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The jingle of keys tossed into the Burano-glass bowl echoed in the entrance like every other night.
Dazai had become accustomed to the sound, just as he had become accustomed to the black-dressed security guy stationing in the hall and nodding to him without a flinch.
It used to be a pain to sneak past the security system every time he wanted to piss off Chuuya, but living with the chibi had shuffled the cards a bit and, eventually, a year later everyone in the complex knew Dazai’s face.
He could have picked the lock of Chuuya’s penthouse any day, too, blindfolded and with only his left hand and a bobby pin. It would have been good practice. However, owning keys had its advantages — especially after a long day.
The detective stopped on the threshold, waiting.
No crazy meowing. Good.
No sound of tiny claws rasping against the wooden cabinets. Very good.
Either someone had been a good kitty and stayed out of the trashcan, or Chuuya had murdered their cat after the umpteenth attempt to keep him from climbing inside the trash and getting stuck there, wailing like a crazy siren for his dads to free him.
“I’m home,” Dazai tried, kicking the door closed with the heel.
No meowing, still, which could be either a good sign or a whisper for bloody murder.
The detective was about to get worried, but realization tug the corners of his lips upwards as he registered a ball of smooth black fur half-hidden under the fuzzy blanket he got Chuuya on White Day.
Apparently, someone was too lazy to greet him at the door.
Meaning Shuji had learned his lesson and stayed out of the trashcan long enough, he hummed to himself, releasing a sigh. The world was a good place, the evening was safe and his husband’s hands… well, those were kind of clean from innocent blood.
“Dazai?” A voice called from the sunroom, followed by a low rustle and the familiar thud of a hardback being closed.
Such a stupid, familiar sound; that, too, brought a smile to the detective’s lips.
“In the living room.”
Dazai had moved to reach the couch and give the cat a scratch between the pointy ears to say hello, not quite managing to get far enough: before the detective could pad all the way to the couch, Chuuya appeared from behind the glass door that separated the studio from the open lounge. Dazai’s stomach flipped, warmed by something akin to pure reverence.
Chuuya had a pencil keeping his hair in a messy bun, but was still wearing his work attire and gloves. Over the shirt, he’d thrown on a silk black haori jacket the executive had stolen from Kouyou to use as loungewear — it would have looked stupidly posh on anyone else but it fit Chuuya like a very casual, very sexy globe.
His blue eyes narrowed the minute Dazai raised, quite triumphantly, a takeaway bag in his direction.
“I got you fondue from that place you like,” he declared.
The scowl on Chuuya’s face only deepened.
“I thought you were staying at the dorm tonight.”
“Nup.”
“What happened to taking the kid out for dinner?” Chuuya pressed on, quietly following Dazai as the detective made his way to the kitchen. “I was under the impression a certain someone was promised Chazuke.”
“That’s correct. But, apparently, I’ve been replaced.”
The executive scoffed, rolling his eyes.
He leaned against the kitchen counter, crossing his arms as Dazai carefully placed the take away on the marble surface. It was their home, or at the very least it felt like it.
The apartment belonged only to Chuuya on paper, sure.
He lived alone for the general public and definitely for Mori, but Dazai called that penthouse, from the white-marble-and-fume-glass kitchen up to the ridiculously pretentious terrace with the jacuzzi, and especially the master bedroom, his.
“Good for Atsushi. He dodged the bullet, huh?”
“Chuuya!”
The man chuckled, stepping elegantly towards Dazai to give his husband a peck on the lips. The detective stopped mid-gesture to let him, one hand leaving the takeaway’s bag to run through russet locks.
The natural easiness with which Dazai bent to allow Chuuya to reach his mouth, and how he used the free arm to wrap the redhead’s shoulders to press the shorter man against his body spoke of something well-know, rehearsed through months of peaceful domesticity.
A kiss in the middle of a kitchen. Their kitchen. It felt so normal Dazai could cry.
Chuuya smiled against his husband’s lips before pulling away.
“Give the boy some space. Maybe he has a date or something.”
Dazai widened his eyes in mock surprise, stepping back and swirling on the spot like he was about to faint.
“My sweet mentee would never! Would you bail me for a date, Chuuya?”
“I would bail you for a trip to the post office, mackerel,” Chuuya said with a shrug. “Can you please feed Shuji while I wrap up the report for Ane-San? Then we can eat.”
