If it had been anyone else, faced with the sparkling eyes and hopeful tone of such a pretty, adorable girl, they probably would’ve found it very difficult to refuse.
But Dazai managed it.
“Huh? There’s no need, is there?” Dazai turned his face slightly away. “I’m dating you, Little Ringo, not your friends. Besides, my friends work just like I do. They have abso-lutely no time to meet you.”
Ringo blinked.
“I see. I’m sorry. I didn’t think that through.”
Dazai could hear the disappointment in her voice, but even more than that, there was guilt.
Having gotten a decent grasp of Ringo’s personality, Dazai knew she genuinely felt bad for not realizing that people who had already started working didn’t have much free time.
“Well, it’s not a big deal. You’re still a student, Little Ringo, so it’s perfectly normal that you wouldn’t know things like that,” Dazai said nonchalantly. “Let’s eat first.”
“Mhm, okay.”
“What do you want to do after lunch?”
“Are you free today, Haru-kun? How about we go shopping? It’s gotten colder, and I want to buy some clothes!”
“Ehh—no thanks. That sounds exhausting.”
After lunch, the two of them still hadn’t managed to decide what to do next.
Just as Dazai was about to suggest, “Why don’t we just head home?” a familiar voice called from behind him.
“Dazai-san.”
Turning around, Dazai looked expressionlessly at the subordinate walking toward him.
“Akutagawa-kun. What are you doing here?”
Ryunosuke Akutagawa was just about to speak when a head suddenly peeked out from beside Dazai.
“Is he someone you know, Haru-kun?”
The moment Ringo looked up, her eyes met Akutagawa’s cold, gloomy stare.
She shrank back in fright and instinctively grabbed Dazai’s sleeve.
“Did you make someone angry?” she asked timidly, her voice filled with worry.
“No,” Dazai replied, pointing at Akutagawa. “He’s my subordinate.”
“Huh? You have subordinates too?”
“I already told you I’m an Executive.”
Akutagawa fixed an intense stare on Ringo.
“Who is she?”
“And why exactly should I explain that to you, Akutagawa-kun?”
The icy tone in Dazai’s voice left Akutagawa pressing his lips tightly together, unable to argue back.
Ringo tugged gently on Dazai’s sleeve.
“Even if he’s your subordinate, you don’t have to be so mean, Haru-kun.”
Akutagawa immediately turned his hostility toward her.
“How dare you speak so disrespectfully to Dazai-san—”
“You’d better not do anything that’ll make me angry, Akutagawa-kun,” Dazai warned coldly.
Akutagawa abruptly turned his head.
A rumor that had recently been circulating throughout the Port Mafia suddenly surfaced in his mind.
Dazai-san has a girlfriend.
Could it be…
“Never mind.” The oppressive aura Dazai had released while warning Akutagawa disappeared as quickly as it had come. He turned to Ringo. “I’ve got to go.”
“Work again?” Ringo had already gotten used to it. “Your subordinate came looking for you, so it must be something important. Hurry and go.”
Dazai lowered his head until he was close to her face.
“So you’re going to mark me down for leaving early again, aren’t you, Little Ringo?”
Ringo thought for a moment.
“But this time we only agreed to watch a movie, so it doesn’t count. Hurry and go. I’ll go shopping by myself.”
“Then I’m off?”
“Bye, Haru-kun.”
She waved at Dazai before looking at Akutagawa.
“Goodbye.”
Her tone remained friendly, though noticeably cautious.
After watching Dazai and Akutagawa leave, Ringo also turned and headed toward the train station.
Thinking back to the way Akutagawa had looked at her, she couldn’t quite understand it.
The boy looked only fifteen or sixteen years old, yet he carried an unmistakable air of violence.
Even Dazai’s entire demeanor had changed in an instant when speaking to him, becoming someone she barely recognized.
Just what kind of work did they actually do?
That evening, at Bar Lupin.
When Ango Sakaguchi arrived, he found Dazai already inside.
A glass of whiskey on the rocks sat on the counter in front of him.
As for Dazai himself…
He was eating a bag of cookies.
“…Dazai?”
Ango spoke hesitantly.
“Is that really you?”
“Hm?” Dazai’s mouth was stuffed full, making his words come out muffled. “Have you worked so much overtime that you’ve lost your mind, Ango? You can’t even recognize me anymore?”
“No… I don’t think overtime has anything to do with it.” Ango adjusted his glasses. “It’s just that you’re eating something that clashes so completely with both your image and the atmosphere of this bar that I thought I was hallucinating.”
As they were talking, Oda Sakunosuke walked in as well.
Seeing Dazai eating cookies, he naturally reached over and took one.
“I was just getting hungry.”
Ango also reached out for one.
Dazai immediately moved the bag away.
“No. These are from my girlfriend.”
“Your girlfriend…”
Ango’s glasses nearly cracked.
“I heard rumors around the organization a while ago that you had a girlfriend. It was actually true?”
Dazai glared at him indignantly.
“What made you think it wasn’t? Of course I have a girlfriend.”
Oda asked curiously,
“So how did you and your girlfriend meet and start dating?”
“She lost a game,” Dazai said matter-of-factly. “The punishment was confessing to me and asking me out. I agreed.”
He nodded.
“Yep. That’s how it happened.”
Ango leaned back dramatically.
“She had to date you because she lost a game? Your girlfriend didn’t deserve that kind of punishment.”
“You’re just jealous, Ango. Jealousy makes people ugly.”
Dazai looked thoroughly pleased with himself.
“My girlfriend likes me so much. She was the one who confessed first. By now she’s completely unable to live without me~”
“Dazai,” Ango said flatly, “there’s a limit to how much nonsense you can make up.”
No matter how he looked at it, it sounded more like Dazai’s girlfriend had been tricked.
“What kind of person…” Oda continued asking, “…is your girlfriend, Dazai?”
Resting one cheek on his hand, Dazai lightly tapped the rim of his glass with his fingers.
“Little Ringo? Even though she’s older than me, she doesn’t act like an older sister at all. She’s socially anxious, embarrasses easily, and she’s a little clingy.”
He paused.
“Anyway… she’s just an ordinary person.”
“If she’s an ordinary person,” Ango said after taking a sip of whiskey, “dating someone with your kind of background must be pretty hard on her.”
“I suppose so.”
Dazai poked at the floating ice cube in his drink.
“She still doesn’t believe what I do for a living. She thinks I’ve been lying to her.”
“When people don’t believe you, maybe you should reflect on yourself for once, Dazai.”
“Ehh—no thanks.”
Oda quietly drank while listening to the two of them bicker.
Only after they finished did he speak again.
“Dazai, when do you think we’ll get to meet your girlfriend?”
“Hold on.” Ango raised a hand in a stopping gesture. “When you say ‘we,’ does that include me?”
“Of course.” Oda nodded. “Isn’t there always that part where you introduce your girlfriend to your friends? It happens in movies and novels all the time.”
Dazai and Ango both stared at Oda in utter shock.
“Odasaku, you…”
“…You’re actually the pure romance type?!”
Ango adjusted his glasses.
“I have to admit, that’s unexpected.”
“Odasaku really is the healing type.” Dazai stretched lazily before popping another cookie into his mouth. “Little Ringo said the exact same thing today.”
“Maybe next time, if we get the chance.”