Chapter Text
The final touches were just about finished on the last report of Chuuya’s day when he received a message from Tachihara. There was an incident at the port, Docking Bay 13, a few of the Black Lizards had responded but were stuck on what to do, Akutagawa was having a meltdown, and could Chuuya, please, please, please come stop by for an off-the-records assist before the body count went up any higher. Chuuya sighed, putting his phone down after reading the message and massaging the exhaustion from his features. He didn’t want to guess what the body count was currently at or why. He swept up the folders in his Out-Bin, and deposited them on his assistant’s desk. The assistant, a new hire whose name continued to escape Chuuya, had clocked out two hours ago. He waved a good-bye to the night shift security on his way into the parking garage.
“Heading out, Executive Nakahara?”
“Yup, have a good night,” he waved his shoulder without breaking in his step. There was a time when he would’ve stopped, chatted for a minute, familiarized himself with the guards he was turning the Port Mafia headquarters’ safety over to for the night. There was a time when a late-night request for assistance wouldn’t have felt physically draining but emboldened him, left him feeling important and necessary. In those more recent months, however, he’d become more impatient about clocking out. There was somewhere else he’d rather be, other things he’d rather be doing, another person he’d rather be spending time on.
It was a short motorcycle ride to the port. Docking Bay 13 was barricaded. Armed guards and security cameras kept watch over every coming and going there. It wasn’t the only docking bay that Port Mafia cordoned off for their more confidential affairs but it was notable as the primary point for outward-bound black-market product. It was also the docking bay that Mori specifically used for all of his high-level business affairs, those that even Chuuya wasn’t privy to the details regarding. If there was an emergency at those docks, it was no wonder Akutagawa was high-strung over it.
Chuuya found the few members of the Black Lizards that were on scene - Tachihara, Akutagawa, and Higuchi – at the far end of the docking bay. Interestingly, and probably not a sign of anything good, Kajii was with them. There were several lower ranked enforcers standing off to the side, and three bodies sprawled out in a heap and bleeding into the ocean from laceration type injuries. Akutagawa was pacing, shaking his head, as Kajii spoke to him. Higuchi was nearby, watching anxious and alert for any commands Akutagawa might toss her way. Tachihara hung back, clearly disinterested in being near Akutagawa if he felt like killing anyone else. Tachihara was the first to notice Chuuya’s approach. He waved.
“Oi, Chuuya, over here,” he called.
Akutagawa froze in one spot and gave Chuuya a bewildered look, blurting out, “Why are you here?”
The young man had to be on edge to speak that brazenly. Tachihara and Higuchi gave Chuuya twin panicked looks and Chuuya easily surmised that they’d gone behind Akutagawa’s back to bring him there. He put his hands in his pockets and shrugged, offering up a crooked smile.
“Midnight stroll,” he jerked his chin towards the bodies and asked the obvious, “What’s going on here?”
“Everything is under control,” Akutagawa hastily replied.
Chuuya tipped his head to one side and cocked an eyebrow, “Three of our dock guards are dead, and several personnel not stationed to this area are present. You want to try that one again?”
“You’re not supposed to be here either,” Akutagawa pointed out, the corner of his lip twitching in annoyance, his eyes darting back and forth from the bodies to his subordinates, piecing together that someone called for Chuuya, and looking as though he might enact vengeance for their insubordination right then and there. Whatever the ‘incident’ was, it was bad. Chuuya weighed his options. He could leave them to clean up this mess on their own, potentially keeping Akutagawa’s dignity intact – which was clearly Akutagawa greater concern of the moment – or he could pull the superior card and write all of them up – additional paperwork that he would need to turn in before heading out that night. The first one would undoubtedly come back to bite Chuuya in the ass, and the second would add more hours to his already longer than planned night.
“Listen, I’m not here to step on toes. I’m not technically here at all, okay? I got a call, doesn’t matter from who. We’re on the same team, right? No one is trying to undermine you, and we don’t need to kill any more of our coworkers. Remember what we talked about, Akutagawa. Killing our own people is bad for morale,” Chuuya said, “Let’s start over. What happened?”