Dazai didn’t say he'd already planned to do that and that he’d even bought some crab for the satanic spoiled kitty, too. He whined, instead, and complained with a childish pout that earned him a dramatic eyeroll from his husband.
Chuuya knew his partner enough to be sure he was going to comply, anyway.
-
He and Chuuya had been married for almost a year, now, and fully intending to keep on with their secret relationship and separated lives. For a bit, at least.
Kunikida might pop more than a vein if he’d known that his partner had been illegally married to a Mafia Executive since he was seventeen (well, their alter ego had), and that they had re-married while Dazai was working with the Agency.
However, that wasn't nearly the worst of their problems: Mori was another one with something to say about that engagement.
It was all fun and games until the deadliest duo in Yokohama, the trump card of the Mafia and the Agency, swore loyalty to each other: not to the city, nor to one organization or the other, but to something as fleeting as a relationship.
Though Dazai would have defined his bond with Chuuya as everything but fleeting.
The Soukoku partnership was a powerful asset to the three-headed pillar that kept the city standing, but he saw why it might become an inconvenience if it was to fight solo.
Dazai counted on his relative freedom as an employee under the Agency’s wing; however, Chuuya could not afford to show loyalty to something outside the Port Mafia. Despite the many times in which he’d publicly sworn otherwise, the detective had to admit he secretly liked his husband better off alive. He did not want Chuuya biting the curb, so lying low and keeping separate houses was the smart option.
Of course, staying away from Chuuya had proved harder than Dazai initially predicted.
Shuji didn’t make things easier.
Now, the cat was only one of the few things that Dazai had to consider after four years apart (then again, he guessed he wasn’t the only one with the right to evolve).
The first time he picked Chuuya’s lock and allowed himself in the executive’s penthouse, the differences hit Dazai like a fist. First of all, Chuuya had changed some furniture. It took him barely a glance to realize that the slug still hadn’t gotten over his absurd fixation over tidiness (on the contrary, being in charge of things had clearly worsened chibi’s obsession) and glass coffee tables.
The mafioso had also matched both western-style paintings and pricy watercolors, calligraphy gracefully tracing streams of pastel shades or lively Kabuki scenes unraveling in popping colors, and he had managed somehow to not make the different styles clash.
With an approving huff, Dazai wondered how much his former partner would have hated him if he was to casually switch all the paintings and break their perfect balance. If someone could hang a vintage furisode under a Marshall stereo and not make it look ridiculous, that was Chuuya.
But.
Something unpredictable lurked in that house. It claimed Dazai's attention, together with the perplexed hm that rolled out of the detective's lips. Namely, the unforeseen variable came with a pair of yellowish-green eyes, wide like full moons, that blinked at him in the semi-darkness of Chuuya’s bedroom.
The detective stopped, frozen on the spot by the realization.
Chuuya couldn’t have a cat.
His former partner had always ranted about a pet owner’s many responsibilities (Dazai knew something about it, now, being responsible for an overgrown tiger and a dog with a murderous coat), and never succumbed to the temptation on adopting any kind of pet because of their dangerous line of work — especially considering that, in the past, his boring partner had actively prevented Dazai from getting a pet Komodo Dragon, a pet pufferfish and several psychedelic frogs.
Of course, that could’ve been outdated info.
No, scratch that: clearly, it was.
Dazai stared at the cat through narrowed eyes; the feline stared right back, smug.
Even in the dim light, Dazai could see its fluffy tail as it swung lazily and swept over the silk duvet cover. He’d planned to infiltrate Chuuya’s apartment to tamper with his wine collection, but now things clearly called for another course of action.
The detective shrugged and walked right back to the kitchen, uncorked a bottle of sake and waited for the animal to come out and follow him on his own accord.
He had a hunch the kitty wanted to make friends, although animals could occasionally prove hard to predict. Not dogs, though; dogs were dull, boring and all too ready to trust anyone who promised them a home and food, much like Chuuya.
Cats, on the contrary—
Ah, there he moved.
Such a curious kitty wasn’t too difficult to lure away from Chuuya’s bed, after all.
A slight thud signaled that the cat had jumped off the bed. Just as Dazai had hoped, the black shadow followed suit and entered the kitchen with a loud purr just as the man was grabbing himself a glass from the cabinets (Chuuya remained a predictable chibi, placing plates and glasses on the high shelves only to prove a point).
He smiled, tilting his head to the side.
“Well, hello.”
