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"Oi."
There's no answer except for a hum.
"Oi," Chuuya tries again, this time kicking the bastard's shin for some sort of reaction. "I'm talking to you, Shitzai!"
Dazai's flat stare travels up to him, and he makes a small noise in the back of his throat. "That's why I'm not answering."
"Get up from the floor and help me with something."
"Hmm, no."
"Come on." Chuuya's not that desperate to say the magic word yet, so he just remains hovering above his idiot of a partner who's spread out on his room's floor like a useless, bandaged starfish. This is a game of patience. "I'll just be here and annoy you for the rest of the day if you keep ignoring me."
"Since when do you need anything of me? Did someone die?"
"Yeah, Tachihara."
"He did?"
"No, but he might as well have. He's busy and can't go to the gym with me."
"And that is my problem, how...?"
"He can't spot me."
"I don't know what that means," Dazai grumbles and places a hand over his free eye, probably to block out the sight of Chuuya, "and I don't want to know."
"It means you have to watch me lift weights and help me if something happens."
Dazai uncovers his face again just to shoot Chuuya the flattest, most deadpan expression on the entire goddamn planet, which is for once reasonable because... well, Chuuya's a gravity manipulator. Gym equipment couldn't hurt him even if it tried to.
To be honest, Chuuya didn't get that far when he came up with this. He just went with the first idea that crossed his mind to make Dazai do something with him, and now, in hindsight, he sees that it must sound pretty fucking stupid. Oh well.
He clears his throat and just goes with it. "I don't use my ability in the gym. That would be useless."
Dazai closes his eyes and lightly shakes his head. "Go away. Your stupidity is giving me a headache."
Chuuya kicks him again, groaning under his breath. "Either you come willingly, or I pick you up like a little princess and —"
Dazai kicks out his legs like a little kid throwing a temper tantrum, but he sits up, and that's a victory all right! "The next time you fall asleep, I will come into your room and skin you alive inch by inch until you're begging me to—"
"Yeah, yeah," Chuuya says and turns around, having listened to this cute speech a thousand times by now. "Get dressed. You can't go to the gym in a fucking suit."
It turns out that Dazai — works as an executive for the mafia and therefore has more money than the entire city combined — Osamu does not own any sort of gym-suitable clothes. There a thousand slacks and blazers that all look the same, but not one pair of sweaters or even a casual shirt.
"Dazai," Chuuya says unbelievingly as he stares at his shabby closet, "what the fuck do you wear when you're at home and do nothing?"
"Nothing."
He turns to stare.
"The bandages keep me warm," Dazai provides nonchalantly, sitting on the bed and staring at the ceiling. "Can you leave me alone now? I don't have any clothes. Find someone else."
"Luckily for you, you have a neighbor that has spent the last two years spending all his paychecks on clothes." Chuuya grabs his wrist and drags him out of the room and out of the apartment to the one right next door. It was Mori's brilliant idea to make them neighbors — "Partners should always be within close distance," Mori said that day, but Chuuya suspects it was more of a way to keep an eye on Dazai. Or maybe on Chuuya. Who knows. It resulted in a lot of petty neighbor wars and pranks, and three of the other people in the building moving out because of the constant shenanigans and “odd” noises. "I'm pretty sure I have a few clothes that are too big for me," Chuuya says as he pulls Dazai to his room and enters his walk-in closet. "Let's see."
Dazai's as unhelpful as ever, wasting away on the bed with his face unceremoniously buried in the mattress.
After a few minutes of digging through clothes upon clothes, Chuuya pulls out an oversized pink shirt and a pair of grey sweatpants that were slightly too big than they looked like online. He tosses them to Dazai and then locates his gym bag in the corner of his room. "Let's go!"
Of course, it takes ten mote minutes of nagging him until the idiot actually sits up and starts changing, all while shooting Chuuya looks of pure venom. Something way better than that bottomless emptiness.
Dazai frowns down at himself. "These pants look ridiculous on me."
"It looks fine." Cute eve, crossed his mind.
Chuuya notices him look at his own fit then — skin-tight leggings and a crop top — and smirks. His first few months at the gym, he came in sweatpants too, but now he has an ass that would be criminal to hide under baggy clothes, so.
"Fine."
Dazai, obviously, doesn't have a gym bag nor any bag whatsoever — seriously, how does he even function in this society? — so Chuuya packs an extra towel and bottle of water before physically pushing Dazai out of the apartment and down the stairs where his driver is waiting for them outside.
The ride is silent, but that's okay.
The good thing about the gym being at the headquarters is that it's pretty close, and everyone inside is perfectly aware of who Chuuya and Dazai are so they're free to do whatever the hell they want, plus there's no stupid staring because of the bandages. Not that he thinks Dazai even cares about that, but... who knows.
Dazai's eyes wander here and there after they come out of the changing room, and Chuuya guides them to an area with a few free mats lying around.
"You've never even been here?" he wonders, setting down his bottle and starting doing his warm-up stretches.
Dazai grunts unintelligibly. "I'm the brain of the operations, not the muscle."
"Yeah, but what's the worst that can happen if you do go? You get some strength?"
"I become an idiotic jock who thinks being athletic makes up for a personality."
Bending himself in half as Chuuya touches the grounds with his open palms and feels his muscle stretch deliciously, he grins. "Oh, I think I have a few more traits than that."