Akutagawa pouted a minute and Chuuya could almost see the multiplicity of cracks beneath the surface of his carefully constructed walls. His face twisted into an ugly sneer and he tapped his foot as he explained.
“One of the shipments has gone missing. Those idiots were responsible,” Akutagawa waved his hand at the deceased, “I was merely setting an example.”
He fell just short of adding ‘exactly as I was trained’. It was easier if Chuuya pushed that uncomfortable truth aside. He couldn’t change or fix the past, it was better to focus on the facts in front of him. A shipment was missing, he could work with that, maneuver Akutagawa off the crazy rage train and onto productive thought processes.
“Alright. Great. Missing crate. What was in it and where was it going?” Chuuya asked. Akutagawa made a strangled noise, and turned to pace away, gesturing at Kajii. Chuuya looked exasperated at the flashy Port Mafia scientist, wearing sunglasses even in the evening. Of those present, he seemed the least perturbed about what was going on around him.
“It was a special shipment. Black box,” Kajii explained.
“Oh, fuck,” Chuuya pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. Black Box meant something of Mori’s, top tier confidential. They could consider all of their lives forfeit if they didn’t quickly recover it or come up with a very short list of places where it could’ve gone and people that could be killed in retaliation for it. “I take it you’re here because you know what’s in it, Kajii?”
“I may have had a hand in crafting and crating it,” Kajii proudly proclaimed.
“On a scale of one to ten, how dangerous are we talking?” Chuuya demanded, folding his arms over his chest and glaring at the other man. Kajii tapped his fingers together and tipped his head from one side to the other, humming as he considered the answer.
“I would say about…erm…twenty-five?”
“Great,” Chuuya sighed. He vaguely considered sending a message about being late and decided better of it. Everyone was already glaring at one another with unmasked suspicion, no reason to strike a flint under that bomb waiting to go off. “Alright, where was the crate when it went missing?”
The four exchanged befuddled looks.
“How long ago was it determined missing?” Chuuya asked, another round of uncertain glances, “Do we know if it ever even arrived at the docks? Who was the one that reported it gone?”
Akutagawa lowered his gaze and the other three turned their eyes towards the pile of dead bodies. Chuuya took a deep breath.
“Right. Did you ask him anything before you killed him?” Chuuya tapped his foot on the ground.
“Of course,” Akutagawa said indignantly, cleared his throat, and added, “I asked who the last person was to see the missing crate.”
Chuuya gaped at him in disbelief, “You…and then…you killed him?”
“Yes,” Akutagawa jutted his chin out and puffed up his chest.
“For…for being the last one to see it?” Chuuya clarified, beginning to wish he’d ignored Tachihara’s message, deleted it and pretended he never received it – docks had a bad network signal, after all.
“Clearly, the man did not fulfill his responsibilities in securing the shipment if it went missing soon after he saw it,” Akutagawa said, looking altogether put out about having to explain himself.
“And the other two?” Chuuya prompted, because he had a feeling he really didn’t want to know and might as well get it out of the way now.
“One was responsible for patrolling grids one, four, and seven, and the other one was responsible for grids two, three, and five. The immediate area of and around the specified shipment. After the first one, they were the ones to most recently see the crates,” Akutagawa explained.
Chuuya ran a hand over the back of his neck, “Okay. So, let me see if I’ve got this straight. You’re telling me, that a black box shipment of undisclosed and highly dangerous material has disappeared and your first investigative act was to…kill everyone that might possibly have provided us any information about what was going on, where everything was at, and whether anything suspicious happened leading up to the moment they realized it was missing?”
“It was clear that they were irresponsible and derelict in their duties,” Akutagawa repeated stubbornly. He, at least, had the good sense to look a bit abashed, but before Chuuya could tamper down the exact way to handle the situation, Akutagawa put his defenses back up and heatedly remarked, “What information could they have provided, though? They were useless and failed to safeguard the shipment. I acted rationally in ridding the Port Mafia of obvious dead weight. It’s what Daz…ah…”
Akutagawa seemed to remember himself, stopping short and bowing his head. Tachihara and Higuchi steeled themselves for the inevitable fall out for such an offensive slip of tongue. Chuuya shuddered, wishing he’d brought a heavier coat to work that day, the weather was moving towards winter temperatures and it was more prominent on the dock. His heart was in his throat and breath bated, too tired to even feign a reaction.