The cat — what could his name be? God, poor creature, victim of the chibikko’s horrible taste — meowed back and jumped gracefully on the counter. Dazai hummed his approval. A polite little creature, indeed.
After careful consideration (which meant, realizing he could play with a cat and pester his former partner all in one go), Dazai poured himself a full glass and moved to the open space, the cat quietly following him around in silent curiosity.
As he let himself on Chuuya’s leather couch with every intention to wait for his former partner and get an explanation, the man considered he might even like the ball of fur: at least it wasn’t a dog.
Also, after unofficially adopting Atsushi, the former Demon Prodigy was ready to admit he might have a thing for felines of every kind and size.
The first thing Chuuya said when he saw him, surprisingly, wasn’t an insult.
Not even a greeting, or a predictable “get out” through gritted teeth. Nothing of the sort.
Instead, the executive toed out of his shoes and hung coat and hat on the coat rack. He huffed. It sounded tired, but Dazai didn’t comment on it. Instead, he took a long sip of his saké, foreseeing he might need it.
Tiny paws tapped oh so lightly on the wooden floor, and immediately the cat was all over the executive’s ankles.
Everything else in the penthouse seemed completely forgotten as its little head bumped against Chuuya’s trousers with a shower of purrs. Dazai ordered himself to keep a straight face and not reach for his phone — not yet, at least, even though Chuuya’s smile was the most honest he’d ever witnessed and screamed to be recorded for future reference.
“I see you met Shuji.”
As if the night couldn’t get any more weird, Dazai choked halfway through another sip, alcohol scraping his windpipe. He almost dropped the glass.
“…What?”
Chuuya didn’t answer, squatting on the spot to pet the cat — Shuji. Seriously? Fucking Seriously? — between its fluffy ears.
The man’s fingers looked like white ceramic next to the black of the cat’s fur, and the enthusiastic nya-sound he earned back spoke of pure and utter love. Dazai swallowed forcefully, trying to breathe around the lump stuck in his throat.
Why, he wanted to ask. When?
Tell me, Chuuya, why the hell do you own a cat with my name?
Dazai remembered Chuuya uttering that name in the past to friends and foes alike.
Shuji, anata. My dear. My darling husband.
Of course, on those sparse occasions, the redhead had been disguised in one of his Ane-san’s many outfits, be it a colorful furisode or a flirty cocktail dress.
Yasuko used to possess the ability to blend in any crowd, all bouncing red curls and lips pink with pricey lipstick. While in his female persona’s shoes, Chuuya dragged lustful glances whilst her arm stayed hooked beneath her husband’s elbow.
Pretty dresses, long doll-like lashes, heart-shaped lips and a giggle that made men and women alike melt.
Her charm had been the downfall of many wealthy idiots.
Tsushima Shuji had been a very lucky man.
Dazai had been a very lucky man, during those brief charades when he called himself with that name and paraded his beautiful chibi wife around. He had enjoyed those missions, although they used to end in blood.
Clearly, this Shuji had killed fewer people than the original version.
“Are you kidding me?” Dazai asked again, voice throaty and as low as he could manage.
“Shuji was a pain in the ass when I found him,” Chuuya explained.
There was an inner affection, in his voice, a smile that never crossed him when he talked about the other Shuji.
This cat sounded like a pain in the ass, but unlike with the other one, Chuuya didn’t mind.
Suddenly, jealousy bit Dazai’s guts. As far as he knew, Shuji had died when he left the mafia: Dazai wanted that persona to die, to wither like every other connection he used to share with a life that didn’t belong to him anymore.
Apparently, Chuuya had claimed a shred of that past they shared for himself.
“I see. So you found him.”
“I guess we found each other.”
Dazai told himself that the answer didn’t sting.
“When?”
By this time, Chuuya had kneeled on the floor so that he could wiggle his fingers and let Shuji’s tiny paw bump them, rosy pads peeping through ink-black fur. He did not even bother to walk to the couch and barely spared his former partner a glance.
“Last year. I didn’t plan to keep him, but the little guy here was all alone in a dumpster and had no one else in the world. Plus, giving him a trashy name of a trashy person just sounded right. He’s a disaster. He never shuts up, don’t you, ball of issues?”
Almost on clue, Shuji meowed back a high-pitched sound molten into purrs.
“I see. Reminds me of someone,” Dazai said, a half-lidded smile finding its way to his lips.
Chuuya looked at him.
Ache, Dazai realised, and longing.
