Chapter Text
Atsushi sighed, stepping closer to the detective, “Lets run over the plan again?”
“You use your ability to cause a distraction so that I can sneak into the tank, and when I give the signal, you pull me out.” They recited, “How exactly are you going to pull me out?”
“Let me have some secrets.”
“Of course, I’ll just blindly trust you with my life.”
She sighs, “My ability is called Chameleon Diary. It allows me to become undetected, at its full strength, nothing can perceive me, even Dazai has trouble.”
“Why do you need me then?” You could have easily done this by yourself.”
“I can’t carry out everything in the vault by myself and taking multiple trips would be a risk.”
“What about inconsistencies?”
“They are automatically overlooked by the brain, here.”
She activated his ability and grinned at the funny look on their face.
A few seconds later, however, their foot collided with his ribcage and he went down, releasing his ability, “How?”
“I have enhanced senses all I needed was to find a discrepancy in space.”
“Not everyone has enhanced senses! Also we should go now.”
He reactivated his ability and made her way just outside where the guards were stationed, pulled out a bunch of fireworks and lit them all.
While they all ran around panicking, she opened up one of the air tanks and saw a stream of silverly particles enter.
Once the detective was fully inside, he replaced them with the one that was first in line, adding a small splotch of slightly off white to the tank they were in.
Then she waited for the guards to stop panicking and realize they had a job to do.
However, they didn’t pull the one with the detective inside and instead pulled out two other ones.
He groaned, “Looks like we’re going to be stuck here for a while.”
Finally, the guard shifts changed what felt like a century later. (AN: It was actually just half an hour.)
This time, thankfully, one of the ones they grabbed was the detective’s, because she was running out of things to yell at the ever present hallucination of his father the orphanage director.
She followed them, holding up the tank carrying the detective, so that they wouldn’t notice anything was wrong.
As soon as all the security measures were bypassed, she knocked the guards out, using his ability to make sure that no one discovered the switcheroo, and opened the tank, wondering what happened to the detective, before realizing he opened the wrong tank.
He quickly closed it and opened the correct one this time.
“What took you so long?” They grumbled.
“Later,” She dismissed, putting the oxygen mask over their head.
The detective sighed, “Can you put everything in one big pile so it’s easier that way?”
She rolled his eyes but aquiesed to their demand, “About two feet to the left -wait other left- and three steps forward.”
She watched as they moved according to her directions and squatted down, sweeping their hands over the pile, the gold disintegrating at their touch, “Nice, do you do pranks?”
“Pranks?”
“A joke you play on someone else.”
“I know what a prank is! I meant who and why.”
“There’s a mafioso that Dazai used to mentor that hates my guts that also looks and sounds like a dying Victorian child, can you help me prank him?”
“I have so much more important things to do.”
“Buzzkill.”
“I didn’t say no!”
“So you will help me prank him?”
“Sure why not, is there anything left?”
He looked over at the pile of dust that had accumulated, “I don’t think so, wait there’s one to the right–other right.”
They dusted the last one, “Now, how do we get out of here?”
“First, you get back in the tank,” She waited until they had done so, then activated her ability and walked right out the door.
The two that had been knocked out were still unconscious so he simply stepped around them.
She walked right out the door, and stopped when he got to an extremely convenient alleyway, before opening the tank and letting the detective out, “No need to thank your savior.”
“Good, I wasn’t planning to.”
“So no appreciation for my hard efforts!”
They sighed, “I can tell you were definitely trained by Dazai.”
“Yeah, yeah, you’re buying lunch.”
“Why me?”
“Because I don’t get paid to be a Hunting Dog, which I don’t actually since we’re considered government property.” She said, deliberating leaving out the part that they get to keep the leftover money when they complete a mission under the budget.
“I think that’s called slavery, which I’m pretty sure is frowned upon.”
“We can discuss how I’m a poor orphan who was taken advantage of by everyone around me later, can we eat now?”
“Fine, what do you want to eat?”
“Chazuke, and crepes.”
“At least you’re not trying to destroy my wallet.”
“You have clearly never seen me down 5 bowls of chazuke in half a minute.”
“Never mind, take me onwards to my financial ruination, why don’t you?”
“Great plan!”
“That was sarcasm!”
—-------------------------------------------------------------------—
“So how was the chazuke?” She asked, Byako chuffing with contentment in his head.
“Not bad.”
“I’ll take it, oh look there’s crepes.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Oh shit I forgot you were blind.”
“Many people do, I like to wait until they say something I can use for guilt tripping before I remind them.”
“Never mind go fuck yourself.”
“I’m not buying you crepes, then.”
“Wait no I take it back-”
—------------------------------------------------------—
She could feel the confusion coming from the detective, “Why would you force me to pay for crepes that you aren’t even eating?”
“Force is a pretty strong word.”
“Fine why would you convince me to pay for crepes that you aren’t even eating?”
“Who said these crepes were for me?”
“Then who are they for?”
“A friend, bye detective.”
“Do you not know my name?” the detective who’s name she didn’t actually know said.
“Do you know mine?” He stared at the detective, who suddenly looked contemplative, “Fine, hi my name is Atsushi, I’m around 18, my favorite food is chazuke, and I like bothering Akutagawa.”
They slightly tilted their head, “Just Atsushi?”
“You got a problem with that?”
“Nope, I completely understand wanting to distance yourself from family.”
“Actually I just never had a family name, I just picked the name of an author I liked, wrote to him after I got out of the orphanage I grew up in and asked if I could use it, he said yes which was a relief since I had already been using it. Anyways, let us talk about you now, detective.”
They let her attempt at changing the subject slide, “Jouno Saigiku, currently 23, my favorite food is cold soba, I like knives and my siblings.”
“You have siblings?”
“Five, two younger sisters, Fuyumi and Natsumi; two younger brothers, Shoto and Michizou; and a twin brother, Touya”
“Who’s older?”
“Physically he is, mentally I am, and emotionally it’s my younger sister, Fuyumi.”
“Nice, I have a sort-of younger sister, Kyouka.” He neglected to mention that her parents were in the mafia and her mother was an executive.
“Is she the one the crepes are for?”
“Yup, she absolutely loves them, I think she’d eat them for every meal if she could.”
“Younger siblings are always picky.”
She laughed, “We’ve known each other for less than a day and we’re already partners in crime, Jouno.”
“Probably because we literally did just commit a crime, Atsushi,” Jouno snarked, “Also just call me Saigiku, I already mentioned the multiple siblings.”
“Great meeting you, Saigiku,” He said, waving before realizing they wouldn’t see it, “I’ll see you around and you can sense me around.”
“If you really want to keep in touch, I have a phone,” Saigiku said, reaching into one of their multiple pockets and pulling a knife out, “Wait, wrong one.”
“Well I didn’t want to accidentally offend you by asking.” He defended.
“You’re sweet when you don’t act like your mentor,” They said, having found the correct pocket and pulling out their phone decorated with mismatched stickers, probably from one of their siblings, “What’s your number?”
She rattled it off, Saigiku repeating them because their phone worked with voice activation apparently, “Well it’s been fun committing crimes with my new favorite detective, but I really do need to be off now because the crepes are getting cold. Bye Saigiku!”
He saw the corner of Saigiku’s mouth twitch up, “Bye Atsushi.”