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Being the best in the business means having a veritable queue of people eager to consume his services. Four years into this and he already has a system in place when it comes to weeding out the most useless trash from those that still have their uses.
He has an answering machine connected to the phone number that he advertises on plain white business cards: no fuss, no fancy decorations. Just his name in romaji, severe lines of DAZAI OSAMU and a ten-digit landline with an area code for Ikebukuro. Anyone who makes an appointment with him by calling that number is thereby blacklisted; if they don’t possess enough brain functions to realize that he is based in Yokohama instead and that being on the constant move means that landlines are obsolete, then he doesn’t have anything to discuss with them.
He saves the thicker business cards in steel-gray for offerings during bland business introductions and small-talk; they lead to his top-of-the-line smartphone that’s in a constant state of being overheated, since he uses it primarily for playing mobile games whenever he’s bored out of his skull. In this terribly dull world, he is bored a lot. Anyone who contacts him via text might as well shoot themselves in the foot for leaving behind such easily traceable evidence. His information is valuable, yes, but it’s never going to be able to cure stupidity.
A great number of client prospects are filtered out this way.
It’s testament enough to how valuable he is, despite his pickiness—or rather, it’s a testament to how much money are in the hands of people desperate and evil enough to require his services.
After all, Dazai Osamu only accepts the most worthy of cases. The cases he ends up taking are ones that he’s spun into motion, orchestrating sequences of events that will lead his clients into contacting him, all the while thinking that it’s their idea to begin with.
…That is why: coming back from a quick grocery run to the 7-11 next street over, he is fairly surprised to see his one-bedroom apartment be home to one uninvited visitor.
He breathes in, thinks of two ways to use the plastic bag stuffed with barbecue-flavored chips and canned crab to incapacitate the intruder, and then—
“—Don’t bother,” the intruder says, sitting down on the exact spot that he prefers on his living room couch, all languid grace. “I can kill you where you stand twenty different ways and that’s just off the top of my head.”
Dazai breathes out, and says: “Mm, that’s not very impressive, is it? Since the top of your head… doesn’t amount to much.”
The intruder’s facial expression twitches into something foul. Unfairly enough, there is still enough gracefulness in the sweeping lines of him coming into motion, smoothly rising to his feet and yes, proving that he is indeed vertically-challenged. Bright red locks that call to mind a conflagration, coupled with vibrant blue eyes that look hotter than the sun.
The uninvited visitor then stomps his feet, and the floor shivers. “I’ve heard rumors about how terrible you are, and I must say that they haven’t done you justice at all.”
Dazai kicks his apartment door close, and considers the man in front of him with a raised eyebrow. “I have heard rumors about you as well.”
“Oh? You have, huh?” The other man matches the cock of his eyebrow, openly daring him to approach.
It is his apartment, so he doesn’t need the additional incentive. He shuffles closer to the other man, the pad of his feet and the rustle of the plastic bag hanging on his arm deliberately loud in order to disguise his attempt at slipping out the switchblade from the cover of his long-sleeves.
“Ah, yes.” Dazai nods, but keeps his gaze pinned on the other. “The King of Sheep, Nakahara Chuuya. I had wondered, you know?”
Nakahara Chuuya’s eyebrow climbs higher, but he doesn’t look incredulous or threatened in the least. In fact, he looks amazingly casual and at home, as though it’s him who actually owns this place and Dazai’s the trespasser. “Is it the kind of wondering that involves a switchblade hidden in your sleeve?”
“I had wondered about the ‘sheep’ bit.” Since it’s already been sniffed out, he slides the switchblade to his left palm and lifts it up as though to surrender it. It’s annoying that the other’s noticed it so quickly, but it really is just a back-up for the fact that he also has a hidden blade under his right sock. “But then, I finally got it, once I saw you.”
“Not only do you have a shitty personality, you also have shitty aesthetic sense.” Nakahara returns. “Who the hell dresses while wrapped in bandages and four blades tucked in weird places?”