It was a line of thought Akutagawa had been chasing more and more those days as their organization saw increasing interactions with the Armed Detective Agency. He was struggling with separating the past from the present. Chuuya didn’t have the luxury to wallow in either, he was walking a tight rope, and teetering too far over either edge would knock him over.
“No. You’re right,” Chuuya said. A strange and surprised relief seemed to settle over Akutagawa’s expression, even though the others looked completely gob smacked. “We have all the information we need from them. We can say with certainty that the crate was here at some point, if we’ve got three eyewitnesses. We can use their patrol routes to narrow down where the crate was located. It had to be along a cross section between those grids they patrolled, so we inspect those points and find the gaping hole where a crate should be. We can also get an ETA on disappearance, if that one was the last guy to see it, once we narrow down the grid it was in, we can figure out when he last patrolled that point, and from there we pull the security camera footage.”
When he finished speaking, the others were staring at him in a kind of dazed marvel. Chuuya grinned and waved his hand above his head.
“Well? Get to it?” Chuuya said, snapping them out of it.
Akutagawa, Higuchi, and Tachihara pulled a map of the docks from the harbor master and marked the cross-sections of their dead patrolmen’s routes. They split up to search. Chuuya lit a cigarette and glared at Kajii.
“You’re exaggerating about what’s in that crate, right? Because if it’s that bad, and I don’t want to scare the kids and all, but we need to call Mori.”
“Oh, no, no,” Kajii laughed nervously and said, unconvincingly, “It’s not something we need to bother Mori about. I assure you. It’s not something we want to bother Mori about.”
“Kajii,” Chuuya folded his arms over his chest, “What are you not telling me?”
“What am I not telling you, huh? Hm…that’s a long list. There are a lot of things I don’t tell you; you’ll have to be more specific. I don’t tell you about cosmic radiation, or cellular mitosis, and I definitely don’t tell you about the chemical structure of hydrofluoric acid and how it works to breakdown molecular structures,” Kajii waggled his brows at Chuuya.
“Executive Nakahara,” Higuchi’s shout interrupted Chuuya’s internal debate on how best to breakdown Kajii’s molecular structure while making it look like an accident. She was running their direction, calling breathlessly, “We found something. There’s…it’s…you need to come see, please, sir.”
Higuchi led the way back through the stacks of shipping crates. Chuuya followed close and Kajii lagged a few paces behind. They came up on Tachihara and Akutagawa standing over an upright metal plate, a gaping hole in the ground that it used to cover, leading into a dark pit. It was large enough for one of the smaller packing crates to fit down, and without knowing how large of a crate they were looking for, it seemed a prospective lead. Akutagawa and Tachihara appeared to be politely arguing about who should be the one to go down first and investigate.
“…I insist that you go in. As your superior, it only makes sense that I stand guard and…watch…” Akutagawa was saying.
“No, no, I think, as the superior officer and ability user, here, you should really be the one…” Tachihara replied.
“Both of you, move,” Chuuya barked command.
They scattered aside as he pushed through. He grasped the edges of the entrance to lower himself down and his feet hit the underground floor with a startling splash, dirty water coming up to his mid-thigh. He wrinkled his nose at the stench, it appeared to be a sewer canal of some kind but he couldn’t see farther than a meter in any direction. The dock’s swamp lights were swallowed up by the darkness in that hole.
“Hand me a light,” Chuuya called up to the others, and it wasn’t long before Tachihara was stretching a flashlight down to him. He lit it up. There were two directions to choose from, in front and behind. He shined the flashlight’s beam down both ways, looking for some sign to indicate the crate came down there. It was hard to imagine. The canal was maybe big enough to move the crate along on its own, but with the water, a thief would need a boat – which definitely could not have fit down there.
“What do you see?” Akutagawa’s voice echoed from above. Chuuya growled under his breath, shaking his head.
