to his typing.

   

“You know,” Dazai says, leaning against his chair. “Our little photographer says that where she’s from, a single sneeze means bad luck, or very simply, ‘be patient.’ Maybe your work can wait?”

   

“Nonsense! I do not procrastinate,” But his voice sounds stuffy — stuffier than usual, Kunikida’s sure Dazai would remark — and his eyes feel weary. His throat is scratchy, too…

   

“Uh-oh,” Dazai coos. “I think somebody’s definitely sick.”

   

“No.”

   

“You really don’t look so well, Kunikida-kun.”

   

“I’m fine, Dazai!”

   

“You’re sick,” Dazai’s teasingly insistent, turning to his subordinate, “Atsushi-kun! Doesn’t Kunikida-kun seem sick to you?”

   

Atsushi glances nervously between his two superiors — one wears an easy-going smile and the other’s glaring daggers at Atsushi, as if daring him to speak up.

   

“W-well,” he begins. “Kunikida-san’s a logical man… Why would he come to work if he wasn’t feeling well?”

   

“I don’t know,” Dazai hums. “Why don’t you ask him?”

   

Atsushi takes one look at Kunikida, yelps, and buries his face back in his paperwork.

   

“I am not sick, Dazai,” Kunikida says, with a sense of finality — he refuses to accept any prolonging of this discussion. He has work to do.

   

But then…

   

Coughs.

   

It’s a small, tickle of sorts, within the back of his throat, at first. Then the tickle turns into scraping in his lungs, and soon enough Kunikida’s hacking up spit and bile into the palm of his hand, desperately trying to keep the contents of his stomach inside his body where they belong.

   

“Kunikida-san?” It’s Junichirou this time, he’s walking by with a stack of folders and binders. The boy’s bright red eyes gaze at Kunikida with concern, “Are you alright? You don’t look too good.”

   

“Tanizaki-san, I assure you, I’m in perfect health—” Kunikida says, but ends up being unable to continue as another coughing fit wracks his chest.

   

Junichirou frowns, “You should go lie down in Yosano-sensei’s infirmary, if only for a bit. It’d help a lot — I can take over what you need to do for today from here, if you need me to.”

   

Kunikida dismisses him with a wave of his shaky hand, “No, I insist. I have it under control.”

   

He returns to his typing, only to realize upon hitting a certain point in his document, that he needs to refer and source something from a case they’d solved last year — the files to do with that are not on the hard drive belonging to the computer he’s currently working with. In fact, they haven’t been digitized yet, so they’re on a shelf against the walls of the office, a little ways away from where Kunikida’s working.

   

All he has to do is get up and get the binder. Simple, right?

   

Not right. He gets up and is immediately hit by a wave of dizziness so intense that both Atsushi and Junichirou shout at once, “Kunikida-san!”

   

They rush to his side just as his head’s about to hit the ground and catch him, the two younger, weaker boys barely holding the man upwards, dragging him back to his seat, which he collapses in gratefully, and while breathing heavily.

   

“You definitely need a break,” Junichirou puts a hand to Kunikida’s forehead, tutting when he feels the high temperature of his skin.

   

“No no,” Kunikida insists, but when he sits up he again finds himself dizzy, collapsing back once more in his seat.

   

“Everybody needs to rest sometime,” Atsushi says, voice soft.

   

“I can rest at night, when I’m asleep…”

   

“Kunikida-san,” Junichirou continues. “We’re going to take you to Yosano-sensei and see what she thinks, okay?”

   

Kunikida’s face manages to pale, at least, in comparison to how red it is from his fever. “Oh no.”

   

Dazai cackles maniacally, “How exciting! Gotta get treated by the scary scary doctor when you have the suds, Kunikida-kuuun…!”

---

   

“Is he alright?” Kenji asks, poking his head out from behind Atsushi and Junichirou, who’ve been waiting outside of Yosano’s office for about half an hour.

   

He was asking this question to Yosano, of course, who’d finally unlocked the door and stepped outside, seeming bemused in expression but smiling gently at Kenji, then laughing.

   

“Oh he’s fine,” she replies at last. “He’s just sick.”

   

“I knew it!” Dazai yells cheerily from across the floor.

   

“So he really is sick?” Junichirou bites his lip, “Can you heal him?”

   

Yosano shakes her head, “No. My ability only works on injuries, and is mostly intended for the life-threatening kind… It can do nothing for psychological damage, medical problems you were born with, nor, in this particular case… The common cold.”

   

“He caught a cold?” Atsushi’s almost in awe. “That seems so strange. He’s always seemed so healthy and hard-working.”

   

“Finally took its toll,” Yosano sighs. “It’s a sign that he needs to rest.”

   

She then narrows her eyes, looking all around at the Agency members.

   

“Whatever you do,” she begins, tone deadly serious and commanding. “Do not let that man leave his bed. I don’t care if he begs or pleads or cries, he will not work today.”

   

“B-but,” Atsushi tries to argue. “Yosano-sensei! You know Kunikida-san is so very, u-um—!”

   

“Doctor’s orders,” is Yosano’s firm reply, as she exits the Agency with her heels pattering against the marble. “Now, I’m off to get cough syrup for the patient. Do what you will to make him feel comfortable, if you feel like it — though I’m sure he’d rather you all be working in his absence.”