Dazai sucks in a breath. Four blades. This brat’s instincts are very sharp.
But, he’s the best in the business. He’s not about to be wrong-footed in front of someone who’s a good head shorter than him.
“You are worthy of being called the King of Sheep – you are as small as one, ne? I’m sure that if I shear off all of your bravado, you’d be nothing but a cocky brat drunk with power, hmm? Whatever shall your flock of sheep say if they see their dear leader be reduced to—”
The uppercut isn’t a surprise, loudly choreographed by the enraged battlecry of, “I’m gonna fucking punch you to death!”
The speed of it is a surprise to him, and the sheer power behind it more so. Dazai finds himself hurtling back against his apartment door, robbed of breath and with fireworks of pain blooming in rapid succession over his head and torso. He’s pretty sure he’s managed to halfway block it with a guarding arm, but he can’t quite ascertain it at the moment, as it feels like it’s been torn off from his elbow down.
Before he can take full stock of the damage on his person, a heavy foot slams against his stomach, trapping him against the door after he’s skidded downwards with his ass on the floor.
“I shouldn’t have expected anything better,” Nakahara sighs, then digs the heel of his shoe against his shirt buttons. “Will you actually shut the fuck up and listen to your client’s request?”
Dazai can’t help the derisive snort of laughter that escapes him. “Do they not teach you manners out there in the wild? Breaking and entering does not really constitute good client behavior, no?”
“Huh?” Nakahara’s bewilderment looks oddly innocent on his face, mismatched with the way the rest of his body seems primed to fight. “Then, how the hell was I supposed to contact you?”
He ensures that his tone drips pity and condescension in equal measures. “Haven’t you heard of phones? My, it really is so dreadful out there in the wild, hmm.”
A harsh click of tongue. “Big talk for someone who probably only uses his phone to play games.”
It’s just a wild guess, Dazai tells himself, unwilling to admit that he’s somehow become transparent to the glorified, infamous leader of a glorified gang made of brats. “Takes one to know one, hmm, chibi?”
“I am not a—”
“Let me guess, you play games on your phone because you have no friends to message you.”
Another click of the tongue, this time accompanied by a pointed dig of the heel. “Takes one to know one, huh, asshole?”
“Are you admitting to having no friends?”
“I have plenty of comrades,” Nakahara says flatly. “Are you admitting to being a condescending asshole?”
“Yup,” he admits breezily, and takes advantage of the split-second of surprise to roll away from the other’s foot. It is more inelegant than what he’s comfortable with, but given the flabbergasted expression on the other’s face and the fact that he can now breathe easier without the other’s foot on his stomach, it is the right move.
“…You are the strangest person I’ve ever met,” is what Nakahara says eventually.
Contrary to the rumors, Nakahara is not some bumbling, hulking mass of muscle, nor is he a towering giant ready to mow down anyone who strays into his path. The King of Sheep is notoriously private, to the point that there isn’t any facility that has a full-body full-color picture of him.
…Ah, but there is GSS that once claimed that they’ve managed to have information on the King of Sheep, but they’ve also somehow managed to lose it, their main headquarters blown up to smithereens. Is it possible that this chibi actually destroyed them for daring to have his photo? Is that why nobody has any useful records on him? Is he that confident he can silence him after this encounter?
It’s strange.
His life is one big ocean of murky boredom, a mix of troughs of the painfully brain-dead, with crests scattered few and far-between. The last time he remembers not being so bored is when he’s still in that place, eating his second plateful of curry rice for the day, surrounded by the clamoring of the other orphans that OdaSaku was looking after. Of course, the next day after that, OdaSaku had two bullets to his chest, that it was almost unthinkable for him to have survived it.
