Chapter Text
The groans and other indecent noises hadn’t stopped for nearly an hour. Odasaku and Dazai had arrived earlier than their bespectacled friend, as per the usual. They’d had a few drinks of whiskey, Dazai had clambered into the older mans lap like a cat, and Odasaku had made the best of it, pulling the boy flush against him and rolling his hips upwards until the brunette had tears in his eyes. The redhead had dragged Dazai into the bathroom once the younger’s hand had reached for his belt, and there they had stayed.
Ango was now sitting at the counter, sipping his tomato juice, and looking quite disgruntled at the various sounds coming from the door, something the barman would relate to intensely if he wasn’t so used to it by now. (The incident from last week still haunted him. Odasaku had paid extra that night, perhaps in compensation, but he thinks the mummified boy was too out of it to realize they’d had an unwilling audience.)
“How are you this fine night?” the barman offers, not wanting to make small talk as the other two members of this little trio fuck in the bathroom, but horrified by the prospect of sitting in silence excepting those noises.
“As usual,” the bespectacled man says, “Work is stressful and exhausting, my friends are idiots.” He takes a long sip of his tomato juice and sighs. “People are having very intense sex in your bathroom.”
“Can we not?” the barman murmurs, quiet enough for Ango not to hear. He doesn’t think the man would shoot him for talking back, but it’s the risk he runs with the Port Mafia.
The door chimes out, signaling someone new is entering the bar.
Ango turns his head to look, a vaguely hopeful expression on his face. The barman pities him a little.
“Hey, Ango!” The newcomer is a teenager, probably not more than fifteen, and even that’s a stretch. They’ve got choppy, aggressively dyed bright pink hair—that somehow looks like a professional did it, even though if it’s who he thinks it is it’s always done in mirrors over sinks with art scissors—and an androgynous face and build. They’re tiny, though the grace with which they move hints at both strength and agility. This is not someone the barman wants in his bar, but it’s too late now. They pull a face at the noises coming from the bathroom, but don’t seem too fazed. Who are they, and what have they done, the barman wonders. What could have possibly led them to this nondescript bar of his.
“Oh, it’s you. Hello,” Ango says politely, patting the seat to his left. “Please, join me. Drinking alone is just sad.”
“You’re not even drinking,” the person says, dramatically falling onto the stool in a way the barman is sure isn’t possible.
“Mi-chan,” they offer when the barman stares slightly longer than socially polite, “They/them.”
“Very good.” The barman bows. “What might I get you?”
“Oh, do you have Mitsuya Cider here? The original?” the person grins, showing a bright flash of teeth. It’s entirely disorienting, and the barman wonder if he might fall over.
“You’re not drinking?” Ango asks, “I would’ve thought you’d take the opportunity to get drunk without Mori-san here to be angry with you.”
“No,” Mi-chan sighs, “I’d feel guilty, and probably end up confessing anyway.”
“Really?”
“Oh my god, yes. It’s so inconvenient to have a conscience.” The barman hopes they’re joking.
“Here you are,” he says, handing them their soda.
Mi-chan takes a sip from it, smiles warmly. “Much obliged,” they murmur, “I haven’t had this in a while. Nice to know some things never change.”
Ango chuckles. “Yes, it has been a while since I’ve seen you. Are you still waiting for Dazai’s nineteenth birthday?”
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” the pink haired teen mutters, “Can’t believe Mori won’t let me join until we know for sure I’m fifteen.”
“You know why he’s doing it,” the bespectacled man admonishes, but his companion only laughs.
“Not sure why though, not like I could get more screwed up in the head.”
The barman is not going to get out of this night unscathed, is he? God, and to think he’d thought it was fine when the two boyfriends had gone into the bathroom to fuck instead of doing it in his bar right in front of him.
“Oh.”
“Nah, it’s fine, I killed some of them and the rest are on my list.”
“Oh.”
Mi-chan levels Ango with such an emotionless look that the barman wonders for a brief moment if they’re capable of feeling. “This is the mafia. I was an experiment. Get over it.”
“Apologies,” Ango says quietly, the queasiness gone from his tone. The odd pair sit in silence—well, as silent as they can get with the pair fucking a thin wall away—for a few moments, only broken when the pink haired terror takes a slurp of his soda and leans back on his stool, twirling slightly to face the other.
“So,” Mi-chan starts, “You’re a friend of Dazai’s, right?”
“Yes, I’d like to think so,” Ango says stiffly. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here. The soft moans coming from the bathroom have increased in volume over the course of the conversation, and the two customers look as disgruntled, alarmed, and horrified as the barman feels.
“Oh, fuck this,” Mi-chan snaps, and then appears to float off their seat. Are their eyes glowing? The barman isn’t sure. “Oi, you two! Keep it down in there, alright?! I’m trying to talk to Ango!” They settle back down, taking a satisfied drink of soda and smacking their lips.
