ᨵׁׅverᨰׁׅorked
⌯⌲ working on a lot of different stuff but i thought i’d clear my mind with secretary!reader & pm exec!dazai. this is a slow burn btw (ㅅ´ ˘ `)
A soft sigh fills the quiet of the office, the typing of keys periodically following, the scratching of pen to paper, a ping! here and there of messages or emails soaring through interconnected airwaves, demanding your attention — as does everything else in your work life. You had designated a day where Dazai is away, not forcing you to come with him, mentioning in an off-handed mumble, barely a coherent thought, of how it involved potential violence, and he doesn't 'want your life as my responsibility'. That didn't bother you nearly to the degree he thought it would, considering he has been much ruder toward you since the last out-of-town meeting he made you tag along to.
Needless to say, you're finally plowing through the piles of reports he has been ignoring in hopes it would ultimately disappear — and that is exactly what you're here for. Music has been softly playing in the background, to help with maintaining focus, and you don't believe you could be any more content than you are right now. You are in your element, doing menial, useless, boring paperwork at a desk far more grand than what you were initially used to; a brand-new computer that is completely up to date with all the programs you need to function, alongside a new keyboard and mouse that no other hands have touched; and a pencil holder filled to the brim with your favorite pens. All to yourself. No sounds of others' voices whispering and laughing amongst each other; no incessant ringing and clicking and slamming of landline phones; no one helping themselves to your company and striking up conversation you would otherwise not care about. And you're getting paid multiple truck loads more than what you were previously making to do the same exact thing, just for the top executive in the Port Mafia.
You're at ease, calm, and only have a few more reports to finish so you can finally breathe.
A few knock kock knocks hit on your door, your head shooting up to see Chuuya standing there, holding up a handful of packets in his gloved hand. Your eyebrows come together, flickering between his accidental, permanent scowl and the paperwork. "Mr. Nakahara, hi. I thought you were with Mr. Dazai today?" You rush to your feet, not wanting to be rude, and smooth your palms on your pants. The music continues playing, his brow raising, and his blue and brown gaze flits to the device it's emitting from. You rush to turn it off, offering an awkward smile, then fold your fidgeting hands behind your back.
"You're twitchy," he remarks simply, walking over to set the sheets down on the edge of your desk. Your brows downturn instantly at that. "Not that it's necessarily any of your concern or business, Dazai took off earlier than we planned and went with Akutagawa instead. Which doesn't bother me much since I really didn't wanna go in the first place." He sighs, resting his hand on his hip, and eyes you up and down — equivalent to a suspicious investigator scoping out his perpetrator. "Surprised you're here. Thought he took ya everywhere with 'em?"
"Not today," your hand reaches out, cautiously, to gather up everything he decided to leave behind for you, unannounced. "He said the mission needing to be handled would involve potential violence, and he didn't want to have to be burdened with ensuring the safety of my life." You say this with the cadence of someone retelling a note left by a loved one, no hint of hurt at the words, and that makes his brow arch again. "I don't mind, though. I have gotten so much done with being left alone, I couldn't have asked for a better time that he needed to take off on such short notice." You sigh with relief, a grin growing on your lips, and his nose briefly wrinkles at the apparent pride you're carrying within yourself for doing work. You know, at your job, that you get paid for.
"Right," he sighs, fingers coming up to rub into his sockets. "Speaking of, these need redone." He vaguely points toward your hands, and your entire demeanor drops, eyes hesitantly, slowly dragging down to look through the multiple pages he gave back to you. "Boss says this is entirely inadequate and 'can't believe it was even put on my desk'." He relays to you, a twinge of guilt rising up in him as he has to be the one to tell you, especially after your entire elated spiel of getting "so much" done.
"Inadequate?!" You gasp, appalled, eyes frantically scanning over everything, shaking your head with sheer incomprehension. "This is the exact same work I was putting in before that he said was astounding!" He licks his lips before they part, about to say something, but he just rubs the back of his neck instead. "I'm sorry, Mr. Nakahara, but I'm not redoing this unless I get an acceptable answer as to why my work is now deemed inadequate!" You slam them all down on the corner, arms folding, and you had no awareness that you were yelling at him. Another executive. Another boss. Telling him you will not be doing any corrections to your work unless you get an answer that is acceptable to you. How brave.