But OdaSaku did survive, but he’d also taken his kids with him to go somewhere far from the Port Mafia’s reach, should they decide they want to enforce their law in making sure nobody leaves the organization alive. And Dazai stayed here, because a life in the countryside surrounded by brats is not for someone like him. So Dazai stayed here, working as an informant so that he’d be the first to know if the Port Mafia had any plans of going after his friend, while doing work that could ensure he brings the maximum headache to Mori-san.
…So, it’s really strange.
Right now—
He feels his pulse singing, as though he’s actually alive.
“And now, you look constipated,” Nakahara comments with a wrinkle of his nose.
“And you look like a slug,” he quips, making a show of stretching his limbs.
“A slug?” More like a gullible fool, instead of a notoriously fearsome leader of a troublesome gang, Nakahara does a little dance as he looks his own body over. “Which part?!”
His succinct assessment is: “You’re short and fat.”
“S-Sh—! Fat! I’m not fat!”
“You were very heavy,” Dazai points out and pointedly rubs his stomach, where there’s an imprint of the other’s shoe. Well, he doesn’t actually see the imprint, but he’s pretty certain it’s there. “You should cut back on the junk food and stock up on milk… ah, it’s useless at this point in your life, hmm?”
It’s a net that he throws, because there isn’t any confirmable information about the other’s age. He can’t be all that older than Dazai, because Sheep is a gang that sells itself as a haven for the young. To be quite honest, Dazai wouldn’t be surprised if the other is like, fifteen, because he looks so small and immature.
“I’m only 22! There’s still hope, damn it!” Nakahara takes the bait splendidly. He makes some rude gesture towards Dazai’s kitchen cupboards, thereby proving that he’d seen it fit to snoop around in the fifteen minutes it took Dazai to satisfy his canned crab cravings. “Also, I don’t want to hear anything from a guy who stocks up on cup noodles and canned crab! What are you, prepping for a zombie apocalypse?!”
“Zombie apocalypse…? You are quite the childish one, aren’t you?” Dazai writes ‘incurable chuunibyou’ in his mental casefile on the other. “Ah, but it makes sense that you’d think of that.”
Nakahara shifts his hips just so, a non-verbal prompt for him to go on.
“Zombies eat human brains, right? Doesn’t that mean you’re safe?”
A heavy sigh. “Are you always this annoying to your clients?”
“My clients would be willing to lick gum from the bottom of my shoes.”
Predictably, a disgruntled scowl rises on the other’s face. “How are people so stupid?”
Dazai wonders the same thing, sometimes. Aloud, “Is that a glimmer of self-awareness I’m seeing?”
“Your clients don’t mind getting treated as foolish.” Nakahara’s fingers are slim as he counts off. “They also don’t mind that you’re a slippery piece of shit who has no loyalty to them.” His blue eyes are a bit mystified. “You can’t be that good, can you?”
Dazai doesn’t shy from matching the other’s stare.
The sparse information he has on the King of Sheep are as follows: wild, red curly locks, very destructive fighting style, invincible on one-on-one fights and group skirmishes. Kicks heavy enough to shatter the ground, shield stable enough to stop a bullet in its tracks. Never shows his hands while fighting, so there’s rampant speculation about disfigurement or black magic. He quite favors the information he’s heard about the King of Sheep possessing tentacles for hands.
The truth is a lot more grounded, and therefore stranger.
Nakahara’s fingers look beautiful, enticing even. Even more so when he’s sticking up his middle finger like that once he’s had enough of his lingering stare. “So?”
“So?” He echoes, and is delighted by the fact that Nakahara looks even more irritated.
“You can’t be that good,” and it comes out like a question.
“Why don’t you tell me?” Dazai is tired of standing around and posing—he’s assessed Nakahara to be a violent idiot who would not kill him tonight—so he shuffles towards his couch and reclaims his favorite spot. It’s still rather warm from Nakahara’s body heat—how illogical. “You’re the one who broke into my apartment just to hire me. At eleven in the evening. Or is this a booty call? Were you hoping to find me naked?”
