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“Um, didn’t he used to be your partner?”
Dazai waves that question off with a flippant flick of his wrist. “That chibi stole something very important from me last night.”
“Ummmm…” Atsushi’s newly promoted to being the sultan’s assistant, but he’s starting to think that this is less an achievement and more of a punishment. He looks at the way Dazai is smiling dreamily as he sprawls himself all over the silk cushions, one hand busy with shoveling precious crab to his mouth, and another busy caressing the ‘Most Wanted’ poster that he had commissioned. The abs are done with a suspicious eye for detail. “…Did Chuuya-san steal your heart?”
“He stole something more important,” Dazai says with a grave look on his face.
Something more important than his mentor’s heart? That… could be a great many things. Atsushi scrunches his face as he tries, “Did he steal the crown jewel?”
“Worse.” A beat, before a smile that can make angels weep: “He stole my virginity.”
Another beat, until: “Ummmmmm that doesn’t sound right.”
After all, he’s heard his mentor brag about his skills in bed way too many times. And Dazai wouldn’t lie, would he? Someone who’s saved Atsushi from drowning in an oasis can’t be a liar!
“Yesterday, as he was stabbing me and stealing gold off my underwear…” Dazai starts to recount his experiences, without care for the worry (re: stabbing) and the disgust (re: underwear?!) of everyone in the vicinity. “…he told me, very loudly, ‘fuck you very much, shitty Dazai’.”
“…Okay…?”
“I am very delicate and sensitive,” Dazai insists with a manic gleam in his eyes. He starts rubbing the picture on the poster with an almost furious intensity. “And so, like that, he has stolen my virginity.”
“That doesn’t sound right,” Atsushi shakes his head. “If that’s the case, then doesn’t that mean that each time Akutagawa told me ‘fuc—”
Akutagawa unceremoniously shoves Atsushi away. Is it because he’s embarrassed about what Atsushi’s about to reveal? Is it because he’s actually a cactus that’s squishy inside and he refuses to let Atsushi say a swearword? Wrong and wrong. It’s because he wants screentime with his mentor!
“Dazai-san.” A cough. “Should the posters really say ‘Wanted: Chibikko, Bound in Ropes or Bound in Leather’?”
“I did consider making it ‘Naked or Bound’, but the sight of a naked chibikko is too deadly.”
Atsushi finally recovers from getting shoved and pipes up, “Actually, I have a question! Why is there death penalty for whoever manages to catch Chuuya-san?!”
Dazai blinks at his two protégés. “You’re right. Death is too quick a punishment for anyone who can manage to see that chibikko bound in ropes.”
Akutagawa is about to bring up the fact that the last ‘Most Wanted’ poster they’ve made, it was for Fyodor Dostoevsky and it was clearly ‘Wanted: Dead or Double Dead’. But then, he sees blood starting to flow from Dazai’s nose—a common occurrence due to the heat (it’s a desert after all), but also coincidentally happens whenever Chuuya is brought up—so he elbows Atsushi out of the way so he can be the first to offer a tissue this time.
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The moon looms from its perch on the sky, a jewel surrounded by a carpet of stars. He stretches out a hand and from the incredible interior design sense of his room, with his palatial bed right in front of it a wide window, almost seems like he can pluck the moon directly. The only thing that would make the night more perfect would be if a certain fairy comes flying into his bedroom…
He feigns sleep as he snuggles with a body pillow that’s been made to the exact specifications of a certain chibi. It is very short, for the sake of realism. He’s spent days discussing details with the manufacturer, most specifically about adding several buns somewhere in the abdominal section of the pillow. Said manufacturer had looked at him like he’s deranged, but Dazai boasts of years of experience fending off Chuuya’s judging glares, so it merely bounces off his thick hide.
In any case, it is such a shame that the technology to preserve certain scents hasn’t been achieved yet, because that would surely elevate (…pfft) this body pillow of his to greater heights (……pfft).
How his kingdom is still standing despite his skewed priorities is a mystery indeed.