He stares at you blankly, eyes slightly widened with building irritation, having to bite down on the inside of his cheek to prevent himself from barking back at you, remembering you are now Dazai's personal secretary — no longer some run of the mill rank-and-file taking up space in the secretary wing. However, it seems being around his bandaged partner has made you far too bold. He nods his head in your direction, hands slipping into his pockets, and offers you a curt, tight smile. "Comes with being an executive's secretary, kid. Get used to it." He grits the last part before turning on his heel to walk away, and you are beyond confused because you've been doing executive work for the last three years and suddenly now it isn't good enough?
You fall down into your seat, fuming, struck dumb, and garnering half a mind to storm down to Mori's office on your own to demand answers as to why your workload has now doubled — if not tripled or even quadrupled if you are going to have to redo everything. This is unbelievable; I was almost done too... You stare at the different piles, on the verge of tears, the first time you have ever felt the need to cry over a job, and you have to pinch the bridge of your nose to try easing the dam that will surely break any second. I see now why you don't like doing your paperwork, sir. You inhale, holding it for a few seconds before slowly exhaling, picking up your pen, turning on your music, and scoot your chair back into position, getting into comfortable preparation to be there all night.
You worked diligently, ignoring anyone and anything that dared trying to speak with you, door closed, lock latched, and your focus was unlike anything you have ever seen from yourself. You were once again flying through every ounce of wasted trees, ensuring inventory is accurate, meeting notes precise, contraband properly hidden in the subtext, and crimes written in invisible ink. The sunset is bleeding in from the windows, illuminating the several empty to-go cups of coffee you kept grabbing from the break room, and spilling over your outbox stacked high with your more than astounding hard work. You have been in a zone no one else can enter, until the sound of a door swinging open and feet scuffing along the polished floors shatters it into a tiny million little pieces.
"What the hell have you been doing all day?" Dazai barges in, filled with audacity and rage, his solitary eye darting around different parts of the room, landing on your surprised expression staring back at him. Paperwork? Again? "Well? Do you have an answer?" He spits, hand gripping tight to the knob to keep him steady. You blink a couple times, staring up at him without much thought behind any words you may say, obvious there probably isn't a good enough answer for him in general with this uncharacteristic mood he's throwing around.
"Uhm, I was just..." You gesture to your desk littered with evidence of your busy day. "Just trying to catch up." You tell him, voice meek, not understanding why he's so angry with you. He kind of assumed, what with the first thing he saw when he stumbled his way in was you hunched over your desk, pen scribbling at lightning speed, and the music was incoherent nothingness — blaring noise. However, you stupidly admitting that was more important sets him off further.
"What is your obsession with paperwork?!" He grits, now leaning against the door, and you observe him some as he appears to be struggling to stand. "I have tried calling you, texting you. I sent damn emails! Why the fuck were you ignoring me? You don't ignore me!" He is still shouting, the fury you have only ever heard about from whispers in the hallowed halls being hurled at you unprompted, and it's catching you off guard. You haven't ever really seen him get mad, irritable and agitated sure, but not necessarily like this; he is typically a fairly calm guy, given the circumstances, and isn't one to "lash out" — though, that calm is often times before the violent storm. Kind of like in this very instance. His teeth are bared with knuckles white on the doorknob, and his body wavers in stance.
"Sir, are you okay?" You slowly get to your feet, gaze bouncing around in different areas of his body, but nothing is visible, aside from the sweat forming on his face — that you can't tell if it's from whatever might be wrong or his anger. What a stupid question. All your observation and you're just now asking.
"No! My secretary's useless, who can't even answer the damn phone, and puts way too much focus on bullshit th-that doesn't mat-ter!" He sucks in a breath, head ducking down to conceal his grimace, and he looks like he's getting lower to the ground. Usually, on any other ordinary day, all of that would infuriate you to a point of walking right up to Mori and demanding a demotion; right now, you can't help ignoring everything he said as you rush over to his side when his knees hit the floor, and his arm is around his stomach. God, I want to throw up, this hurt so bad.