“Ha?!” A flash of red envelopes Nakahara—that’s not even counting the fact that he suddenly blushes, a furious storm making him appear like someone caught in a denial. “Why would I, you, shameless ass, I wouldn’t—!”
Dazai waits him out, even as he feels the dangerous, oppressive sensation of the air in the apartment being squeezed out, due to the pressure of the other’s Ability. Gravity manipulation. Nobody’s been able to get a confirmation about the King of Sheep’s Ability, but there’s no other way to explain this heavy weight, this inescapable magnetism.
Nakahara’s Ability did not activate earlier when he’d stepped on Dazai’s stomach. Even without the Ability’s activation, he brings with him a certain weight that’s more than capable of pinning others down. In response to his own capabilities, his bones had probably grown sturdier and denser to take the brunt of the raw power.
By the time he refocuses on the stuttered denials, a flustered afterthought of, “p-plus, you probably sleep in your bandages, like, like a mummy, a mummified idiot, urgh”, tumbles out Nakahara’s mouth.
“Rather unprofessional,” Dazai replies. “Spent a lot of time thinking about my sleepwear, hmm?”
“You’re a weirdo and you look like a weirdo so it didn’t take me long, don’t flatter yourself.”
“Do slugs even have brains? Maybe I should upgrade you to a dog instead?”
“A dog—!”
“The smallest one there is. A Chihuahua…” Dazai then sniggers. “A Chuuyahua.”
“So annoying…” Nakahara doesn’t look bothered that someone he deems as ‘annoying’ is being overly familiar by using his first name, even for a mere offhand joke. “You shouldn’t insult dogs, you ass. You could learn a thing or two about loyalty from them.”
Somehow, that stings. It’s just a wild guess, he tells himself again. He also resolves to not let his sudden discomfort show, and that he will casually address this chibi as much as he can to make him uncomfortable. “My neutrality is non-negotiable, I’m afraid. I wouldn’t want to alienate any future clients.”
“Neutrality…?”
“Also known as impartiality,” Dazai doesn’t resist the urge to stab into the other’s patience. “It’s the state of not supporting any side in a conflict. Should I go on with the definitions? Should I keep our conversation to small words?”
“Condescending pricks like you are the worst,” is said with great feeling.
Dazai flutters his eyelashes exaggeratedly to go with his simpering, “And a tiny chibikko like you is way past your bedtime, but do you see me complaining?”
“You’ve been complaining a lot.” Dryly. “Plus, isn’t it rich that you keep on harping about your neutrality? It’s plain for anyone to see that you aren’t neutral at all.”
It really is strange. He’s been in this oxidizing world murky with dissatisfaction with life for twenty-two long years now. He’s always thought that OdaSaku was the closest to someone understanding him and his motives, born out of the unique mix of personality, his wealth of life experiences and his Ability that allows him to read things into the future.
And yet, now, cannonballing out of nowhere, there is this person who’s literally barged into his life, acting like a heady mix of airheaded, naïve and worldly all at once.
It is plain for anyone to see that he’s indeed far from neutral – it’s not something that he takes special care to hide. And yet, nobody else has seen it.
Dazai narrows his eyes. “That kind of accusation is bad for my business, King of Sheep.”
“I’m not a King,” Chuuya declares with the imperiousness and surety of an emperor. “I’m just someone who’s ended up with a powerful card.”
The sudden burst of regality fades into something more laidback almost immediately. It is fascinating, no, sickening, to witness. Dazai tells himself he isn’t helplessly intrigued.
“Underground groups that have obvious beef with the Port Mafia have been surging over the past four years,” Chuuya says lightly, even as he sinks to the spot on the couch beside Dazai with a heavy ‘oof’. Proving Dazai’s suspicion that he’s been raised by wolves, Chuuya doesn’t actually sit properly, instead half-sprawling himself and shifting so he can still easily catch Dazai’s stare despite sitting side-by-side.
