Archive of Our Own

Oda considered himself an average man with an average-paying job (if not just a bit below the wage he deserved) enough to keep him afloat.

Yokohama public high school was a stable place to work, principal Fukuzawa held the same annual events each year and it remained a safe and somewhat uneventful atmosphere.

Of course, it would be bland if not for the… people, who had taken a liking to him. Oda’s co-workers were not the most orthodox, he knew, (Dazai in particular) but he hadn’t gotten fired yet and all of his students had passed his class with flying colors so Oda found no reason to judge the man's way of working.

Even if most of consisted of spending his time in Oda’s classroom and leaning over the teacher podium, groaning and complaining about some students who apparently ‘couldn’t get it through their thick heads that Chemistry was supposed to be the easiest class in high school,’ or even worse, his recent endeavor of judging every move Nakahara made.

The athletics teacher, Nakahara, could even blink the wrong way and Dazai would be utterly offended.

Oda sensed Dazai approaching before even seeing him around the doorway. The lunch bell had rung, Oda’s own lunch break was underway.

“Odasaku~”

Sure enough, the man poked his head in the doorway, scanning the room for any other teachers before smiling satisfied before settling down on one of the student's desks.

Oda didn’t even bat an eye, continuing to open his own Bento box and leaning forward over his teacher's desk to give Dazai an expectant look.

“Dazai,” he greeted dryly, reaching for his chopsticks, “what did he do this time?”

Not even giving Oda time to take one bite, Dazai moaned “Odasaku it’s terrible!”

“Mhm.”

“He came into my room today!”

“Yes, well, it’s not off limits to Nakahara.”

Dazai ran his hands through his hair like a frustrated teenager, though he was younger than Oda, it wasn’t too much of a stretch.

“Odasaku it was an insult enough to see him face to face, but he actually interrupted my Chemistry class to talk about his own class!”

Oda didn’t hesitate in taking another bite of his food, “yeah? What exactly did he say?”

Dazai slumped back into his chair and gave Oda a pouty look as if his words alone weren’t enough to get Oda on his side.

They weren’t.

“He walked into the class as if he owned the place! poked his head in the door and everything, I think I had a small stroke upon seeing the pure hideousness of him.”

“…Sure… a small stroke.”

“Yes! My heart stopped, he is truly that ugly, Odasaku!”

“…Right.”

Dazai nodded in satisfaction, now that his stance of Nakahara’s looks was clear, and continued. “He asked if his athletes in the class were behaving! And even told me to call him if they weren’t!”

Oda could already feel his brow pinching, a massive headache forming that always came with Dazai interactions. Not even the orphans at the orphanage could call upon a migraine so extreme.

“Dazai, he does this to everyone. A scare tactic to tell his kids to behave in school and to help the teachers.”

Dazai hummed, and for one hopeful moment, Oda thought that he had finally broken through the stubborn barriers of whatever hatred he held towards Nakahara, well, until he spoke again.

“I suppose the Chibi would need a scare tactic, he barely pushes five feet, after all. Though I doubt his athletes could be terrified of him, but I suppose they do hate him.”

It was a lie and they both knew it, Nakahara was well respected among both the students and the staff alike. He had a way to get students to listen to him, even if his stature was shorter than most.

Oda had no idea what Dazai had against the man, but the moment he was introduced to the school as a teacher a year ago, he seemed to latch onto him and grow some kind of one-sided rivalry between them, neutering it by complaining to Oda himself.

He supposed some things would never change.

Though Oda always got all sides of the story, being a history teacher, it was the class where most freshmen tended to slack off.

They were comfortable enough to talk about their rumors when Oda was within earshot and there seemed to be a divide.

The underclassmen seemed to be somewhat threatened by Nakahara even if he cared for his students while the upperclassmen loved him.

There seemed to be a rumor going around that ‘After one of the freshmen had called Nakahara short they had gone missing.’

Oda was ninety-nine percent sure that Dazai had been the one to start that rumor.

Dazai continued on with his ramble and Oda put it in the back burner of his mind to continue eating his food until the chemistry teacher finally seemed to run out of steam.

