Soukoku One-Shots

An Impossible Case

Present

"Are you married, Dazai?"

The question, completely out of the blue, had the entire agency pausing. The office went dead silent as all eyes turned to the man in question, who was flopped on the agency couch and thoroughly neglecting the steadily growing pile of paperwork on his desk.

Everyone knew this was a ridiculous question. No one like Dazai could possibly find someone willing to put up with him for that long. It was simply a fact of life; the Earth was round and it was a Monday and Dazai was not married.

But the fact that Atsushi was asking a question with such an obvious answer piqued the detectives' interests. What made him think the answer might be something different?

Dazai slid his attention from his book to study Atsushi, whose cheeks were flushed a faint pink. After a few moments of stifling silence, though, his face spread into a wide, cheery smile. "Why, what makes you say that, Atsushi?"

The poor boy's flush only deepened. He didn't want to pry and the gleam in Dazai's eyes was very unsettling. "Well—I mean—I thought I saw a wedding ring on a necklace you were wearing yesterday on our mission. I thought it might have just been the light or something, but..." he trailed off, staring down at his feet and thoroughly regretting asking this question. "It's nothing! Forget I asked, I really didn't mean to—"

"Yes, I am married. Congratulations, Atsushi! I wondered when someone would figure it out."

Silence.

But while Dazai turned his attention back to his book, the rest of the office was stunned into stillness and could only stare at Dazai with wide disbelieving eyes. This couldn't be possible, could it? Unless the Earth wasn't round and today was actually Wednesday? Dazai must have been bluffing.

But the way he'd said it, so lightly and as if he hadn't just shattered everything they knew to be true, didn't match the lilting, sing-song voice he used when he was teasing them (more specifically, Kunikida, who had snapped his pen and was now questioning life itself).

Fortunately, this was a detective agency. They would get to the bottom of this.

1.

Dazai was currently sitting at his desk, feet propped up on the papers scattered across it while he leaned back in his chair with his hands folded behind his head, humming a song he'd certainly invented himself. The agency had been studying him for the past few days now, noting every small detail in hopes it would clue them into who Dazai's mystery lover could be (if he even had one in the first place, Kunikida insisted. Ranpo had only replied saying he was in denial). So when Dazai hopped up from his desk at noon claiming he was getting lunch with someone and would be back in a few hours if he felt so inclined, the agency immediately moved to Ranpo's desk to begin trading theories (Ranpo watched all this with a telltale smile while he inhaled bags upon bags of snacks).

"He's probably going to meet his spouse," Kunikida began with a frown. "It's sixteen minutes after noon, so maybe she works a standard job and is on her lunch break?"

"But this never happens," Yosano added from where she sat next to Ranpo on his desk, munching on her own bag of snacks. "If that were the case, Dazai would probably go out to meet her more often, wouldn't he?"

"This isn't the first time he's left around noon on a Thursday, though. I never paid much attention to it before, but perhaps this is a regular occurrence none of us took into account. He could only be telling us now because he knows we're trying to figure him out and thinks it's funny, but every few weeks he leaves around lunch and, if he bothers coming back at all, returns to the office in a few hours."