“Nothing. I don’t think…SHIT!” he yelped, hands instinctively flew up to clamp a hold on his hat, as his feet came out from underneath him. He was plunged backwards under the water, something thick and strong corded around his ankles, it felt braided like a metal cable, dragging him through the water at a rapid rate. It wound and wove him down along the canal, bumping him against the gravel ground and stone walls, water flooding his airways.
It took Chuuya several tens of seconds to shake off the initial startle and get his wits about him. He weighted himself down with For the Tainted Sorrow, and ripped free of whatever had a hold on him, using gravity to pull it in every direction. He pushed himself through the water’s surface, gasping and choking for air, coughing up and gagging out as much water as he could, he’d swallowed more than he cared to think about.
“Akutagawa!” he shouted. No answer. “Tachihara…Higuchi!” Only his echo returned. “Fuck. Kajii?”
Somewhere along the way, he’d lost the flashlight and was now in complete darkness. His heart and mind racing, he fumbled through the water until his hands touched a hard surface: the wall. He put his back against it and used his ability to push everything that wasn’t air away from him. Tremoring from the cold, he dug his phone out of his pocket and attempted to unlock it. Nothing. It was soaked through with water. He laid his head back against the wall and closed his eyes.
“Shit. I should be home, right now,” he murmured. It was too late for regrets and didn’t help anything to fantasize about being dry and warm in a comfy bed, tangled up in lanky limbs and a small warm, furry body nuzzled against his neck.
The temperature shifted and, nearby, the water churned. Chuuya’s eyes flew open, still greeted by pitch black. He placed his phone back in his pocket. Kept his hand on the wall, and started back the way he was fairly certain he’d been dragged from, using his ability to repel anything he couldn’t see away from him. He made it a few meters, when the hairs on his arms stood on end, and he could make out the sound of shallow breathing nearby. He wasn’t alone and he couldn’t be certain if it was a person or a creature. He put it to the back of his mind, continued walking, determined to stay the course, until he took a step, and his foot never hit the ground. He kept falling past the floor and tumbled down. He managed to lighten his fall but not enough to avoid the torque on his ankle. He felt the immediate gush of cold and a wave of nausea. He picked his foot out of the hole, sat with his back against the wall, clutching the ankle tight in an effort to ease the rapid swelling.
That was when his silent companion decided to make their move, taking a running lunge at him. Chuuya heard the slap of feet fall, and managed to rolled out of the way, feeling the breeze of the stranger’s attack brush across his backside. He sprung to his feet, shifting his gravity to keep the weight off his injured ankle – it still throbbed in complaint at the slightest of movement. The assailant was at him again, swinging with calculated moves that he barely dodged and blocked at the last minute. For a minute or two, they danced like that, Chuuya relying on his instincts, and the push and pull of gravity as his eyes, reaching along the molecules around him for how they bent about his attacker. The assailant was wielding some weapon, it cracked against the wall, taking out chunks of stone in its wake. They were fast, graceful, unhindered by the lack of light, and Chuuya realized, definitely human.
“Enough,” he bellowed, sending a shockwave through the canal that cracked the ground, quaked the earth above, and, he hoped, sent his assailant flying back. “Who the fuck are you? What are you after?”
He didn’t expect an answer, and he didn’t receive one. Suddenly, the assailant was in front of him, he could feel their breath on his face, and he stumbled away, tripping over backwards onto the ground. He raised his arms up to block, but the expected attack never came. For several seconds, he waited, attempting to catch his breath, straining to hear any signs of the other person. Something warm brushed along the back of his neck and his stomach twisted into a knot. He couldn’t be sure if it was real or his imagination, driven to the edge of paranoia alone in the dark, but the feeling that touch left in him was not entirely unfamiliar. It was one that lingered with him since returning from a bloody mission in Venice, pressed into the edges of his mind in quiet moments of solitude, drowning out his thoughts into a fading echo that left him waking drenched in sweat and frozen, parallelized, at night, unable to call out or reach for help. But it didn’t make sense. Why here? Why now?
