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Bad news always flock to him in droves, and Chuuya should have known to expect some measure of peace upon receiving the order from Boss Mori that he’s supposed to play nice and not scream bloody murder while on some business trip with a certain shitty mackerel.
“This day is the worst,” Dazai tells him the moment they meet on the airport. He’s smiling creepily though, because he’s a weirdo. “The absolute worst!”
“That’s my line, asshole,” Chuuya responds with an eyeroll so hard he feels dizzy from the force of it. That, or he’s gobsmacked by the fact that Dazai is actually wearing something other than his hideous underpaid detective getup. That, or he’s utterly bewildered by the sight of Dazai actually owning a suitcase—throughout their partnership, the packing duties have always been relegated to Chuuya because Dazai’s too much of a bastard to actually deign packing something other than the clothes he’s wearing, and whatever bag of tricks he’s about to pull out from his never-ending pockets.
The second piece of bad news comes in the form of the entire airport practically reeking with stupidity.
It starts with the check-in lady, who coos at them and wishes the two of them a ‘happy honeymoon’.
In Chuuya’s opinion, the only way that phrase would make sense when applied to the two of them is the fact that he’d be more than happy to kick Dazai to the moon and ensure that he’d never come back by virtue of sticking him there with some industrial-grade honey.
Any other interpretation is bound to cause him cardiac arrest. And while he’s more than willing to lay his life down for the sake of important things, death due to Dazai-induced rage is just beyond pathetic.
Dazai merely laughs and flutters his eyelashes at her. Only saving grace is that he doesn’t actually state the real reason for their trip. The truth—‘we’re about to attend an international meeting for Ability User groups’—will probably somewhere between a complete delusion which would involve a hasty call to the nearest hospital, and a terrorist threat.
The Port Mafia striking a cooperation deal with the Armed Detective Agency has an additional downside of some Agency members not cowing in fear at the sight of him anymore.
Case in point: from the send-off area, there’s the Agency’s jinko who beams at him like he’s his mother about to shower Atsushi with a lavish spending allowance for abandoning him during a honeymoon. It creeps Chuuya out, which causes him to take an uncertain step back, which in turn brings him back-to-chest against Dazai.
Atsushi’s smile widens to an almost manic degree, as he babbles nonsense such as, “Thank you for finally taking him out on a honeymoon, Chuuya-san”, and “please take all the time that you need, even three months is okay”. He twitches upon hearing that H-word again but he tries hard to parse the meaning and decides that the brat means to say that folks at the Agency would also like a vacation from Dazai’s antics.
The International Ability Summit itself takes place over seven days. A week is kind of an overkill. In recent years, the meetings that Chuuya’s been involved in don’t last more than two hours. Half-hour for pleasantries, one-hour-twenty-nine minutes for various people to posture and threaten each other, one minute for Chuuya to shut them all up.
Then again, this is the first international Ability Summit and there’s still so much tension over a lot of the groups from different countries. Despite everyone being in staunch agreement that ‘Rats = bad’, that’s pretty much the only point of agreement. As such, nobody expects anything to actually get done in the first five days.
Not for the first time since he’s been assigned this mission, Chuuya bemoans the fact that it’s him who has to endure this. Negotiation and manipulation have never been—and at this rate, will never be—his strong suit, after all. Pasting a fake smile instead of just kicking ass isn’t his idea of a good time, much less a worthy course of action.
He has a sinking feeling that his assignment is more because someone needs to be there to rescue Dazai’s ass after he pisses off someone by acting… so Dazai.
Urgh.
…Anyway.
Their plane tickets assign them to neighboring seats and Chuuya nearly succumbs to the itch to strangle Dazai with the seatbelt, after he’s been subjected to witnessing Dazai ask all of the flight attendants to a double suicide.
“Didn’t you promise Kouyou-san that you’d play nice and not kill me?” Dazai turns to him with twinkling eyes.
“You’re right, I can’t dishonor my promise to Ane-san,” Chuuya says, tone heavy with grievances, before whacking Dazai’s forehead using one of the magazines tucked in front of their seats.
