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Not everything about being a detective is about walking around and solving crimes, sometimes being a detective means using a bit of lies and subterfuge to gain the information that one needs to solve a case. Like a flash drive that the suspect keeps on their person at all times. Honestly Dazai thought that if anyone were going to be sent on a mission to go out into the world and pick pocket a Crimean then it should be him, the best thief in the Agency, but with Ranpo and the President in Tokyo for the week, the position of acting head of the Agency went to Kunikidia, the man that hardly trusted Dazai to do paperwork at the moment after finding out more about the brunette’s former position in the mafia. So Atsushi was being sent, Kunikida called it training.
Dazai called it a ticket to doom if someone didn’t step in first and extinguish the fires.
”Atsushi,” the man called out, his mind made up from the couch that he had been sitting on. The weretiger turned to his mentor nervously, but Dazai didn’t mind. “Come on, I’ll give you a few tips for what you need to do tonight.”
Kunikidia opened his mouth to protest, but Dazai beat him to the punch. “Yosano, can you grab a stool from your office. Kyouka, there is a makeup bag in the bottom of my desk, grab that. Naomi, can you grab the spare clothes from the back?” The woman all glanced at one another, but each eventually moved to do as asked.
Dazai had the white haired boy sit on the stool once it was brought and set up the make up kit next to it. “Kyouka, I take it you still remember what to do?”
”I do,” the girl said quietly.
”Right.”
The Agency watched with quiet fascination as one of their youngest members prepared the makeup and Dazai applied it, creating a smoky effect to the white haired boys eyes that brought out the duality to them.
“Rule number one:”Dazai said, standing up from his work and walking over to the clothes that Naomi had layed out for them, “is that you’ve got to have fun, but when you’re, you’ve gotta be the first to run.”
Dazai pointed the girl to the jewelry and he grabbed a black wife beater tank top that he knew would show off the younger detective’s form and still allow him a fair deal of movement.
”Rule number two: just don’t get attached to somebody you could loose,” Kyouka continued softly, surprising the other members of the Agency that didn’t know what the pair did. The girl picked out a short chain necklace that would go nicely with the tank top and would fit in with the goth theme of the club that they were sending her brother figure to. ”Rule number three: wear you heart on your cheek…”
”But never on your sleeve, unless you want to taste defeat,” Dazai finished for her, picking out some loose jeans that he thought would fit the other detective.
”Rule number four?” The girl asked quietly, but Dazai shook his head.
”We’re already kinda skipping that one with this clothing assembly,” the man decided.
“What’s rule number four?” Atsushi asked curiously, his eyes going between the pair of former mafiosos with more curiosity and less horror than the other detectives seemed to be feeling.
”Got to be looking pure,” The older man said.
“Kiss him goodbye at the door-”
”And leave the mark wanting more.”
”What exactly are these rules for?” Yosano asked, coming to inspect the outfit that the pair had created.
”Subduction techniques,” Dazai said as if the idea was nothing. To him it was. “Most marks like the look of danger,” the man explained, “so we make them fall for a stranger.”
Dazai sent the boy off to go get dressed in the clinic, but that wasn’t the end of the questions.
He hadn’t really expected it to be.
“So did you sleep around with a bunch of women for information then?” Kunikida asked, looking a little green in the face for some reason that Dazai couldn’t understand.
“No,” the detective answered simply, mystified by his partner’s relived response, “I’m immune to most medicines and poisons so I mixed a strong sedative into some chap stick and knocked most of the marks out.” Dazai didn’t tell them the part that it was mostly men in their thirties or so that he was sent after, he knew that the Agecy didn’t need to know that, he just didn’t understand that they already thought the age gap existed and that’s why Kunikidia looked the way that he did.
Atsushi chose that moment to walk back into the main office, looking extremely uncomfortable in his skin, but all but fitting the picture that the pair of former mafiosos had been going for.
“Kyouka, grab some Sharpies, as many as you can find,” Dazai decided, pleased to see that the girl had already had the same idea and was holding out a black one to the older man now.
The pair sketched mirroring patterns on the weretiger’s arms, going over them until they looked like proper tattoos. The mark was said to have liked people that show off a healthy amount of skin, one of the main reasons that Atsushi had been chosen to go on the mission at all.
All of the detectives took a step back to look at the end product of what the pair had created.
“Damn,” Yosano said appreciatively, “I think you two are in the wrong profession.”
The look that the former mafiosos shared said that they seemed to agree, just with what the doctor was suggesting.
’I always am,’ Dazai thought bitterly, and he knew that his thoughts were echoed in the younger assassin