Dazai tells himself that it’s just the other’s insane battle instincts at work, distrusting him and therefore wanting to keep a steady eye on him.
“The Port Mafia does have its slumps.” History is never his favorite subject, but he’s pretty much memorized everything there is to know about Yokohama’s underground organizations’ histories. The organization that he’s unceremoniously left isn’t an exception. “Mm, did you know that after it was founded in 18—”
“—I’m not stupid.” Chuuya cuts his history lesson before it can take flight. “Mori Ougai suddenly becomes the Boss of the Port Mafia, armed with a lackluster backstory about how a mere doctor has ascended to power, along with a mackerel-eyed assistant. And then Port Mafia enters its golden age.”
Dazai raises an eyebrow at that. Mackerel-eyed. He’s never heard that turn of phrase to describe him. It’s utterly ridiculous compared to respectable monikers such as ‘Demon Prodigy’ and ‘Black Death’. He thinks he’d like it more if only it didn’t come from a chibikko.
He doesn’t bother acknowledging the truth in the other’s lines.
Chuuya reads it as an acknowledgement to continue. How vexing. “And then, you suddenly disappear from Port Mafia’s ranks and resurface as a freelancer informant. And all of Port Mafia’s enemies suddenly find themselves growing exponentially stronger. Put that way, isn’t it pretty simple to understand?”
Chuuya makes it sound so simple, when it’s anything but. Really. Trust a simpleton to be a reductionist. It’s incredibly vexing that he’s still managed to understand the salient points despite not having a big brain.
Dazai takes a deep breath before, “If you’re here to hire me to openly have a feud with the Port Mafia, I’ll have to decline.”
…Not because he has compunctions about taking his slow revenge against Mori-san, but because working with this sheepdog is bound to infect him with stupidity. If he already has to suffer a headache and some strange heart palpitations within a few minutes of meeting the other, it’d be much, much worse if they have to spend an extended amount of time together.
Chuuya is looking at him like he’s waiting for further explanation, skepticism blatantly displayed in the twist of his mouth.
“…I can make you a referral, if you’re so desperate—”
Like before, the speed of Chuuya’s movement is lightning-quick. That is not the surprising part now. What shocks him is the electric heat that suddenly surges all over his body, when Chuuya lunges for him, quashing him against his end of the couch. The couch’s arm digs into his back as his lap is filled with someone who suddenly feels larger than life itself, lithe physique seemingly wider than the entire world in how he’s able to effectively box him in.
“—It has to be you,” Chuuya tells him with none of his childish bluster and all of his imperious self-assuredness, like he knows that there’s no reason for him to doubt himself in the face of impossibilities. “I came here for you, Dazai Osamu.”
With the way that he’s parked himself right over his groin, it’s such an unfortunate timing to remind Dazai that he hasn’t utilized the services of his right hand recently. Chuuya is seemingly oblivious to his growing predicament, even wriggling slightly as he raises both hands so he can cup his cheeks and ensure that their eye-contact doesn’t get broken.
His mouth goes dry and he’s never been rendered speechless, but right now, his premonition that Chuuya’s stupidity is infectious is being proven. He feels his body curling forward to seek more of the other’s warmth, and then Chuuya’s eyes suddenly drop to his mouth, followed by a short moan that could have come from either of them.
Both of them say, “I—”
“—Dad, when are you coming home?”
Chuuya literally jumps away from him, the red glow of his gravity manipulation wrapping around his body as he flies towards the ceiling.
Dazai’s torn between laughing his ass off at the other’s spooked expression and groaning at the interruption. He focuses on the important part, trying his best to keep any jealousy out of his tone. “You have a kid?”
Chuuya’s face grows red, and before he can respond, “Dad, when are you coming home?”, erupts once more from his pockets.
Looking five seconds away from an aneurysm, Chuuya takes his phone out of his pocket with enough force that it wouldn’t be surprising if the phone ends up as a flattened chunk of metal. He then bites out a, “Not funny, Atsushi, go to sleep, you need rest, damn it!”