From the distance, he hears the telltale sounds of fighting and screaming. It’s such a peaceful sound that he actually ends up falling asleep instead of merely faking it.
He wakes up to the feeling of something cold, hard and very familiar being shoved under his chin. He responds in the only way he should, which is to grab the hand holding the dagger and pulling it even closer, to let the blade tease his skin further.
“You’re fucking crazy,” is what the beauty above him says, the dagger retreating to one of the man’s secret compartments. His hand doesn’t manage to dislodge itself away from Dazai’s grip, because Dazai may not be able to defeat the other man in hand-to-hand combat, but he’s very proficient in finding ways to hold the other’s hand.
Nakahara Chuuya—also known as ‘the god of carnage’, ‘the ruler of the red desert’ and some other fancy monikers—sits on his lap to stop him from moving away. Despite his lofty nicknames that elevate him to the status of a war god, he really is just a silly chibi, because why would Dazai even think of leaving his bed when there’s the chibikko within groping distance?
“Help!” Dazai calls out with top-tier acting, if he must say so himself. “A small fairy wants to get in my pants!”
Chuuya shoots him a dirty look. “I would never want to touch your pants! Who knows what kind of snake is hiding there!”
Sadly, this isn’t even an innuendo or anything. A great number of pranks during their teenage days did involve Dazai hiding actual snakes in his pants.
“But you’re sitting on my lap right now.”
“I’m sitting on your stomach, get your anatomy right, genius.” A snide scoff. “More importantly! What the fuck is wrong with you, sending all those hapless idiots after me?!”
“I just thought you’d be lonely if nobody wanted you.” Dazai tries to pull the other down to his chest, but as expected of the empire’s best martial artist, Chuuya is skilled in dodging his advances and slapping his grabby hands away. “That’s why, I gave you the top spot on the kingdom’s Most Wanted List! Aren’t I considerate?”
“Consider this instead: I can kill you thirty-one different ways with just my bare hands.”
Dazai shivers, then moans. “Oh, that sounds especially lovely.”
“You’re fucking disgusting.” Chuuya shakes his head with a click of his tongue. “Call off the chase for me.”
“Running away from taking responsibility?” This time, it’s Dazai who shakes his head, a moue on his lips. “After you’ve stolen my virginity and all?”
Chuuya’s automatic, absentminded response of—“What would I do with such a useless thing? I can’t even eat that!”—is immediately followed by a furious blush and a, “W-W-W-W-What! It’s just one k-k-k-k-k-kiss! Just one! How could—”
Dazai sits up immediately, his attention caught. “Eh, when did this kiss happen, hmm? I seem to remember that I was innocently asleep and my mouth was pursed like so and…”
“You remember a lot for someone supposedly asleep, oi.”
“Details, details.” Dazai waves away any pesky evidence that he’s actually just been feigning sleep last night, when Chuuya sneaked in to his bedroom and gave him a very loving kiss. The kiss is nothing but a half-second brush, but it’s very loving because Chuuya coupled it with a stab and a grope to his belt (where he keeps his gold, but details). Dazai hates morning meetings the most, and getting stabbed means he gets to skip it in order to get medical treatment! His chibi really spoils him.
“Anyway!” Chuuya clears his throat. “Call them off! I refuse to bully your soldiers!”
Dazai lets him change the topic, but only because the blush on the other’s face is so fetching, and the way that he’s squirming on top of his stomach is anything but completely innocent. “Did anyone manage to catch a glimpse of you?”
A scoff, “Your soldiers are a hundred years too early to achieve that feat.”
“You’re a hundred years too late to reach my height.”
“One day, I swear I’m really going to stab you to death…”
“See, chibikko, they’re so bad so you should just come work for me already!”
Frowning, Chuuya slaps his chest a couple of times as he rejects his daily proposal for the 7th straight year. “I keep telling you, I refuse to work under you!”
“You can also be on top, I’m not picky.”