-
Plus point: there’s a four-star hotel that’s been booked for them for the duration of the International Ability Summit. The lobby looks like a healthy marriage between cozy and posh.
Too bad that the hotel’s virtues are immediately cancelled by the receptionist. She’s wearing a scarf in a way that reminds him of that girl that works with Prof Glasses (Tsujimoto? Tsuji…? Tsuji-something). Too bad she’s not as sensible as that girl, because this receptionist smiles at them widely and sends them off to a room with a single king-sized bed, after ‘assuring’ them that it’s the honeymoon suite. All done without seemingly noticing that it’s closer to a death sentence than an assurance.
Chuuya opens his mouth to start yelling bloody murder just to keep up with the deadly theme, his promises of good behavior be damned, but then Dazai pointedly dangles the gem of, “This hotel’s honeymoon suite comes with free-flow of champagne and wines.”
And Chuuya… he may have a god sealed inside him, but he is still very much a normal human—with weaknesses, damn it.
…So, the two of them end up sharing a king-sized bed that reeks of rose petals.
He gives the special honeymoon menu 5 stars out of 5, with special compliments to the excellent champagne selection.
-
The first day of the International Ability Summit, Chuuya wakes up with a mummified snake entwined with him. He should have taken it as the bad omen it clearly is. Instead, he reads it as a regular annoyance, something that he resolves by brandishing his elbows against the soft gut that’s clearly lacking exercise.
Dazai yelps, moans, groans and pretty much whines like an overgrown child. As though getting shoved off the bed is considerable injustice. Chuuya rolls his eyes and makes sure to step on Dazai’s instep on his way to the bathroom.
-
When they go downstairs to the conference hall reserved for the summit, there’s a faint buzz of unease. Most of the attendees have their faces attached to their phones, frowns on their faces. The good mood that Chuuya’s had—after managing to whack Dazai five times over the course of the elevator ride down—disappears in a flash.
He elbows his companion’s stomach to prompt him into action. Dazai is capable of taking things seriously every once in a while, so his complaint is noncommittal, as though spoken just for the sake of maintaining status quo. Chuuya doesn’t even kick his shins for silently stealing his phone off his pocket, so that he has two phones in his hands, one quickly sliding past news sites, the other connecting to the Special Ability Department’s Emergency Line.
He also doesn’t bother asking Dazai why he’s using his phone to contact Prof Glasses—it’s been some time, but times like this reminds he that those two used to be drinking buddies, once upon a time.
It’s easy to fall back into old routine, him herding the completely-absorbed-in-his-information-gathering Dazai to a secluded corner, and making sure he’s not disturbed. He stands guard, radiating pressure even without calling upon his gravity manipulation. All of the summit attendees are Ability Users and most of them have apparently heard of ‘soukoku’, because they all steer clear of the two of them.
Not even ten minutes later and Dazai touches his elbow. His face is grim and he doesn’t even make a joke about Chuuya acting as his bodyguard. That tells him that some serious shit is happening indeed.
-
Countries and research institutes are busy pointing fingers at each other. Regardless of who’s at fault, fact is there’s an outbreak of a highly-contagious virus that has an alarming spread rate and a mortality rate that is comparable to the older pandemics in the time of unevolved healthcare.
“Is it an Ability?” Chuuya asks Dazai as soon as the two of them are back in their shared room, after the meeting has been postponed indefinitely in the wake of countries all over the world popping into news feeds like mushrooms, all bearing infection numbers.
Dazai sighs, “It’d be easier if it is.”
An Ability at least has the dubious ‘advantage’ of something that can be nullified by No Longer Human.
“…but it isn’t, based on your deduction.”
Dazai collapses face-first on the bed, so his words are muffled by the bedspread when he replies, “You do know that I’m not an infectious disease expert, right, chibikko?”
Just for that, Chuuya makes sure that when he sways to the bed, back-first, he lands right on top of Dazai, squashing the breath out of the shitty mackerel.