It was the same reaction he’d thought he’d discerned in the Port Mafia dungeon during their reunion, but now those bittersweet feelings were there for the detective to see, almost offered to him and openly turning Chuuya’s sapphire eyes a darker shade of blue.
“Yeah,” the executive breathed out, “he reminded me of someone, too.”
Chuuya did not kick him out that evening. Yes, he threatened to multiple times, but he didn’t.
That predicament proved true also for the following times Dazai popped by his former partner’s penthouse.
“I stopped to check on Shuji,” the detective said, once. Chuuya scoffed, clearly knowing that Dazai was testing his luck, but a smile tugged the corners of the redhead's lips as he pressed himself against the door to let his former partner in.
After that, checking on the cat became a regular excuse — until, much to Dazai’s own amazement, it wasn’t an excuse anymore.
Shuji, as Chuuya explained, was a black Norwegian Forest Cat: a purebred, or so the vet had said.
Not that someone as sentimental as the chibikko would have loved him any less since Shuji was still alone and struggling to survive in a merciless world regardless of his intelligence or blood or good looks: they didn't mean anything for them, after all.
Chuuya, Dazai reasoned, must have sensed the connection immediately.
The executive had refused to give up on Shuji ever since, didn’t matter if the cat was growing into a little devil. He would whine and jump around all night and sleep all day, and had a thing for kicking off plants, crystal flutes and even a pricey ceramic vase (a gift from Ane-san, who blamed Shuji’s poor manners on the cat’s unfortunate name).
The last straw had been when Shuji declared war to Chuuya’s wine collections.
Dazai learned, not without great delight, that the executive now stored a whole lot of vintage bottles, wines and liquors in a locked cellar after a few incidents involving expensive imported French Brut and Shuji’s fluffy tail.
However, no matter what, the executive was head over heels for the “most problematic feline on Earth”.
Every once in a while, while they were on the couch with a few glasses of their favorite alcohol and Shuji vibrating and purring between them like a black heather from Hell, Chuuya would pop up with some random fact about Shuji.
More often than not, they were things the cat and Dazai had in common.
Shuji is a drama queen. He’s lazy.
He hates my hats.
Shuji loves crab, it’s ridiculous. He whines all the time. He fell into the trashcan twice and was just so smug about it. He tried to climb on the drawer and got stuck. He thinks he can get everything from me.
At that last remark, Dazai remembered he'd smirked.
“Oh, I see now why you called him like that.”
“He’s a menace,” Chuuya said, reaching out to run his fingers through Shuji’s thick fur. The cat was purring even before Chuuya touched him, his tiny head knocking against the executive’s digits. “But unlike you, he’s adorable.”
“Lies. I am the very definition of adorable.”
“You’re not, mackerel. The only thing you are is delusional.”
“That’s such a mean thing to say, Chuuya! Especially when we’re cuddling, you know? I sincerely thought chibi still liked me, but I guess I was wrong.”
Dazai supposed that his ex-partner had clashed their lips together after that just to shut him up, but he didn’t complain.
He would never complain as long as Chuuya kept kissing him, Tainted going out with a spark of boiling-hot power against Dazai’s lips as soon as they touched and being driven away by No Longer Human like a dying star.
Shuji didn’t seem too happy about the sudden movement and the entangled limbs, because he hissed and sunk razor-sharp claws into the blanket the three of them shared.
Dazai remembered a lot of things about that night. Christmas seemed so far away already, but it was barely January. Soukoku had just been on their third mission together, mainly to show Akutagawa and Atsushi that every rivalry could be (and should have been) left out of the battlefield.
They saved the day, together like the old times.
And, just like the old times, they kissed.
Chuuya had pulled away first, nibbling on his lips and breathing out a chuckle in that slightly panicky way Dazai was all too familiar with. It never showed in combat — Chuuya never panicked on the battleground, he was too powerful for that — but there had been a time when a teenager Nakahara Chuuya didn’t act too smug in private, still testing the limits of what being ‘in love’ meant.
Dazai, too, had coughed and petted the cat’s tiny head, trying to hide an all too obvious grin. It had been a good night, or at least it seemed so in Dazai’s memory.
It had also been a new beginning.
Nobody knew (well, Ranpo did, though that didn’t count) but, when Dazai first considered the ways to ask Chuuya to marry him again, for real this time, he asked Shuji’s for permission, too.
-
“Chuu~ya!” Dazai whined.