Chuuya pressed out with For the Tainted Sorrow, pushed it to its limits, knocking away the touch at his neck and everything else around. He could hear the stone walls groan, the ground cracking underway, water sloshing at the edge of his jerry-rigged force field. He hugged his knees up to his chest, buried his face in them, and attempted to catch his breath. He couldn’t pick his way back to the entrance and protect himself without light, all he could do was wait. If it came down to it, and help never came, he’d bust his way through the earth, but for now, he couldn’t still the tremors in his body. He didn’t know how long it was that he sat like that when he heard the echoes of familiar voices, preceding lights bouncing off the walls.
“Executive Nakahara!”
“Chuuya?”
“He’s over here, I see him!”
Chuuya unraveled and recomposed himself, loosened his muscles and pushed the emotions back into the darker recesses of his mind. He turned a half-smile on his rescue party and demanded, “What the hell took so long?”
Tachihara and Higuchi looked equal parts exuberant and distraught, Akutagawa just looked sick. Kajii was nowhere to be found. There were a few suits with them, armed with high-powered flashlights and guns. Tachihara hurried over to help Chuuya to his feet.
“What happened?” he asked, “One second you were there, the next…”
“Something is down here,” Chuuya grimaced and sucked the air in through his teeth, as he tested some weight on the ankle, “Someone is down here. Probably the ones responsible for that missing shipment. I think we should keep searching this direction. That’s where they came from.”
“But Chuuya, are you sure that you should…?” Tachihara began, darting concerned looks at the obvious disarray and injuries Chuuya had sustained during his unexpected ride, but a sharp glance from Chuuya locked his mouth on his next protests.
Tachihara lent Chuuya a shoulder to lean against, and Chuuya parted the water so they could continue unabated and dry searching for Chuuya’s attackers or clues as to what the hell was going on. They didn’t have to travel far. The canal opened up into a room that was about six square meters across. It branched off into three different directions, all of which were closed off by bar doors secured with heavy chain locks. Not that it mattered. In the center of the room was the missing crate. Akutagawa went to inspect it as Higuchi led the suits to check on the doors.
“You didn’t come across anyone on your way to find me?” Chuuya asked Tachihara.
“No. And there weren’t any forks like this along the way. We didn’t see any other entrances overhead, either.”
“The crate hasn’t been opened,” Akutagawa called. Chuuya dragged Tachihara towards it, resting a hand against a red insignia stamped on one of its sides, a symbol for one of the Port Mafia’s shell companies overseas, but Chuuya couldn’t remember which one.
“What the hell was the point of bringing it down here, then?” Chuuya wondered.
“Executive Nakahara, sir,” Higuchi returned from the locked doors with a plain white envelope, handing it over to Chuuya. It was sealed with red wax stamped by a rose symbol. “It was on the door.”
“Let’s get Kajii down here with a team to move this thing back where it belongs,” Chuuya said, handing the envelope over to Akutagawa, “Deliver that to Mori with your report on what happened here tonight. This should go without saying, but don’t open it. Boss’ll decide what to do with it.”
They left Higuchi and Tachihara back with the other men to watch over the box. Akutagawa helped Chuuya back through the canal. It was several minutes of silently sloshing back the way they’d came before Akutagawa spoke.
“I owe you an apology.”
“You owe me a dozen bottles of wine,” Chuuya retorted. Akutagawa faltered, chased back into his uncertainties, and Chuuya sighed, not in the mood to be the one that had to lift everyone else up out of their emotions that night, the skin at the back of his neck still tingling from the oddly familiar touch, “Forget it, okay. It’s fine.”
“It’s not though,” Akutagawa insisted.
“You were wound up about the missing shipment. We were all stressed, it happens. I’m not even all that mad about the dead employees, though, I’m not filling out the paperwork on it either. Besides, I get it, okay. No one likes being tattled on, you felt like you were being mutinied against,” Chuuya said.
“That’s not why I’m apologizing,” Akutagawa said and Chuuya paused, wrinkled his brow in confusion.
“It’s not? Then what the hell are you wasting my breath about?”
“Dazai.”
Chuuya could swear his heart stopped for a minute or two. He swallowed his emotions down, concentrated on moving one foot in front of the other, grateful for the low light hiding the fluster in his cheeks.
“What about him?”