“I trust your judgment on this.” As he says this, he keeps his focus on the bland ceiling above them, instead on the sudden spike of heartbeat underneath him.
A pause, before: “Then my judgment is that you’ve been eating too much recently. How come you’re so heavy, when you’re so tiny?”
The two of them end up bickering, as always, but it at least helps lighten the mood as the two of them wait for updates.
-
By the time they wake up from their impromptu nap following a vicious pillow fight, it’s to a rapid development on the virus front.
In just a few hours, flights have been suspended. Strict quarantine and lockdown measures are being hammered down. The few shops that haven’t been shut down have long, looping queues.
The sense of unease grows inside his chest, in his gut. Arahabaki is unsettled, probably sniffing something in the air that he can’t discern with his human senses. Their hotel room faces the street and there’s a faint misty sheen to it, the overcast sky making it appear drearier. It’s almost like the White Qirin’s mist, just with more people out in the streets.
“Chuuya, Kouyou-san is on the line,” Dazai tells him. He doesn’t even feel annoyed that Dazai is calling up Port Mafia people on his behalf.
Dazai doesn’t budge on the bed when Chuuya sits, cross-legged, in front of his laptop connected to a video call with the Port Mafia Headquarters. Ane-san’s gaze is stuck on the part where their thighs are pressed together, until Chuuya has to clear his throat to get her attention.
She tells him the same things that are on the marquees underneath the news channels on the muted television screen in front of the bed. Apparently, this virus has been affecting other countries for months already, but news of it has just been hushed up. Now though that the deaths are spiking and hospitals are being overwhelmed, it’s impossible to cover the truth anymore. Strict lockdowns are the only current hope in halting the spread of the infection, since the virus is capable of infecting someone without said someone displaying symptoms. Thousands, possibly millions, of silent, unknowing vectors.
“We’ll stay put here,” Chuuya says eventually, ignoring Dazai’s sudden stiffness beside him.
“Getting you back here safe is more important than Port Mafia playing nice with the government,” is said with full conviction. After all, Mori Corporation isn’t lacking private jets, but with all the sudden flight suspensions, a plane leaving Yokohama is bound to attract the wrong kind of attention.
Still, Chuuya shakes his head, even if he’s filled with soft gratefulness. “We’ll need to pool our resources for more important endeavors.”
There are other more areas that need their attention, instead of ‘rescuing’ him. Especially since it’s not like he can punch the virus off. Kajii may act like a crazy lemon-obsessed idiot most of the time, but he is a scientist. Boss Mori is a doctor. They can work together with the Agency’s doctor. The private jets can be reserved for evacuating other people or transporting goods.
Ane-san gives him an understanding smile, before stating, “Stay safe, both of you. Keep in touch.”
Chuuya stares into the ‘call disconnected’ screen for a few moments, simply breathing and keeping his head purposely blank. He’s pretty sure that Arahabaki will not allow him, the physical vessel, to be infected—or at least, not in too much distress. Then again, the more important part here is…
“Your tacky hat has really eaten your brain,” Dazai pipes up, exaggerating a mournful expression on his face. “You do realize that there’s an easy solution for you, right?”
He raises an eyebrow and stalls on punching the other’s jaw. “The fuck are you talking about now?”
“You’re tiny, so if you fly back home, they’ll just think that you’re some wayward cockroach, instead of someone who’s flaunting his breaking of the quarantine rules.”
Chuuya breathes in, holds it for a five seconds, then lets it out in a whoosh, along with a punch that grazes the other’s cheekbone. “You’re the one who’s stupid, idiot.”
“You’re calling me, an idiot? Even though you’re the chibi?”
“M-My height has nothing to do with this?!”
“You’re so small, which means that the space for your brain is also small.” Dazai says this with a sagely nod. “And if your brain is small then it means that you’re the stupid chibi.”
“You are the stupid one here!” Insistent. “Did you forget that your troublesome Ability is to nullify other Abilities?!”