He was sprawled on the couch, his long legs dangling out, but he didn’t look too uncomfortable apart from the fake pained grimace that screwed up his face. A very much unabashed Shuji stationed on his stomach, moveless and ink-black like a piece of charcoal. Dazai had lost count of the times he’d tried to prove Shuji was a Susuwatari from Spirited Away in disguise, but his husband was blind and stubborn and (in Dazai’s modest opinion) fairly uncultured when it came to pop references.
Peeping out from the kitchen, Chuuya grinned.
“Well, Well. Isn’t this a sight?”
“Take your fat cat away from me already,” Dazai said, shooing Shuji away with a hand. The cat closed his eyes and yawned.
“Our cat. And no way, this is the best thing that happened to me in years.”
It seemed to him like it was punishment enough for the mackerel to be slacking off after Chuuya had (ever so kindly) asked him to wash the dishes.
“Chuuya! You’re cruel!”
“...Am I?” He asked, half-heartedly.
He doubted his husband even heard the question at all, since his attention had shifted back on Shuji.
“Am I a joke to you, stupid feline?” Dazai was mumbling, pouting like he could get a real answer.
The cat yawned again at his face. He looked younger when he did that, and the illusion they hadn’t wasted four years apart gnawed on Chuuya’s stomach.
God, it was so good to see Dazai have a taste of his own medicine.
Back then, Chuuya remembered countless times when he ended the day screaming into his pillow, frustration closing the headache like a ring pressing against his temples just because of Dazai’s constant spite.
The former executive would give hell to anyone, torturing colleagues or enemies with stupid questions and absurd shenanigans. Chuuya was his favorite victim.
To think that someone like the infamous Demon Prodigy had the will-power to single-handedly change his life to the point of becoming someone Chuuya didn’t fully recognize.
It wasn’t like the executive necessarily disliked those new, gentler sides of Dazai.
Sometimes, Chuuya was just thankful because, following some strange path of fortune and blood, he eventually got to marry the boy he’d loved since he was sixteen. But then, some other times, Dazai was a stranger in his arms.
Becoming a new man meant a better shot at redemption, sure, but it also chopped away bits of the partner Chuuya had loved, forcing the executive to embrace and understand the skin Dazai had shed the past few years.
More often than not, Chuuya considered the new Dazai a blessing to those around him, especially Ryuu and the Jinko kid; but then, when his husband went on rambling about how lovely the Detective Agency was and how perfect a mentor he had become, Chuuya couldn’t but help but wonder how much truth resided in that transformation.
If felt like a fraud.
“Chuu~ya!”
The executive flinched, snapped out of his musing.
“Hah,” he said. Then, he stopped.
It was strange. What was he expecting, though?
The mackerel had never been easy to deal with, a puzzle with no settled answer and a hundred of wrong solutions.
Chuuya first married Dazai when they were seventeen, drunk and during a mission abroad. Then, he did so again in spite of every possible risk and overlooking the very much likely occurrence of the love of his life vanishing on him again, but Chuuya loved him. Every side, every facet, every beautiful flaw of this incredible man.
The executive loved everything about the petty teenager he’d known and was prepared to stand by his side for everything Dazai would want to become in the future.
It was just weird how, sometimes, his brain got caught up into the unsettling, sticky impression of being married to two very different people.
“Chuuya? Hey, is everything ok?”
A rustle followed the question.
The executive stared at Dazai as he sat up straight, his blue eyes following his husband’s movements as the man took Shuji in his hands with careful affection and placed him on the couch to get up, but didn’t register any of that; not properly, at least.
He didn’t even blink and, sure as hell, his brain didn’t compute any of that, stuck as it was on the funny inflection his own name had on Dazai’s lips. Everything else was just a sequence of movements, like looking at everything from a blurred screen.
The first thing that he really felt was Dazai’s touch, his hands cupping his face and burning on his skin.
When they were teenagers, Chuuya’s hands used to be bigger. Now, Dazai slender, elegant fingers seemed created to rest against his cheeks, fingertips pressing gently against his temples and cheekbones.
A soft smile was painted on his husband’s lips. Chuuya fixed on that, mesmerized.
“Chibi, please?” Dazai asked, voice full of a warmth that reminded the executive of a summer sunset. It was a time that suited Dazai well, the sunset.
"Sorry, I spaced out."
“Talk to me. Did I do something wrong?”