“What I said. I shouldn’t have brought him up and I shouldn’t have used him against you like that, it was out of line. He’s a traitor, and his methods and his teachings are the methods and teachings of a traitor. I shouldn’t be giving them value, certainly not over the authority of a loyal Executive,” Akutagawa said.
“Really, it’s okay,” Chuuya murmured, suddenly feeling ten degrees colder than before.
“It’s not. Especially knowing your history and the feelings you have towards him. Your hatred for Dazai is rightfully earned, and my own respect for him aside, he isn’t here. You are, and we wouldn’t have been able to find that missing shipment if you hadn’t been,” Akutagawa covered a hacking cough and Chuuya nibbled at the bottom corner of his lip, trying to hold himself steady when the other man said, “One day, you’ll be granted your right to carry out that traitor’s execution. I want you to know that you have my support. We will kill him for his betrayal, I promise you.”
Chuuya didn’t feel like he could breathe again until he’d left Akutagawa’s side and climbed out of that hole. Kajii was waiting at the entrance. He offered Chuuya no assistance getting back on surface level, not that Chuuya would have wanted any from him if he did. Akutagawa wasn’t far behind.
“We found your missing crate,” Chuuya said, giving Kajii an acerbic look, “Thanks for all your help.”
“You did? That’s great. Where is it?” Kajii peeked down the hole. He frowned at Chuuya, “You didn’t bring it back with you? You’re literally the only one here that can carry it out of there.”
“I didn’t want to pick it up, I don’t know what’s inside of it and you said it was dangerous,” Chuuya replied with mock innocence. He grinned at Kajii and gave him a soggy pat on the shoulders, enjoying the cringe it brought to the other man’s face, “I figured since you’re the only one here that does know what’s in it, you should handle its retrieval. You should be able to get it out of there by tomorrow morning, right? First ship leaves at the crack of dawn, make sure that box is on it.”
“Ah…aren’t you going to stay…lend a hand or a gravity manipulating ability or something?” Kajii pleaded. Even Akutagawa was watching Chuuya with a stricken expression.
“As it just so happens, I am clocked out for the day and my free, off-the-book’s services ended when we found that crate. After a month and a half straight work, I finally have a day off tomorrow…er…correction, today. Make sure no one calls me for anything short of the port being on literal fire,” Chuuya said as he hobbled towards freedom, waving a hand over his shoulder in farewell. He paused momentarily, a terrible thought popping into mind, he amended, “And Kajii. Don’t light the port on fire, please.”
“That’s not like him to leave a job unfinished,” Kajii complained, “Where’s he in such a rush to get to? He doesn’t have anyone waiting at home for him.”
Chuuya stopped by his downtown apartment for a shower, throwing his suit and hat in the pile for his dry-cleaning service to pick up. He dressed down in a red t-shirt, black jeans, and dark gray hooded sweatshirt. He took his bike to a bar on the edge of the Suribachi City crater, walking the rest of the way to the two storied safe house he maintained there, outside of the Port Mafia’s knowledge.
Once Chuuya stepped through the front door, the familiar warmth and smell washing over him, a mewing bundle of fur crashed against his legs, it was like a thousand pounds dropping from his shoulders. He smiled, kneeling to scoop up the eager kitten at his feet. The rest of the flat was quiet and dark. His plants on the side balcony rustled in the full moon light. He crept into the kitchen, where he found a covered clay bowl and peeked inside: leftover oden. There was a slip of paper beside it that was scribbled on with a doodle comic featuring a stick figure in a familiar looking hat. The stick figure was walking along the street, only to come across a giant crab. The crab and stick figure fought, and it ended with the crab pinching off the stick figure’s head.
“I guess that means he’s mad,” Chuuya sighed and carried the bowl to the refrigerator, mostly bare of food, and stuck it inside. He went to the bedroom, pale light casting strange shadows on the floor through the shaded windows. There was a floor roll in the middle of the room, on top of which and under a mess of blankets slept a man with shaggy brown hair and bandages wrapped over his, otherwise, bare chest, up his neck, and down the full length of his arms. Chuuya quietly removed his own sweatshirt and jeans, folding them neatly beside the door. He tiptoed towards the bed, lifting the blankets to crawl in.