Usually, at least Ango would be here to suffer with Oda but when Dazai started complaining he opted out of their lunchtimes to stay in the library.

The traitor.

“Dazai,” Oda reached for his bag, unzipping it and pulling out a second lunch kit, passing it over to the other teacher.

For the year Oda had known him, Dazai had never brought lunch for himself.

“Hmm? Oh, how kind of you, Odasaku,” Dazai mused, carefully taking the box with bandaged hands.

He never ate the whole meal and normally picked at it with chopsticks, but if he at least put some of it in his mouth then Oda’s concerns were soothed.

Oda sighed, leaning back as Dazai idly picked at the meal.

How he ended up with a teacher who was more like one of his students as a friend, he would never know.

A week later (a week full of complaints and ignored advice. Ango, still having holed himself up in the library,) found Dazai back in his room, later than usual.

And this conversation, somehow, was even worse than the ones Oda had listened to.

“I think the Chibi has reached a new low,” Dazai said blankly, “wearing his hair up? Out of his face and without that stupid hat?,” Dazai seemed to be lost in thought for a long moment, eyes flickering to some unseen heavenly sight before he jolted back to reality.

“It is so ugly, looking at him makes my heart palpitate dangerously. I almost threw up Oda,” Dazai put a hand to his own forehead as if searching for heat, “am I coming down with a sickness?”

“No Dazai,” Oda let out a long-suffering sigh, “maybe you just want him to be-“

“Fired?” Dazai suggested, “yeah, I know.”

Well, not exactly what Oda was going to say.

Maybe there was simply no use in trying to warn Dazai that the lines between ‘hate’ and ‘crushing on the gym coach’ had been blurred.

“And it gets worse,” Dazai groaned, looking just as Oda felt. Like he wanted to smash his head on the desk repeatedly.

“It gets worse,” Oda grumbled, “right.”

Whoever made the rule of no alcoholic beverages in school should rethink their decision, for Oda’s sake.

“His clothes!”

“His clothes,” Oda followed.

“Yeah!” Dazai threw his hands in the air, “You get it!”

Despite having no idea what Dazai was on about, Oda nodded grimly.

“His clothes are visibly insulting, I may have to file a complaint about them! Borderline obscene!”

Oda strained his mind to think of anything ‘obscene’ Nakahara might have worn in the past, but came up empty.

He wore everything that was in the dress code, Sometimes he even wore the standard school uniform along with the kids (as a few other teachers did) because quote ‘if the students have to suffer then so do i.’

Quite the opposite of what Dazai would say.

“He wears slacks and a button-up,” Oda decided to say, and in response, Dazai nodded fervently.

“The slacks! They’re way too tight on him! Exactly no teachers ass should be like that the students may get offended-”

Oh, now it made sense.

“Dazai I think you’re the only one that notices, and maybe refrain from eyeing up your co-workers like that-”

“But how can I not!” Dazai huffed indignantly, “it’s right there in front of my face, it’s hideous!”

“Somehow I really doubt that,” Oda grumbled, and he was starting to feel slightly guilty about letting Dazai continue to talk about such a well-respected coach behind his back like that, but if he didn’t listen to Dazai then there was no doubt he would take his dangerous rambling elsewhere.

Principal Fukuzawa would most likely not appreciate hearing about the turn of events, and neither would vice-principal Mori.

Oda hadn’t even realized that the end of lunch was upon him until the bell rang. He had another off period but Dazai, who had taken to laying on two stacked desks, did.

He wisely chose not to say anything.

And in the end, he didn’t have to.

Kunikida, the algebra teacher with a ‘stick up his ass’ as Dazai claimed, came stomping, politely bowing to Oda before kicking the leg of the desk Dazai lay upon. As expected, he rolled off with a dramatic noise.

“There you are!” Kunikida finally yelled, “You are intruding on another classroom during class time and your students have returned for lunch! Without their teacher!”

Dazai waved him off dismissively, “They’re high schoolers, not kindergartners. They don’t need me to hold their hand everywhere they go.”

“They were burning pieces of paper with the lighter they found in your desk and creating a bonfire in the trash can.” Kunikida deadpanned, and Dazai blinked.