   

The door shuts, and a silence falls upon the members of the Agency.

   

“What…” Atsushi trails off. “Now?”

   

“Isn’t it obvious, Atsushi-kun?” Dazai laughs, coming to put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, “We take care of Kunikida-kun until Yosano-sensei returns from the pharmacy.”

   

“How do we take care of him though?” Junichirou looks at Dazai, curious. “We’re not doctors.”

   

“Oh, pish-tosh! It’s just a cold, right? Everybody has home remedies for a cold! Why not throw some suggestions my way, and I’ll see what I can do for my beloved coworker!”

   

“Dazai-san,” Atsushi’s surprised. “I didn’t know you cared about Kunikida-san so much.”

   

Dazai puts a hand to his chest, as if he’s completely and totally offended. “Why! Atsushi-kun. I’m struck at the very idea that you thought I don’t care about him. Nothing could be further from the truth! He takes such good care of the Agency, why don’t we return the favor for a change?”

   

There are slow, then enthusiastic nods amongst the younger Agency members, but Ranpo simply cackles from where he sits, sucking on a lollipop.

   

“Oh yeah,” he shakes his head, eyes ever closed in amusement. “This can’t end well.”

   

“Now now,” Dazai claps his hands together. “Ranpo-san, don’t be so pessimistic! So, which of you lovelies has an idea for what we could do?”

   

“Well,” Kenji taps his chin. “Honey will do the trick, if he has a sore throat.”

   

The brown-eyed girl sitting next to Kenji sticks out her tongue, “Honey. Yucky! I hate that stuff. I have a better idea,” she gets up off her seat, and skips off to the front door, “I’m going to go down to the café, ask Lucy if she has any maple syrup. Same effect, tastes much better!”

   

Before anyone can stop her, the door is opened and shut once more.

   

“Maybe something hot and warm to eat,” Atsushi turns around. “Like soup.”

   

“Atsushi-kun, can you cook?”

   

“M-more or less, but—”

   

“Wonderful! Accompany the little princess down to the cafe and ask if you can use their kitchen and ingredients — be sure to tell them to put charges on your tab, alright?”

   

“B-but!”

   

“You’re the one who suggested it, not me. Now go, go go go!”

   

Atsushi sighs, getting up and doing so.

   

“What should we do?” Junichirou and Kenji ask in unison.

   

“Hmmm,” Dazai tips his head, thinking. “You two should take care of Kunikida’s work while he’s away from his keyboard. I’m sure he’d appreciate that tons!”

   

Junichirou furrows his eyebrows, “His work is really complicated, at least to me. I’m just an errand boy, Dazai-san…”

   

Kenji nods in nervous agreement, “Yeah. And I still don’t know what a computer is, let alone how to use one!”

   

Dazai laughs, like it’s not a problem at all. “You’re two capable boys! I’m sure you can figure out.”

   

They exchange glances, then get up, bowing lightly, saying, “We’ll do our best!”

   

Dazai waves them off happily, then turns to the infirmary’s door with what can only be described as a grin akin to that of the Cheshire Cat.

   

So begins his fun…

---

   

“Y-Yosano-sensei!” Kunikida splutters as the woman enters her office once more, having returned with the cough medicine she’d promised.

   

“Hmm?” Yosano raises a perfectly-shaped eyebrow in confusion. “Kunikida-kun, you’re acting so scared as if I might treat you with my ability.”

   

“This is worse,” he whispers. “So much worse.”

   

“What happened?” Yosano rolls down one of her gloves to check her watch, “I couldn’t have been gone more than forty minutes.”

   

“Dazai happened.”

   

And Kunikida, with a dying voice, though Yosano insists for him to rest his throat, regales her on all the awful things that have occurred in those devastating forty minutes that Yosano was absent.

   

First, Atsushi and his little friend come back up into the Agency, one with a pot of hot soup, and the other with a big urn (that’s the only word that comes to Kunikida’s mind, as it was just so large) of maple syrup, both insisting that he eat it all.

   

He, er, had expelled most of it, to his utter humiliation and to Yosano’s complete unsurprise.

   

And then, it got worse… Dazai came in and tried to cheer him up, as it were, by driving him “COMPLETELY UP THE WALL” and constantly poking and prodding him, pretending to give him a soothing massage when really he was nearly breaking Kunikida’s foot to go along with his disease.

   

Then, to top it all off, Junichirou comes in, maybe five or ten minutes before Yosano’s return, only to tell him that he finished all of Kunikida’s work… When Kunikida asked Junichirou to show him, Kenji waddled in with the laptop, and after seeing the state it was in, Kunikida could do nothing but scream.

   

Kunikida’s end up sent home for the week — and the detectives are given a thorough scolding from the President. Ranpo laughs about it nonstop, every day up until Kunikida returns…

   

And once he does, nobody goes near him, not even Dazai.

   

They know if they do…

   

It won’t end well.

   

But, when Kunikida arrives, all better now though even angrier than usual, to sit at his desk…

   

He finds a little card perched on his laptop.

   

He takes the small, thick paper, and unfolds it to reveal the words, surely in one of the members’ neat calligraphy…

We’re sorry!! Get well soon, Kunikida-san!

   

And it’s signed by every one of the detectives and clerks, even Dazai and Ranpo.

   

So maybe it did end well, after all.