Dazai stirred, his eyes opening to thin slits. He glanced at Chuuya, who paused on the edge of the bed roll, feeling awkward on all fours, ankle throbbing and the rest of his body sore from the unexpected end to his day. Dazai drew in a heavy breath, let it out slow, his eyes slipped shut once more as he shifted to make room. Chuuya curled up against Dazai’s chest, laying so they were facing one another. Dazai slunk an arm over Chuuya’s shoulder, drawing him closer and brushing his lips against Chuuya’s forehead.
“You’re late,” Dazai complained in a groggy croak, “I cooked dinner. It was special.”
“Yeah, I saw. It looked special,” Chuuya replied in a low whisper, tracing his fingers over the layers of bandages, picking at their edges, “Something came up at work. Took me longer than I expected.”
“I sent you messages. Some of them were even serious, with real questions,” Dazai murmured, threading his fingers through Chuuya’s hair.
“Right, yeah, I didn’t get them,” Chuuya winced, “Reminds me…I need a new phone. There was an accident…water was involved…
Dazai opened an eye to peek curiously down at him. He shut it once more and gave an indignant little huff, “I see. You’ll just have to make it up to me and spend the entire day tomorrow doing everything I tell you, serving me hand and foot.”
“What the hell makes you think I’d agree to that?” Chuuya demanded, flustering.
“You already did. You are my dog, remember, Chuuya? And a good dog answers when its master calls,” Dazai said. Chuuya reached up and gave his cheek a hard pinch, tugging at the skin.
“I’m not your dog, Dazai.”
“Then why are you always growling and barking and biting at me like one?” Dazai demanded, his words comically slurred by the hold Chuuya had on his face. Chuuya let him go and pushed him away, attempting to turn over and distance himself, but Dazai latched on, wrapping his legs around Chuuya and pleading, “Where are you going? Now that you’ve reunited with your master, you should be jumping in your master’s arms and licking his face! Chuuya, why are you such a disobedient dog, tonight?”
“I’m not going to lick your face, freak,” Chuuya laughed for a half second before it was cut off by his gasping and crying out in shocked pain, his injuries jostled by Dazai’s playful attempts at restraint.
Dazai pulled away immediately and Chuuya curled into himself, wincing and grasping at his ankle. There was a rush of cold as Dazai left the bed and the light switched on. Dazai returned, pulling back the covers and gingerly picking Chuuya’s fingers away from the injured limb.
“It’s fine. Leave it,” Chuuya hissed.
“Chuuya,” Dazai whined, “This is why you were late for dinner? You were off having fun without me! And you weren’t even going to let me know what happened, were you? I spent hours slaving in the kitchen…”
Chuuya shot Dazai a bewildered look, “Hours? On oden?”
“I’ve never made oden before,” Dazai explained plaintively.
“Don’t…don’t you just throw things in a pot and heat it?” Chuuya said.
“When you say it like that, sure, it sounds easy,” Dazai scoffed, “But it’s really actually very technical and hard. There’s an especially difficult part where you have to measure out the ingredients for dashi…”
Chuuya rolled his eyes, “Can we just go to sleep now? I’ve had a long day…”
“Hours slaving in the kitchen, Chuuya,” Dazai continued in his rant, “All to impress you, only for you to return late, the dinner I slaved hours in the kitchen to make now cold and gone to waste, and you come home covered with marks from someone else. Someone else! Who was it? I want names, descriptions, details, Chuuya, all of the details!”
“Ugh, forget it, Dazai. It’s Port Mafia business. I don’t need you meddling in my work, asshole. I’ve got it covered,” Chuuya said.
“At least let me wrap your ankle,” Dazai pouted.
“Fine,” Chuuya relented, laying back on the bed and dropping an arm over his face.
The kitten sat at his shoulder, touching her nose to his cheek, and then curling up in the crook of his neck. Dazai left the room for a moment to retrieve a roll of bandages. He returned, sat on the floor at the end of the bed roll, and gently lifted Chuuya’s ankle up into his lap, prodding at the swelling. Chuuya wrinkled his nose and glared at Dazai.