“What was that?” the barman asks, agog, and Mi-chan grins.
“My lack of fucks given and the combination of knowing who they are and knowing they’d never out themselves like that.”
“Still,” the barman wonders.
“Eh. It’s fine, we’re cool. Those two are really quite shameless though, aren’t they?” They grin at him, momentarily distracting the barman from the fact that they know about Odasaku and Dazai being exhibitionists particularly in his bar, and turn back to bother Ango.
“You’ve been Dazai and Odasaku’s friend for a while now, right?” they ask quietly, “Does he seem happy?”
“Dazai?” Ango pauses, considering. “Yes, I’d think he’s as happy as I’ve ever seen him,” he finally says, and Mi-chan hums in agreement.
“Not that that’s saying much,” they offer, “But yeah, I’m glad you think so too.”
“Hmm. He is quite the character, isn’t he?” There’s an unmistakable note of fondness in Ango’s voice as he takes a drink of his tomato juice. The barman pities him a little.
“So am I,” Mi-chan laughs, “So is everyone in the Mafia. You just got to accept it and move on with your life.”
“I—yes, I suppose that is true.”
They talk quietly then, murmuring to each other in the dim light of the bar. It almost looks like they’re friends, though both seem slightly too tense for that to be the case.
“So how long have you been in love with them?” The barman thinks the pink haired one is saying.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ango says stiffly, but the twitch of his finger against the glass betrays him. From the looks of it, it seems the other person in this barroom noticed it too.
“Sure you don’t,” they say easily, much to everyone’s surprise.
“Don’t break his heart,” Mi-chan calls as Ango flees the interrogation, door banging shut behind him in a way that makes them wince.
A mask visibly slides off them then, apparently feigned nonchalance shifting into anxious tapping on the table. Their face is screwed up in a frown, and the barman wonders how much they’ve lied to be so comfortable with the show they’ve just put on.
“It’s going to be a real train wreck, you know that?” They laugh bitterly.
“What is?” He already knows, and he knows Mi-chan knows, and he knows they know he knows.
“How in love they are.” The barman almost wants to correct them, wants to say Odasaku and Dazai are desperately, madly in love and Ango is the third wheel pining after the one his age, but he doesn’t. They probably know more than him, and he has noticed Ango lingering a little too close to Dazai unconsciously. Maybe they are in love after all.
“I never really got that, you know?” Mi-chan sighs, running their finger around the lip of the bottle, “Why people are the way they are.”
“Mmm,” the barman agrees, noncommittally in case he could offend them.
“And Dazai is even weirder to me, because he falls in love so quickly, and he craves sex, and I’m so much cleverer than him so why do I get off on fighting instead? Why don’t I feel the way other people do?”
This…sounds a lot like an identity crisis in his bar. The barman curses every god he’s ever heard of.
“Is it me, or is it what was done to me?” they ask, and then smile ruefully. “Probably my own doing, honestly. It always is.”
The bathroom door unlocks with a click, and they both startle, looking up at the pair exiting the bathroom. Hickeys cover Dazai’s neck, and he looks distinctly unsteady on his feet. Odasaku looks mildly shamefaced, though not enough to keep him from ravishing his boyfriend in a public bar again.
Mi-chan arches an eyebrow, the picture of unimpressed. “Really?” they drawl, “In a bar?”
“Oh, shut—shut up,” Dazai croaks.
“No,” they say cheerily, “Have a good night.”
“Sorry, Tachi-kun,” Odasaku murmurs, sweeping Dazai up into his arms. “He’ll be at my apartment if you need us.”
“Probably won’t.” There’s something sad there that no one else seems to pick up on, and the barman wonders when the last time someone felt bad for this kid was. It almost makes him feel guilty as the pair leave, but Mi-chan grins like everything’s alright and leaps to their feet.
“I need to run, something’s come up,” they sing, spinning over to the stairs.
“Hey!” they call, pausing at the top, “Call me when it all goes down, I’ll need to pick up some pieces.”
“Of course,” the barman nods. And just like that, the most dangerous thing he’s ever had in his bar is gone, skipping out into the night like they’re trying to convince themself they belong there.
He doesn’t understand the complicated dynamics between the trio, doesn’t understand why they’re lying and jealous and stubborn, but he thinks the person who’d been across from him, his conversation partner for a short time knows exactly what the deal is, and why it’ll never quite work out.
He feels strangely sad about how all of them will end up. Sure, they’re nuisances and members of the Mafia, but he’s grown rather fond of the trio in the time they’ve been coming here, and he doesn’t want things to be ruined.
It’s a train wreck they’re heading towards, the barman thinks, and hopes to god Mi-chan has a plan. Then he feels guilty about putting more weight on their too young shoulders, and wishes the world was kinder.