"Why are you here?" You start berating him this time, attempting to get him back to standing, but he's heavier than you expected for a lanky guy. "Why didn't you go to Mori?!"
"Tried," his arm instinctively tries pushing you away, but you fight with him, gingerly touching around on his stomach and side until he hisses, gripping your wrist. "H-He's out. Don't touch me!" He shoves your hand to the side, but he doesn't let go, using you as a crutch. "Don't act like you fuckin' care now after ignoring me for hours." His voice is harsh, pained, strained. Ignored him? I never received anything.
"Mr. Dazai, you need to go to a hospital!" You stand back up, hooking your arms under his, and you struggle since he is still fighting against you, stubborn in accepting your assistance, even though he apparently has needed it for hours. "You should have gone there in the first place instead of coming back here—Dammit, quit fighting me!" Your foot stomps down on the ground, an attempt to stabilize yourself and show your frustration, but he still isn't letting you help him in the slightest.
"I had to make sure nothing happened to you!" He bites, words fumbling out from his tongue without thinking about it, panting as he holds his side, and the pain is becoming unbearable — not worth looking for Mori and definitely not worth having a bitch fight with you in the middle of your office until he bleeds out. His arm hooks around your neck finally, hiding his pain-stricken features as he decides to just give in and allow you to take him wherever he needs to go. What do you mean make sure nothing happened to me?
"Sir, while that is incredibly kind of you to want to check in on me—"
"Ah, for fuck's sake, st-stop being so fuckin' formal and just-just get me to the damn hospital," he breathes, leaning all of his weight on you, and you can't help wishing you were a little stronger.
Dazai demanded that you wait outside his room, ordering all the doctors and nurses to not let you step foot inside unless he said otherwise, and you heard a bunch of them huddled together whispering about how he was probably the worst patient they ever encountered, a couple more mumbling about how they hate working under the thumb of the mafia and taking in 'people like him'.
You sat out there, scrunching in on yourself in your spot, worried you would be a burden or in the way, and scrolled through your list of notifications — all from your direct executive. One of the first ones saying that he needed you to tell Mori to stay on the premises to tend to his wounds. Every message and voicemail left on your device got increasingly more fury-filled, hints of the pain he was in sneaking out, and his final text said: never mind, i'll just take care of it myself. Your eyes closed, sitting there utterly defeated, and shook your head as the day played itself over and over again, how you asked if you needed to join him before he took off; finding out he went with Akutagawa instead of Chuuya; how you were hustling your life away dealing with reports while he was suffering somewhere after his mission went awry. It took you sorting through all of the incoming messages and calls to see you had accidentally turned your ringer off instead of turning only the volume down — there was no way you would have known at the rate you were going if anyone was trying to get ahold of you. Now he's hurt in the hospital because you weren't a "good secretary" and answered the phone like you're required to.
For someone who supposedly worried about you so much, his messages sure didn't show it.
"Excuse me?" Your head shoots up to meet the tired eyes of a severely overworked nurse. "Are you the secretary?" Can't even be bothered to give her my actual name, sir? You fight an eye roll but nod. "He's asking for you." She gestures for you to head into his room; you politely bow once you're up before shuffling in to see he is in a rather nicer room than you expected. Definitely not like anything you have had to stay in before.
When you turn the corner from the curtain, you can't help stopping in your tracks, seeing him lying there on the industrious hospital bed that has him propped up, dark hair in contrast to the ambiance of... everything, and his bandages are missing. All of them. You stare, admittedly longer than you want to, unblinking, and speechless: he's covered in scars wherever there's exposed skin. The eye he constantly keeps covered is revealed, and there's nothing seemingly wrong with it, aside from a scar down his eyebrow. He's in a hospital gown, standard, hooked up to some machines that beep at an abnormally slow pace, and he is staring off out the window with thoughts stirring in his melancholic brain.