“You?” An expression of utter disbelief replaces the deep frown from earlier. “Who only eats mangoes that are picked on Sundays? Who only eats crabs caught at six in the morning? You’re telling me you’re not picky?”
“Oho, chibikko, why do you know those things? Are you, in fact, stalking me?”
With a very unimpressed glare, Chuuya takes out one folded parchment from his many secret compartments. It’s a copy of those notices that Dazai has ordered to be distributed to the kingdom’s markets. A list of his favorites, so the kingdom can stock up on them. His specifications for the mangoes and crabs are written there.
Dazai claps his hands in mock-delight. “This is even more surprising! Chibikko can actually read!”
Still with that unimpressed look. The notice is then crumpled into a ball and force-fed to his face.
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The following day, Dazai is the first one in the room for the morning council, prompting a lot of people to nearly piss themselves in fright. Several ministers set forth to check if there are reports of plague or famine upon their kingdom, or maybe even some rain made of fireballs. Dazai is many things, but being diligent in his work, especially during mornings, is not one of them.
By virtue of being the newest member, it’s up to Atsushi to get unceremoniously shoved forward so he can test the waters.
“Ummmm…” Atsushi scratches his cheek as he watches his mentor painstakingly scribble over a stack of parchment. “What are you doing, Dazai-san?”
“I am very sad today, Atsushi-kun.”
Atsushi looks at his mentor’s face. He’s clearly grinning? Is this some high-level display of sadness that only the truly enlightened can do? Thankfully, Akutagawa is on a rare day-off today because his sister’s merchant caravan came back last night. That way, Atsushi isn’t skewered for failing to hurry up and offer the necks of whatever is the cause for Dazai’s ‘sadness’.
Instead, Atsushi asks, full of doubt, “Um, why?”
“I lost my pet.”
“Oh no!” Wait, since when did Dazai have a pet?
“Oh yes,” Dazai confirms with a nod as his hands continue scribbling. “So, please help me out by hanging these missing pet notices, hmm?”
Atsushi looks at the stack of parchment. ‘Missing Pet Alert’, it says, and the description goes something like, ‘red-head chibi, small enough to fit in owner’s arms, excellent chin rest, very bitey, likes to scratch and punch and kick, likes to scream nonsense, very beautiful’. Atsushi’s head hurts, especially so when he looks at the square reserved for the pet’s image, and he sees nothing but blank space.
Actually… he squints really, really hard and sees a tiny dot, the one where Dazai has been painstakingly laboring over for the past couple of minutes. It’s a very tiny drawing of a dog wearing a hat. So tiny it’s basically the size of a couple of hair strands clumped together. There’s very tiny handwriting beside the drawing too, something that says, ‘the chibi is this small!’. It would be quite impressive if it isn’t so useless.
“Ummmmm… just to double-check, is Chuuya-san this ‘pet’ that you’re referring to?”
Dazai ‘I am very sad today’ Osamu perks up, eyes shining in delight. “You truly are a wonderful subordinate, Atsushi-kun! Very smart! Just for that, I’m delegating today’s work to you!”
“Eh? No, no, no, no—wait—!!”
It’s too late, for Dazai is many things and one of them is his unrivalled skill in shirking off work.
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That night, Dazai doesn’t even get to feign sleep for more than five minutes until he’s strangled awake via his bedsheets.
“I told you to call them off, shitty Dazai!” With the way Chuuya is shaking him like a ragdoll, it’s so easy to simply allow himself to be dragged on top of a chibi’s lap and take advantage of the fact that he can act like deadweight and hang his arms all over his petite shoulders instead.
“The ones hunting you down today should be concerned citizens of the kingdom,” he points out with a laugh. “Aren’t they nice? They want me to find my pet immediately…”
“I’m still not working for you!”
Dazai hides his smile in the folds of Chuuya’s scarf. It smells like exotic spices, because Chuuya likes to try food from foreign caravans that pass by their land. He breathes him in, and then compares the scent to the taste of the skin on his neck.
