Double Black

don't blame me (love made me crazy)

The Armed Detective Agency members were unusually concerned about Dazai.

As for their reason, it was both generic and specific at the same time.

Firstly, Dazai was acting strange, to say the least. For the past one week, he has been showing up to work before Kunikida. Before Kunikida, aka the idealist with his perfect ideals and his perfect schedule. In fact, Dazai was the first one to arrive at the office, and he was always greeted by Haruno, who got their early to clean up the place for the day.

According to the receptionist, Dazai has been showing up to work early, and even more surprisingly, he hasn't been getting up to any trouble when he was by himself in the office. Now, in any usual circumstances, nobody would believe that for one second.

After all, they were talking about the man who caused trouble for everyone by jumping into rivers and trying other suicide methods. Moreover, the idea that Dazai was actually coming to work before noon? That just sounded ominous. 

The idea that Dazai got to work before Kunikida, the moral upholding employee of the Agency? This was a clear sign of impending doom.

Usually, nobody would believe any of this; Dazai acting like a proper employee. But Haruno had no reason to lie, and the other members also witnessed more erratic behaviour of this sort on their co-worker's part with their own eyes.

For example, after having reached the office rather early, Dazai spent hours poring on his paperwork. And no, he did not merely stare at them as a way of passing his time. No, Kunikida received more completed paperwork from Dazai this week than he has in the entire two years the detective has worked at the Agency.

Moreover, all the paperwork was completed and it was done neatly. All the files were perfectly categorized according to type and date of previous cases, and the reports were written in perfect round handwriting. At some point in the Week of Doom, Kunikida even thought that he was hallucinating the existence of such a diligent Dazai, out of his sheer frustration with the man.

But that was the not the case. As seen by other Agency members as well, Dazai also did not occupy his couch during work hours. He would approach the couch during his break, and then glare at it a ton before proceeding to pace in front of the couch. After he was tired from the exertion of it, he would finally slide into the couch and put in his headphones. Then he would merely stare at ceiling, not singing his suicide song.

The excessive pacing got real annoying after a short while. Whenever he did so, Dazai's footsteps sounded downright angry on the floor. Other than that, he would also glare at anything and everything while he paced, switching to a cheerful smile whenever he was approached by one of his co-workers. 

As for his daily suicide attempts, it was startling when everyone realised that there had been no attempts all week. That's right; the local police didn't contact the Agency about 'one of their employees having been found' for a whole week. Plus, Dazai hadn't talked about suicide much either, and even more surprisingly, when he went down to Café Uzumaki with his colleagues, he didn't even ask the waitress to join him in a double suicide!

If that wasn't a sign of Dazai doing unwell, then there can't possibly any other signs.

The detective was clearly very distressed! Such unusual behaviour was very unbecoming of him. And while Kunikida preferred this version of his co-worker way more, along with the others, he was also concerned about Dazai's state of being.

Could it be that something serious had happened in his personal life?

As assumed, that was indeed the case. Dazai's personal life was especially stormy currently, and has been for the past two weeks. It was so upsetting for him, that instead of his usual lack of appetite, he even began stress eating a little for a while there! Besides, he has also actually been doing his work, and it was so troublesome!