Dazai blinks at him, mystified. “You mean…”
“I can’t fly back because you’ll just cancel my Ability, okay?!” Chuuya feels his face flushing, but he soldiers on, because he’s already started his rant, he’s not about to turn back halfway, damn it. “Also, I cannot fucking believe that you think I’d just leave you behind, even if you’re an absolutely shitty person! Who snores like an elephant!”
More rapid-blinking. As though Dazai really didn’t consider the possibility that Chuuya would rather be stuck quarantined away from home, as long as the two of them get to stick together.
Dazai takes a couple of moments—an absurdly long time for someone like him—to recover. When he jokingly asks, “How come you know how an elephant’s snoring sounds like? Something you want to tell me, chibikko?”, there’s an obvious tremble in his voice, so Chuuya lets it go with a light thwack on non-existent biceps.
-
Due to the nature of the missions they’ve been assigned to during their days together in the mafia, they’ve been stuck together in tighter spaces, in deadlier combat scenarios. It shouldn’t be so difficult this time, because at least they have an actual bed (even if it’s just one bed) and an excellent bath. Because it’s a four-star hotel, no worries on the electricity/internet-connection/water supply front too.
It shouldn’t be so difficult, so Chuuya has a hard time believing that they’re fighting over this too. While he’s very much aware that their partnership’s main cornerstone is their bickering, this is still too much!
“I’m the one who should go out and buy groceries because I’m the one who can actually carry them.” Chuuya thinks that it’s a sound statement, but trust Dazai to always contradict him just because.
Dazai crosses his bandaged arms over his chest as he looks down snootily at him. “I’m the smarter one so I can choose the right items for maximum survival.”
“You’re just going to buy a fuckton of bandages and canned crab, aren’t you?!”
“Canned goods are a staple of this type of scenario, chibikko. Bandages too.”
“You’re fucking annoying, that’s what you are! Stay put here!”
“If you go out, you’d probably allow everyone to cut in the line ahead of you,” Dazai points out, making it sound as though his tendency to be nicer to the elderly is nastier than the virus. “And you’d take a very long time there because you’d end up helping everyone carry their stuff!”
Chuuya denies it with a weak, “I’m not that much of a goody-goody two-shoes, damn it.” He hates that there’s a huge grain of truth in the accusation though. Not just a grain, really, practically a boulder. He hates it even more that Dazai knows it.
“Anyway, you stay put here, chibikko, let the grown-up handle the adult things~♪”
A twitch. “The only ‘grown-up’ thing about you is that you’re a huge bastard! I’m older than you, oi!”
“Uwaaa, so petty, is that the mark of an adult? You’re just older than me by two measly months! And it’s not even obvious!”
“Not obvious?! Who’s the one who thinks we can survive on canned crab and bandages?!”
“A mark of an adult is learning when to forgive and forget things from the distant past, you know?”
“It hasn’t even been ten minutes!” After this exclamation, Chuuya rubs his forehead with the heel of his hand, because talking with Dazai is practically an engraved invitation for a migraine to live inside his head. “Urgh, I really can’t stand you…”
Dazai beams at him as though it’s a badge of honor to be so shitty that nobody can stand him. “It’s a good thing that I’ll be out shopping in a bit, hmm?”
Chuuya’s entire body twitches from irritation. He surges forward so he can fist the lapels of Dazai’s shirt, shakes the shitty mackerel like some bandaged ragdoll found in the horror movies that he watches completely without skipping or hiding during the scary parts, damn it. “Why the fuck are we even arguing about this?! It’s obvious that I’m the stronger one and the healthier one! I’m the obvious choice here!”
Dazai humors him by bending his knees slightly, so that they’re more-or-less at eye-level. His voice is completely devoid of humor when he points out, “You’re the one who smokes and drinks more often. Plus, I’ve passed the immunity training before I got promoted to Executive, remember?”
“I passed those tests before you did,” Chuuya returns snidely and shakes the mackerel again. “You smoke and drink too, don’t even lie to me!”
