Work Text:
The weretiger is inching closer to him, slowly. “Um, Nakahara-san?”
“What, kid?” Chuuya snaps, annoyed after arguing with Dazai.
“Why do you call Dazai, ah… mackerel?” the weretiger wonders curiously, biting his lip worriedly.
Chuuya scoffs, and distantly notices the rest of the stupid agency that Dazai joined after he ran off is also waiting for his response. “Because of his damn eyes.”
“What do you mean by that?” the severe-looking (and sounding) blondie asks.
(He still can’t believe that that’s his ‘replacement’ as Dazai’s partner. It’s pathetic, really.)
Chuuya scowls. “Because there’s nothing in them,” he says. At their confused looks, he expands. Gratuitously, and extensively, because he can never resist complaining about the tacky idiot. “Mackerels have dead-looking eyes, it’s creepy. The cold waste of bandages can put up an act as much as he wants, but if you’ve seen him once without any of his ridiculous masks on, then after you realise there’s always something off about his eyes. Again, creepy, right? He also loves mackerel almost as much as that canned crab! It’s just crab is cheaper, and he’s a cheap bastard. Not that all those bandages he goes through are cheap or anything. I’ll tell you, they aren’t. Did you know he wears them when he sleeps, too? It’s ridiculous.”
Chuuya scoffs again at the thought, and almost continues with his anti-Dazai rant, but stiffens instead.
“Aw, slug, I didn’t know you cared so much!” a voice coos from behind him.
Chuuya shivers in disgust, and retorts, “As if. I just had the misfortune to deal with your shit for years.”
“Misfortune? Chibi, you must mean privilege!”
“No, I really don’t.”
“Oh, the hatrack wounds me~,” Dazai wails dramatically, flailing his arms about wildly.
“I should hope so!”
They glare at each other.
(Though, to be honest, Chuuya is doing all the glaring himself. Dazai is just staring back at him with those creepy-ass, dead mackerel eyes of his.)
Chuuya sighs, and uncoils, rolling his neck. “Lunch?”
“Sure, chibi. Crab?”
“Sure,” Chuuya grumbles. “But only because I know if I say no you’ll just steal my wallet, you got that?!
“Of course, petit mafia,” Dazai replied with a mischievous grin.
Chuuya eyes the other. “You’re just going to take it anyway, aren’t you?”
“Why of course, petit mafia~.”
“Then you’re paying for lunch!”
“If you want!"
The Agency is left behind, forgotten in the thick of their bickering.
---
Atsushi blinks, exchanging a bewildered look with Kyouka. “Mackerel… eyes?”
Beside him, Lucy yells, “If he can pay for lunch then he better pay his goddamn tab!”
"Why does Dazai call Nakahara-san slug, then?" Kenji wonders.