“No, of course not.” A heartbeat later, his husband was still staring at him like he could read through the things Chuuya wasn’t saying. A sigh. “It’s just— I, ugh, I can’t believe you’re here, sometimes.”
He really didn’t mean to blurt that out.
At least, he didn’t mean to spat it out like that — angry and vulnerable and happy at the same time, suddenly brought back to his eighteen unstable self.
It didn’t come out quite right, considering how Dazai’s eyes widened.
Chuuya wanted to take that back because it wasn’t fair because Dazai did return to him at some point, patiently gathering the pieces of a heart he’d shattered four years before and handing back them to Chuuya.
Yet, before he could try to speak, Dazai secured him in a hug.
His lanky noodle arms wrapped around Chuuya’s body, keeping the shorter man close to his heart. The executive returned the embrace just as vigorously.
“I’m sorry,” Dazai said. It wasn’t enough to cover everything, but he was trying.
Chuuya snuggled against his husband’s chest, hiding in that spot that was his and no one else’s. He breathed in the faint scent from the lavender freshener that filled their drawers.
“You don’t have to be. It’s just that sometimes it’s a funny feeling, that’s all.”
“Would it be easier if Chuuya could see me in the Agency more? So you can...” Dazai hesitated “No, we can fill the gap.”
No way in hell, was the first thing Chuuya thought.
The very idea of mixing with the stupid detectives' bunch, ever so quick to judge the mafia from the pedestal of a high moral standard that didn’t mean shit, gave him the creeps. Plus, Kunikida seemed like the kind of asshole that would throw a mafia executive to the Government first and ask questions later. If he might say so himself, Chuuya considered himself too handsome, young and talented to die multiple times for multiple charges.
But then again... that was Dazai’s family now. And if he had agreed to marry the mackerel, again, it was because he was willing to be part of it, no matter what, no matter who else was there.
“That’s actually not a bad idea,” he forced himself to say.
And he was glad he did because Dazai’s enthusiastic squeeze made him feel warm and fuzzy on the inside.
“Come to lunch with a few of us tomorrow. We can make it look like it’s an unlucky coincidence.”
The executive scoffed a laugh.
“I guess it wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Good. Kenji will be happy,” his husband said.
If he really was to have lunch with the Agency idiots, at least Chuuya could still talk to the strong blond kid who seemed ok, say hi to Kyouka and check that dimwit Dazai wasn’t trying to turn Atsushi into a shameless womanizer; and then...
Chuuya smirked.
“I’ll be there only to check if you’re still flirting with that waitress.”
At that Dazai gasped, burying his face in the crook between Chuuya’s neck and shoulder.
“My love! I would never!”
Chuuya chuckled.
It was heartily, and warm, and Chuuya had freed his own arms from against Dazai’s chest to circle his hips.
“Liar.”
“You know... There are a lot of women I would die with purely for aesthetic purposes,” Dazai mumbled, in that pouty way of his that made Chuuya’s heart burst with tenderness. “But Chuuya is the only man I would live for.”
The executive swore his heart did a triple jump right there and then. His lungs had fallen to the ankles, and suddenly it wasn’t only Dazai that was hiding a blush in the embrace.
He cleared his voice, hating how much non-mafia that senseless gulp sounded.
Ugh.
Nakahara Chuuya, a wanted criminal, Mori’s best executive, robbed of his credibility as a mafioso by a stinky fish.
“... I’m gonna punch you,” he growled, in lack of a better answer.
Dazai giggled.
“Chuuya’s thing has always been kicks, though.”
It was tender, possibly even more than before — Dazai reminding him how deep their bond ran for any other reason rather than making fun of him sparked a warm fire in Chuuya’s chest, a fire that spread from the heart to his stomach to his cheeks and forced the executive to cling tighter to his husband’s embrace.
Shuji meowed loudly, a lament for attention, and Chuuya knew that he’d tested his cat’s patience and will to share cuddle-time enough for the night.
Both he and Dazai laughed at the same time, disentangling from the hug before their spoiled kitty could decide that his humans were too slow to respond and that revenge by crying crazy loud at three in the morning sounded like a good idea (Shuji’s spite, too, was Dazai-level). Together they turned to pet the cat, bright beams curling their lips.
When he saved a cat, Chuuya never thought someday he would have a husband, too. And a life, and a routine, and a perfectly polished penthouse plagued by horrible bandages and cheap saké and whiskey bottles.
Oh, well.
The things he did for love.