Chuuya’s still lodging his complaints, but his pulse stutters under his lips. Dazai’s smile widens.
“I left the palace because I never want to work for you, oi, are you listening to me?!”
Dazai knows it—has known it for quite some time.
Both of them could be considered as Mori’s heir, for the previous Sultan did not have any direct descendants, only protégés. There has been that period of turmoil, when there’s been talk on who would become the next Sultan between the two of them. There were those who wanted Dazai for his cold logic and even colder strategy; an equally great number wanted Chuuya for his battle prowess and his popularity amongst the citizens.
And Chuuya—
Instead of watching this kingdom tear itself over a civil strife over its future rulers—
Chose to become the villain.
A battle-maniac feared by the whole land. A mercenary who gets paid in the form of getting to steal random shit from Dazai’s bedroom, in exchange for ensuring that any assassin who has plans of gunning for his head dies away from public eye. A thief who gets to steal all of the wine from the palace’s secret cellar.
...Pfft, what self-sacrifice? This chibikko just wants to drink all of the wine without having to endure being lectured afterwards.
Eventually, Chuuya loses steam and instead allows Dazai to press him down on the bed, his neck decorated by a series of rubies that can be easily hidden by his clothes. “…It’s creepy when you just stay quiet, asshole.”
“Oh? After shouting at me to shut up, now you want to hear me talk?”
“I didn’t say I wanted you to talk!” The other’s face looks like it’s a priceless, timeless porcelain vase that’s been brushed by a luminous pink dye. “I just said that you’re creepy!”
He diverts their topic to something that he’s a bit interested in. “Then, how do you assess those who came after you today?”
Chuuya pulls his bangs harshly. “You want to use me to train your solders and I don’t like it!”
“It’s not like you didn’t sense my plan since the beginning…”
Several moments of incoherent grumbling, made even more incoherent by the two of their mouths busy with trading kisses.
When Chuuya pulls away from their kiss, his expression is a bit pensive. “Kyouka’s quite good. Her skills in stealth have improved. That siscon brat too. Kajii could do better if he didn’t cackle so loudly I could detect where his traps are.”
Typical Chuuya.
He’s complained a lot about not wanting to do any work for him, and yet he does this anyway.
With a self-satisfied smile, Dazai continues kissing the other’s neck and jawline. His hands explore previously-charted territories of Chuuya’s abdomen, travelling across the plains and valleys of the well-defined muscles. Chuuya’s a treasure that he’s come to know and touch for more than a thousand nights; just like the sultan in that tale, even though he’s promised to kill Scheherazade in the beginning, he still finds himself enraptured and unable to simply let go.
“…I’m waiting for you to start pleading for leniency.”
“Ha?! Shouldn’t you be the one begging me not to stab you in the kidneys, bastard?!”
“Mm, but you’ve been captured quite snugly in my arms, haven’t you?”
Chuuya rolls his eyes and stretches out more comfortably against the bedsheets. “I’m just biding my time and will strike once your guard is down.”
“It’s good that you didn’t become a strategist, that kind of plan is very idiotic, you know?”
A raised eyebrow. “So you agree that spending time with you is an act of idiocy?”
“They say that men become fools once they’re in love, don’t they?”
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Both of their faces explode in red fireworks. Chuuya hides his cheeks ineffectively under the veil of his hair. Dazai joins him there, hiding his expression and choosing to reveal his feelings in the form of more kisses instead.
And then, more feelings are revealed in the form of bandage AND leather bondage, combined, as they show just how much they consider each other to be their most wanted.
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The next day, Atsushi can only wail in despair, because Dazai has apparently gotten himself stolen away from the palace? Well, everyone can hear questionable sounds and even more questionable screams coming out from his room, but nobody dares to approach to confirm.
And so, from that day onwards, Atsushi has become known as the temporary-sultan-whenever-their-actual-sultan-is-busy-with-his-love-life.
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end
(the moral of the story: choose your workplaces wisely. stan crop top chuuya.)