“Using Corruption ravages your internal organs, including your lungs,” comes quietly after, Dazai’s expression the gravest it’s ever been. “There’s no telling if it has long-term effects on your body, which means that you’re part of the at-risk demographic. You may be a muscle-for-brains, but—”
—oh.
Concern.
That’s what Dazai is not saying out loud, that he’s concerned for him.
Chuuya takes a few seconds to absorb it, to grasp that unfamiliar emotion close to his chest.
And then, he draws back and punches Dazai on the gut, ensures that it’s hard enough to knock the wind out of the shitty mackerel. As Dazai wheezes from the blow, Chuuya softens his motions as he carries the lump of bandages to the bed.
He schools his entire stance and expression to steely determination, all cold hardness, when he half-kneels over the other’s prone form, and declares: “You will stay quarantined here, or so help me, if you die from this fucking virus instead of my own hands, I’m gonna fucking destroy everything, starting with your precious Agency.”
Dazai’s eyes are wide as he gapes up at him, the speechlessness serving as his acquiescence.
Satisfied with that reaction, Chuuya feels something inside him softening, and he briefly places a gloved hand over Dazai’s forehead, before pinching the furrow between his eyebrows and drawing back.
“I’ll be back soon,” he promises, and practically flies away before he can be tempted to stay back and witness the other’s response.
-
The cashier at the check-out counter shoots him an unfathomable look when instead of loading up on toilet paper or sanitizer, he purchases an unholy amount of bandages, canned crab, junk food and fresh seafood.
It’s worth it, though.
Dazai’s apparently recovered enough to wait for him by the doorway of their shared room, armed with a massive pout on his face. The pout tumbles off quickly upon sighting of the content inside the grocery bags that he lugs into their hotel room.
He preempts any accusations of him seeing the ways of the canned crab, raising a ‘stop’ gesture with his hand. “You’d have been insufferable if I didn’t buy some, I know. And the point of this quarantine is to prevent deaths, and just know that if you’re too annoying I’m gonna kill you so dead—oi, are you listening?!”
Dazai is kneeling on the floor, embracing and cooing to the plastic bag filled with his canned crab. It’s so embarrassing to watch, Chuuya has the urge to yell a long rant to disassociate himself with the shitty mackerel.
It’s even more embarrassing when Dazai reaches into the bag and zeroes in on the one can of mackerel that he snuck in. Dazai lifts the can up and presses a kiss against the can’s label, before grandly proclaiming: “I knew it, the chibikko really likes me, huh.”
Chuuya kicks him, since he’s already conveniently on the floor, and yells, “That is so fucking unhygienic, go wash your mouth with soap, urgh!”
-
Later that night—
“If you snore again, I’m going to gut you.”
Dazai parries with a, “If you drool on me again, I’m going to laugh at you.”
They wake up tangled together the following day, an unspoken agreement to never bring up the fact that they’re not entirely following the social distancing guidelines.
-
One night, Dazai murmurs, “It’d be nice to see an angry chibi’s reaction if I do get sick,” against his hair, low enough that it’s possible for him to claim plausible deniability if asked whether he managed to hear those words.
Chuuya responds by not-so-accidentally elbowing Dazai’s spleen, and then going back to sleep.
-
Two weeks in, and Chuuya’s waist is pretty much used to the sensation of having a makeshift belt—that is, Dazai’s arm—attached to it all throughout the day. They haven’t taken a step out of their room, their social interaction focused to themselves and to the video-calls with their respective comrades in Yokohama.
To nobody’s surprise, Prof Glasses ends up volunteering to quarantine himself in his office, a sentiment that’s apparently been echoed by Dazai’s current partner in the Agency.
“Don’t matchmake them,” warns Chuuya, after the end of a video-call to Kunikida that has Dazai looking thoughtfully into the distance. “You’d traumatize them off dating altogether.”
Dazai points out, “Since they’re both workaholics, they probably wouldn’t even notice that they’re dating someone.”
“What use is dating someone who isn’t even aware of it?”
To which Dazai doesn’t say anything, merely tucks his fingers under his untucked shirt, and pinches at his waist.