"I doubt it."
Straightening out, Chuuya nods at him. "Come on, at least do a stretch. Your muscles must be stiff as hell."
"No, thank you."
"You know, being flexible is not only useful in battle, right?" Chuuya tilts his head daringly. "Or, are you one of those people that just lie there and get fucked like a pillow princ—"
He catches the water bottle that comes at him with a smirk. Dazai looks annoyed, but with a puff, he spreads out his legs and tentatively leans over to one of his toes, missing a good five inches. Taking pity, Chuuya goes over and places a hand on his back. "Tell me when it's too much, okay?"
"Like something you can ever do is — oh..." Chuuya hears his breath strain with each second of added pressure on his back before, eventually, he gets out a, "Too much!" Chuuya doesn't let go entirely, just keeping him there. So maybe he has a bit of a sadistic little streak inside him.
"Doesn't that feel good?"
"No."
"You just have to feel it. There's a point where it burns so much, it almost feels sweet."
"All I feel is the urge to grab your throat and strangle you," Dazai mutters like the little grump he is before wheezing out a, "How much longer?!" Chuuya makes him switch toes, then forces him to do a few other stretches before eventually turning that little game around until Dazai's hands are pushing his entire upper body down into the mat. It feels amazing. Chuuya might or might not let out a little moan at the delicious strain in his muscles.
"You're insane," he hears Dazai say once they're walking to the free weight section, "for getting off on this."
"Like you didn't appreciate the sight."
His silence is damning.
Though it is true that technically Chuuya doesn't need any spotting whatsoever, he still lets Tachihara do it for him and the other way around whenever they're here together, mostly because it makes him feel more normal and less like the weird kid infamous for leveling entire city parts. So despite the utterly unimpressed expression on Dazai’s face, Chuuya makes him stand behind him and watch him do one squat after the other.
"Do you want to try?" Chuuya asks once he's done, wiping the sweat off his face with the towel.
"Are you stupid, or do you just pretend to be to annoy me?"
"What, not even a little curious?" He bumps shoulder with Dazai. "You don't even want to try to beat me?"
Dazai's nose flares. "If we're going by this logic, then I could make you work my cases too and see you fail utterly, but that would be boring."
Well, at least there's some competitiveness left there.
Chuuya bends down to pick up his water bottle with a long, maybe overdramatic sigh. "Oh, well..."
They go through several more exercises before Dazai suddenly points at the abductor machine on the other side of the room. "I want to try that one."
Chuuya sets him up, explaining how it works, and Dazai snaps that he's perfectly fine to read the instructions on his own. Probably feeling a bit too proud, the idiot starts with too much weight, lets out a quiet shriek, and changes it to half of it. It's not an incredibly hard or dangerous machine, even for a noodle like Dazai, so Chuuya lets his gaze wander until he catches sight of someone he definitely has seen before.
He taps Dazai's sweaty shoulder and nudges his head towards their right. "Hey, isn't that your buddy? What was his name? Oda?"
The abductor machine comes to a stop with a piercing creak. Dazai stares. "We are not here," he says, but it's too late because Chuuya's already waving, and Oda has definitely seen them and is already coming over.
"Oops."
Dazai turns to him.
Chuuya can't help but laugh. "Are you blushing?”
"Dazai?"
Dazai faces Odasaku, and the difference in stiffness and expression is astounding.
"Odasaku," Dazai chirps, leaning back against the seat of the machine. "What... are you doing here?"
"I could ask you the same," Oda says with a shrug. "I've never seen you here before, but I'm glad. You look good."
"Yeah, you too..."
Oh, Dazai's definitely blushing.
And even though distraction was the goal of this whole thing, something in Chuuya’s chest falls. He pushes that feeling away as far as possible and decides to cause more trouble instead, leaning over the seat with a grin and clapping Dazai's arm. "Give Dazai a few months, and he'll outdo even you."
Though... looking at Oda's arms and his buff chest, especially in the muscle shirt he's wearing... Dazai might need a little more than that.
Holy shit.
Oda's serious face stretches into a warm smile as he glances at him. "You must be Chuuya, right? I've heard a lot about you."
"Not from me," Dazai points out.
Chuuya ignores the bastard. "That's right."
"I'm Oda."
"I know," he replies with a smirk.
Oda's smile doesn't falter, but Chuuya knows it must throw him a little off balance; his words and the way he delivers them always do.
"Are you going to Lupin later?" he hears Dazai ask. "I could use a drink or two."
Chuuya tunes them out as they discuss their plans that Dazai always makes sure never to include him in because he clearly doesn't belong to this weird trio of the mafia. It's not like Chuuya's desperate to hang out with Dazai, his odd, but admittedly hot handyman and that stuck up intelligence dude. Sometimes he catches himself longing to belong to something again. To someone. And it’s completely stupid.
Oda says goodbye with another humble smile before returning to his workout, and Chuuya watches Dazai's face look a dozen times lighter than two hours ago. Good for him.
Dazai meets his stare.
"I’m finished for today," Chuuya says. "We can go home."
And so they go back to the changing rooms, and Chuuya takes a quick shower while Dazai waits for him, and then the driver takes them home. Dazai enters his apartment with a melodic hum and a careless wave over his shoulder. Chuuya enters his apartment alone.
But hey… at least he made Dazai’s day a bit better.