“Is that necessary?”
“I’m just making sure nothing’s broken,” Dazai sniffed, unfurling the bandaging and pressing the end to Chuuya’s ankle, “You would be stupid enough to walk all over Yokohama on a broken bone and not tell anyone or see about getting it properly set.”
Chuuya supposed if he was going to get bandaged up by anyone, Dazai was the best option. It wouldn’t take Dazai long, he’d had enough practice wrapping himself like a mummy everyday for the past…who knew how many years. Dazai had been wearing his wall of bandages for as long as Chuuya had known him. Chuuya had been able to coax Dazai out of the arm bandages on those rare occasions they’d experimented with intimacy, but it was as far as Chuuya was allowed to see. It seemed a fair tradeoff. There were parts of himself that Chuuya still kept locked away from Dazai too.
They’d been doing this for a couple months now. Going about their respective lives, separate of one another, working for organizations that were diametrically opposed in so many ways. They kept up the guise of mutual hate, lied to their friends and coworkers, and in the veil of night, slipped off to the slums of Suribachi to take turns cooking each other dinner, telling each other stories of their days, kissing and fondling and exploring each other, and falling asleep in one another’s arms if only for the brief momentary pleasure of waking up next to one another before they parted ways and repeated the cycle. Yet, there were painstakingly obvious limitations to their playhouse. Outside of those walls, if what they were doing was discovered, Dazai would be ostracized and Chuuya would be killed.
“We had a new client come into the agency today. A beautiful woman. I immediately asked her to commit double suicide with me,” Dazai said, his attention entirely dedicated to the careful wrapping of Chuuya’s ankle.
“Oh? How did that go over?”
“Kunikida was immensely disappointed in me.”
“What else is new,” Chuuya buried his fingers in the kitten’s fur and she began to purr against his ear.
“The woman was flattered, of course, but would you believe she said ‘yes’,” Dazai raised his eyes up to find Chuuya’s.
“No, I would not,” Chuuya replied, giving Dazai a sharp ‘do not fuck with me’ look.
“Ah, but she did,” Dazai tied the bandaging off and set Chuuya’s ankle to rest on his knee, his fingers lazily tracing circles up along Chuuya’s bare calf, “It may be true love.”
“I see. So, when’s the big day,” Chuuya glared.
“If I tell Chuuya will he come to stop it? Throw himself between us? Beg me to live instead,” Dazai mused and Chuuya smirked at him.
“Who am I to stand in the way of true love? If anything, I’d shake her hand and thank her for ridding the world of such a nuisance.”
Dazai leaned down to press a kiss to Chuuya’s bandaged ankle, “You’re so cruel, Chuuya.”
“Come here,” Chuuya’s features softened, he reached his hand for Dazai, and Dazai obediently moved forward towards his touch, settling his weight over Chuuya, folding his arms and laying his head on Chuuya’s chest. Chuuya wrapped his arms tightly around Dazai’s shoulders, smiled and closed his eyes. “Do you want me to stop you from committing double suicide with this beautiful woman?”
“Want has nothing to do with it. You’re supposed to. You’re my dog. A good dog does anything to keep its master from abandoning it,” Dazai murmured, nuzzling up under Chuuya’s chin and dotting kisses along his collar bone. Chuuya pulled Dazai up by the shoulders, and Dazai dropped a kiss to his lips. When they broke apart, Chuuya ran his fingers through Dazai’s hair, pushing the shaggy locks from out of light brown eyes.
“I’m tired, Dazai, let’s go to bed,” he whispered.
Dazai pressed a firmer kiss to Chuuya’s lips and drew completely away to shut off the lights. He slipped back under the blankets, momentarily rearranging them over Chuuya’s legs, and, mindful of Chuuya’s injuries, entangled their limbs once more. He buried his mouth against Chuuya’s neck, his breath hot on the spot of Chuuya’s skin that a strangely familiar touch had brushed against in the absolute dark of that underground tunnel, churning in Chuuya’s stomach a haunting memory. Chuuya snuggled in closer to Dazai, burying himself in the warmth and scent of the other man, and let himself drift to sleep.