To Dazai, he says, “…Sorry about that. One of the new members thought it’s funny to change my ringtone.”
Dazai tells himself that he’s not relieved at all, because he doesn’t really care either way. He doesn’t. “I don’t know, with the way you reacted, you’re definitely hiding something. Are you running away from your child’s mother?”
“I told you—! There is no mother!”
“So you’ve abandoned her?” Dazai shakes his head in mock sympathy. “You’re a naughty dog, aren’t you?”
“I don’t have a kid!” Chuuya shrieks like a madman, floating back down and rather conveniently on top of his lap again. “There’s no mother at all!”
Thing is, there’s something fishy here. Dazai supposes that the reason he’s about to be hired has to do with this ‘kid’. Still, seeing Chuuya so openly flustered is interesting. So he continues with his teasing. “That’s what people always say though.”
Arms folded over his chest, Chuuya harrumphs. “I wouldn’t have tried to kiss you earlier if I actually had a kid.”
Dazai gapes, until a strangled “what” gurgles out of his mouth. Chuuya simply looks at him, as though he’s the daft one here. When he finally manages to get something aside from flabbergasted monosyllables, it’s to demand, “What do you mean you’ve tried to kiss me earlier?”
“I thought you were smart,” is what Chuuya parries with, forgoing defensiveness in favor of a sharp offense. “Was it not obvious enough?”
A huffy snort. “You were clearly drooling over yours truly, like some dirty dog.”
A shake of head, but there’s a small smile on Chuuya’s mouth as though he’s enjoying this teasing. “You’re not that hot.”
“I so am.” Everyone in the red light district knows Dazai and his tendency to ask beautiful ladies to commit double suicide with him, and yet they still flock to him. It’s clearly because his hotness is an insurmountable barrier to human logic. More importantly… “You just have no delicacy. Did they not teach you that you’re not supposed to just admit such things?”
In his line of business—even while he’s been the youngest Executive in Port Mafia’s history—straightforward honesty is a vital weakness. It calls out to bloodhounds like him, who’ll exploit it as much as he can. No matter how small, a chink in an armor is a possible spot that welcomes a killing blow. Easy admission to things that one wants—even OdaSaku took a long time to finally uproot himself from Yokohama and its underground network. The fact that this chibi in front of him finds it so easy to bare himself is vexing.
Chuuya scrunches his nose. “What’s the point of hiding it?”
“The—”
“—anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s not like I want to kiss you right now.”
He barely manages to stop himself from tearing his own hair out of frustration. With forced calm, he grits out a, “Good. I’d rather die than be slobbered over by a slug.”
“I thought you’d be upgrading me to a dog?” Chuuya tilts his head in question. “According to my sources, you’d prefer to die rather than take a bath, so pardon me for not being impressed with that.”
“Just for that, I am charging you quintuple of my usual rate.”
Blue eyes widen, but it’s not the surprise of one who’s given up and then suddenly getting presented with what he’s wanted to begin with. It’s more of a, oh, you’re giving in already. It stings somewhere inside his gut, because the only reason he’s giving in is because he wants Chuuya to finally get off him and stop squashing his gut.
“You don’t even know what I’m hiring you for.”
And it’s an unspoken challenge.
Something that Dazai gladly rises to. “You went to the trouble of tracking me down to my apartment, when you could have left the task of contacting me to your adoring sheep. You wish to get the help of someone who’s familiar with Port Mafia’s methods. You have a new member that you’re fond of to the point of allowing them access to your phone – a new member who needs rest, as you’ve said.”
Chuuya’s eyes have flecks of gray in them, visible only when their faces are this close to each other. He doesn’t say anything, breathlessly waiting for Dazai to finish his deduction.
“The Port Mafia has been hunting down this new member of yours and you wish to understand why, so you can plan a proper counterattack. The Sheep ensures a payback of at least ten times, right?”