-
Dividing up chores turns out to be less problematic than he’s feared. The competitive spirit between them is easy to harness into something productive. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Dazai is extremely unwilling to be bested by him, even in mundane matters such as who can wash dishes faster or who can wash stains away from clothes better.
…Well, the answer is always a big, fat ‘NO TO THE FUCKING HELLS NO’ when it comes to laundry matters, if only because Dazai is laboring under a one-man crusade against Chuuya’s clothes.
His complaints of, “Stop ruining my clothes, I can’t buy replacements for them, all the stores are closed!”, are always met with Dazai nodding sagely along to, “That’s the beauty of this plan, you see?”
In any case, the only thing Chuuya sees is the red of his rage, so, no, Dazai is permanently banned from any laundry-related task.
Everything else is divvied up pretty evenly between them.
Their taste in food veer off to wildly different directions, so it’s the one chore that they actually do together, mostly in fear that the other will demolish their taste buds by inflicting their favorite foods on each other. Dazai is prone to get bored in the middle of cooking, usually resulting in burnt meals; with Chuuya there to poke him harshly into awareness, his meals rapidly gain a more edible look.
It’s come to the point where they regularly video-call the Agency’s jinko and his roommate Kyouka—Chuuya’s not sure if Ane-san is aware of her favorite ward’s living conditions and he isn’t a suicidal asshole to actually volunteer the information to her—and ask the two to judge on who cooked the better-looking meal.
It’s… actually quite fun, that even Arahabaki calms down from the sense of unease that wraps over it.
-
By the time the lockdowns lift, Chuuya finds himself hesitating on the threshold of their hotel room. The past couple of weeks felt like a long feverish dream—and he almost feels as though he’s being gutted with each step away from the bed that they’ve shared for a little over a month.
Beside him, Dazai is snickering to himself as he scrolls through his phone.
“You’re laughing creepily,” Chuuya points out with the meanest voice he can muster.
It doesn’t seem to be effective, because Dazai falls sideways against him, letting him support their combined weight. An arm slinks around his shoulders and neck, and then a phone screen is thrust against his face.
Cross-eyed, Chuuya can only make out ‘divorce rates’, before he swats at the screen.
“After getting stuck in close quarters for so long,” Dazai says with a tiny laugh, “a lot of couples are asking for divorce. Or for a break-up.”
“They realized they couldn’t stand each other, after all?”
“Probably. They learned more about each other and discovered that they do not like what they see, in the end.”
Chuuya considers it, before exhaling gustily. “Why be with someone you don’t know and understand completely in the first place? I don’t get it.”
Another round is snickering, this time smothered against his hair. “You are such a romantic idiot, Chuuya.”
“Ha?!”
“Not everyone has such high standards, you know? Ah, wait—”
Because he’s known Dazai for nearly ten years now, he pretty much expects a tacked-in insult about to follow.
“—it’s not like Chuuya knows anything about that, being so tiny and all.”
…Right on cue.
Still, it does bring things into perspective, doesn’t it? That he actually feels comfortable in a world where he has limited contact with everyone else but Dazai, someone that he’s long labelled as the infuriating enemy. Beyond mere comfort, even. The world is shaken around them, but Chuuya didn’t truly feel it, because he has Dazai for company.
The realization swoops down inside him in a sudden plunge, bits of warmth fluttering all over him like feather-kisses.
…Ah.
So it really is like that, huh.
“You’re right, I don’t have high standards at all.” Chuuya watches the surprise on Dazai’s face, too shocked to hear him say that particular combination of words to manage to crow in victory. Once he’s sure he has Dazai’s full gobsmacked attention, he adds: “Since I choose you and all. My standards are quite shit, huh?”
A beat, before: “I demand a do-over, that confession is the worst, the absolute worst!”
Chuuya twitches. “You didn’t even bother confessing, you’re much worse!”
And so the two of them walk out of the hotel room hand-in-hand, ready to bring the incredibly bad news—of the two of them getting together—back to Yokohama.
-
end