Those somber voids catch your silhouette reflected in the window, attire blending in with the evening's dusk, and surprised is an understatement to see you actually standing there. He notices his own reflection, two eyes visible, and he wonders if he should always look like this — would I be more easily approachable this way?
"How are you feeling?" Your voice drifts out, distant; it doesn't really sound like you, and you don't recall your brain telling your mouth to ask that. "I... I've been worried. You know, at least until they came out and kept telling me you were talking." An uneasy chuckle comes out, but he doesn't react aside from his eyebrow twitching. So, you are capable of making jokes. You briefly bite down on your lip, watching him closely, but he's entirely still — a marble statue cracked and worn and withered by the cruelty of the world that wishes nothing more than watch it deteriorate, and seeing him like that actually makes your heart break for him. "Blue seems to suit you, sir."
"I don't like hospitals," he murmurs, voice hoarse. "It's why I just go to Mori." He isn't looking at you, making you swallow down your immense guilt.
"I am so terribly—"
"Don't bother with apologies," he interrupts, lids dropping as if he is going to fall asleep, but they open shortly after to continue gazing out of the window, moon full and glowing through the glass, and it dawns on you then the lights are off.
"But I am," you tell him, truthfully. "I don't think I understood what it meant to be an executive's secretary, let alone yours. I don't..." You stop, gaze downcast, shuffling in your spot. He doesn't say anything else. "I don't think I am ready for this position. I don't have what it takes to be like Kana."
"I don't want you to be like Kana. She hated me and wanted me dead," his words are blunt, tired. Your lips part at that, eyebrows coming together, and his head decides to roll enough to look you in the eyes now, and there's something there you don't think you have seen in him prior to today. "She never answered." Your features twist, expression shifting, and suddenly those angry text messages aren't so angry anymore. "Don't look at me like that. I don't want your pity." His tone is solemn, fit for a tortured artist, a diminished soul, and he rolls his head back to the side so he can watch the moon cast its spotlight on the city and the stars twinkle amongst the streetlights.
"Mr. Dazai, I vow to never ignore you again," you murmur. "It probably is meaningless words to you, but if brings you any solace, I don't want you dead."
"I loathe your formality," he whispers in response. Your shoulders sag, fingers messing with the hem of your button-up then clear your throat as your eyes are glued to the scar cutting down the arch in his brow. "Nothing sounds sincere when you speak to me that way." Whatever it takes to make the boss happy, I guess.
"Listen, man, I don't know how else to tell you this," you start, and his eyebrows twitch together, his reflection looking back at him, seeing yours actually resemble a normal human being instead of the poised business-like secretary he has known you to be. "This job is kind of killing me, and I don't know how much more I can take. I just wanted to prove to that hateful man I can do this, and I thought my only job was doing your stupid, awful, and, quite frankly, meaningless reports. Then the other damn executive came in and started telling me my shit sucks and I needed to redo it, and it just pissed me off more." You inhale, letting that string of mess out without breathing, and Dazai listens to you intently. Other executive?
"I don't think I'm cut out for this," you go on, body relaxing for the first time in days. "But that doesn't mean I want you dead. It was shitty of me to ignore you, and I shouldn't have done it, and I'm sorry you're in a place you hate all because I couldn't be a good secretary." You finish your small rant, letting out everything that has been sitting deep in the pit of your chest, taking up space on your diaphragm, preventing you to breathe, and the breath you take feels like taking in fresh air for the first time in three years.
Dazai lets all of that settle, something inside him actually pleased to hear you speak like that, refreshing compared to the stiff professionalism you typically exude. The corner of his mouth twitches, cracked lips feeling the stretch of a smile trying to appear, and he has to stop himself from laughing at you to prevent breaking the stitches.
"I told you I didn't like my job. You're starting to learn why."
"I truly don't like your job either," you breathe out a laugh, more so you don't start crying. "And if I'm still allowed to be informal and honest, I don't think I'm getting paid enough to keep up with you." A sound emits from his throat, kind of a scoff, kind of a laugh, and he just rolls his eyes.
"And you never will."
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