Warm breath teases against Dazai’s mouth, before Chuuya huffs and finally jumps off him, opting to park his weight over the couch’s opposite end. “Sounds impressive. Probably even more so if I wasn’t sure that you’ve been tipped off by the fact that I called him ‘Atsushi’ in the phone call.”
Dazai’s lips twitch.
Really. This chibi looks stupid and prone to picking (and crushing) fights by his lonesome, but he does possess some instincts. It’s true that hearing ‘Atsushi’ is what solidified his theory – there’s a report about a runaway from one of the orphanages on the northern borders of the city, coupled with the Port Mafia suddenly shuffling their resources to make room for Akutagawa to operate on a secret solo mission. There’s also some buzz about a 7-billion yen bounty. Put all together…
“I shall not reveal the inner workings of my mind.” He taps his mouth thoughtfully as he unwinds himself so he can sit more properly. “It’s too complicated for microorganisms like you.”
“Just as well, it’s probably filled with shitty things.”
“Much better compared to being filled with air.”
Chuuya clicks his tongue then makes a strangely intimate beckoning gesture towards him. It’s just fingers curling in a graceful arc, Dazai tells himself.
“Now’s a good time as any. Come back to my place.”
“…I thought you don’t want to kiss me anymore?”
“I didn’t say anything about kissing now.” The snort of laughter that spills out of Chuuya’s lips is warmer than the promise of crab hotpot in the middle of winter. “Since Atsushi’s being an idiot and staying up instead of resting, you can interview him.”
“And you expect me to just drop everything and come running to your lot?”
“You already dropped your groceries,” Chuuya points out as he gestures towards the plastic bag unceremoniously forgotten on the floor.
Dazai rolls his eyes. “You are such an infuriating simpleton.”
“You are an annoying mackerel, so we’re quite even on that front.”
“Shows how much you know about mackerels, then. They’re—”
“—you can interview the Mad Dog too, if he’s already awake.” Chuuya drops off this bombshell like Sheep getting hold of an unconscious Akutagawa Ryuunosuke is somewhere rock bottom of a grocery checklist. “I tried not to hit him too hard, but he really was adamant in cutting off Atsushi’s leg, so…”
Dazai is torn between scoffing about how Akutagawa’s never learned anything from being his protégé, and being miffed that his protégé is defeated so handily.
“I’ve heard he’s gotten himself some persistent kouhai in his squad.” Higuchi Ichiyou joined after he’s left the mafia, but in his casefile for her, her lack of Ability is nothing to her ability to be stickier than glue to Akutagawa. Not to mention, Gin. “You must expect to welcome the Black Lizard Squad descending on your little hideout.”
“I can take them on,” Chuuya says with a shrug, casual as you please. “That part isn’t a problem. It’s more troublesome that Atsushi seems way too invested in him despite all the murder attempts.”
“So this Atsushi-kun is a strange one too. Sure he’s really not your kid?”
…There’s a saying about how third time is the charm. He’s not quite sure which part of this is supposed to be charming, but he supposes that it’s the press of lips against his, warm, chapped and just this side of dry. Chuuya’s movements remain frighteningly quick, but the speed at which he suddenly slices into the space separating them is inversely proportional to how he lingers in their kiss.
His lungs scream at him, so he pulls away after dizzying moments, breath incinerated by the fact that Chuuya follows him, chases after his mouth so that he can do very unexciting things such as flatly press them together. It’s annoying enough to deal with virgins who don’t know how to do anything, so he angles his face and opens his mouth. Just as he’s starting to commit to showing the chibi on how to do a proper kiss, Chuuya pulls away with a grin.
“We can do more later,” Chuuya says simply, the blatant invitation apparently not fazing him. Dazai’s never met a more simple-minded person in his entire life. “But, are you now convinced that I don’t have a kid?”
“Kissing has nothing to do with that, you idiot.”
“No?” Rapid blinking shouldn’t look attractive on anyone. It shouldn’t. “I heard from Mei-Mei that once you have kids, you don’t kiss anymore.”
“Whoever this ‘Mei-Mei’ is, they’re definitely tricking you.”
Dazai files that as one more tick in support of ‘airhead’. That, or something more complicated. He considers Chuuya in front of him, the cluelessness over typical human behavior, as though really doesn’t know otherwise.
Occasionally exchanging postcards with OdaSaku once he’s sure that the routes are secure, so that nobody else can ever find him and disturb his peace with his kids. Staying in Yokohama for lack of solid direction in where he wants to steer his life towards.
For the first time in a long, long time, he finds himself getting interested in solving the puzzle.
Not about the bounty, though that can be interesting too in its own right.
Nakahara Chuuya.
There’s something definitely worth investigating about him.
He still thinks that spending more time with an idiot is bound to infect him with stupidity, but… it’s worth trying. He rarely finds things he thinks are worth trying, but the worst case scenario is that he’s proven right and the big secret is that Chuuya’s been raised by wolves and that he becomes a little bit stupid during their interactions. Impossible, in short, because he’s too smart for such things.
“Whatever,” Chuuya says brusquely, before tugging him by the hand. “Let’s go already.”
Dazai finds himself not resisting the other’s hold. It feels like Chuuya’s leading him to an entirely new world, a bright path that’s suddenly opened up for him who’s spent a long time in the murkiness of boredom and apathy. His heartbeat pulses between their palms as he asks, haughty, “That eager to bring me to your home? I knew you really were drooling for me.”
With a squeeze to his hand, Chuuya laughs in response and that is an answer warm and comforting enough on its own.
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coda
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Chuuya’s fifteen when he suddenly feels a sharp twinge in his belly. He knows he should be investigating the rumors on Arahabaki and the black fire, but then Shirase and Akira got involved in some of the newer members’ foolish raid over one of Port Mafia’s booze supply.
Saving them is a high priority, and he doesn’t regret being there to ensure that they can escape with light scratches. He doesn’t regret it, but there’s that sense that he’s missed something important. Restless energy fill him, and he finds himself circling Suribachi City later that night, not knowing what he’s looking for and yet feeling like he has to keep on looking or else he’ll never be able to forgive himself.
He stops by near one part of the abandoned settlement. There’s something there, a scent of something that makes him feel exhilarated and depressed at once. It feels like he’s supposed to meet someone here, someone important. He looks up at the moon and waits, but all he’s encountered are the buzzing mosquitoes.
The next day finds him sleep-deprived and irritable, but then he also receives a report that someone from Port Mafia came sniffing yesterday. Around the same spot that he’s felt very peculiar about. The surveillance picture is blurry, and Chuuya’s first thought is: shitty mackerel.
He dismisses the report—it’s laughable how low Port Mafia’s sunk, hiring brats to do their grunt work—but he finds himself sneaking to steal the photo anyway. There’s something strange there, but he’s not able to determine what. He keeps the photo and he keeps an eye on the brat’s movements, whenever he’s not too busy with Sheep’s affairs.
He won’t actively think of the shitty mackerel until years later, when a foreign organization descends upon Yokohama. Mimic. He’s not sure if they have links to the foreign soldier rumor about Arahabaki in Suribachi City, but he follows them nevertheless.
…It’s only a whim, when he follows their leader, Gide, and finds him engaged in a fight to the death with a familiar face. Oda Sakunosuke. Someone that he’s seen around the shitty mackerel.
It’s only a whim that he alters the course of the bullets so that they don’t kill the red-haired man.
He tells himself it’s not because the only time he’s ever seen the shitty mackerel have some measure of light in his eyes is when he’s seen him with Oda Sakunosuke and his kids.
They won’t meet again until four more years later, but once the opportunity presents itself, Chuuya doesn’t hesitate to offer his hand in hopes of taking a path that will resonate with what his heart wants.
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end