“Science experiment,” he said, unconcerned, but finally seemed to shuffle his way out of Oda’s room with a little wave.

Kunikida looked as if he would spit fire at any moment before following after him.

And Oda was just an average man with an average job gaining an average wage. But he would need to find a way to put a stop to this before his classroom got decimated.

“You’re telling me… you got in a fight with your… friend?” Yosano said, strained as she eyed the very obvious hickeys splattered across the neck and collar bones (they probably even dipped below the neckline) of the student in front of her.

“Yes!” the student nodded jerkily, “me and the bros can get a little rough.”

“...Right,” she cleared her throat, “you and the ‘bros’ need to stop getting into fights then.”

“It’s not like I wanted to come down here,” he shrugged, “Kunikida-sensei sent me because he thought I have a rare medical condition… something about random bruises popping up?”

Yosano snorted, “Does ‘Kunikida-sensei’ not know what a hickey looks like?”

The boy stiffened, sweat beading at his forehead. Yosano shook her head, passing him one of the hoodies she managed to dig out of the dressing drawers, it would hopefully cover the student's neck.

“Tell Kunikida to look up what a hickey looks like, I'm sure he will be fascinated,” she sighed, “now get out of my office before an actual hurt person comes in here. And please, for the love of God, look up one of those youtube tutorials on how to get rid of hickeys because I'm sure there’s a way.”

The student bowed and practically hit the wall trying to scamper out of the infirmary, not even sparing her a second glance.

Though an injured kid certainly did not enter her infirmary next, instead it was Fyodor, their resident Orchestra instructor. Not an uncommon sight.

“Welcome back,” she smirked, tossing over the bottle of pills she had on hand since, like students, the staff also had to keep their medication with her. “I'm assuming you forgot to take your iron pills this morning again?”

“Correct,” he methodically uncapped the lid and took a pill dry.

The curtain shuffled to one of the nearby cots and was drawn back, Yosano sighed.

“Are you done with your nap, Ranpo?”

The man, the teacher of their crime department, shrugged, “it was nice until that one hickey kid came in, that was interesting. Always the best gossip in the infirmary.”

Ranpo was a regular, maybe the fact they had been friends since high school pushed the fact, but her job would be boring without being able to plot with him and a few of the other staff members, so she never complained.

“Hickeys…” Fyodor murmured, who had taken a seat next to her, “don’t elaborate on that.”

For not the first time, Yosano had to wonder what some big shot musician like Fyodor was doing teaching high school kids, but he figured the man would just deflect the question as he always did.

Before Ranpo could open his mouth to blab about Tachihara and his makeout sessions, a rather unexpected guest entered her office.

“Sakunosuke?” She asked with a raised eyebrow, “is there an issue?”

The man quickly shook his head, “no, of course not. Not… medical-related, at least.”

The three adults watched his thoughtful expression as he seemed to try to find the right words to say, though Ranpo had beat him to it.

“You’ve finally had enough of Dazai’s shit, haven’t you?” He had a Cheshire smirk on his face, and when the history teacher didn’t outright deny the accusation a twin smirk grew on her face.

“Ah, I see, you want to join our little gossip corner?”

Sakunosuke made a disapproving noise, “I have no interest in gossip, and I don’t hate Dazai, his complaints about Nakahara and his emotional constipation have just reached their peak.”

It wasn’t exactly a lie that Dazai had chased poor Nakahara across the school pulling pranks on him and taunting him as some fifth-grade boy does to their crush, and out of retaliation Nakahara successfully drop kicked him.

Young love, enemies to lovers. Yosano’s shit. It was what she lived and breathed for and Ranpo meddled on the daily.

“Hmm, and you want us to do something about it?” Ranpo concluded, and Sakunosuke nodded.

“It’s about time,” Fyodor nodded sagely, “it is pathetic seeing Nakahara put him in his place.”

“And free entertainment,” Yosano added.

“Well,” Sakunosuke said, sounding awfully let down, “I suppose we can just hang up a sign that says ‘You don’t hate Nakahara, you love him,’ though I think he would just laugh.”

“No,” Fyodor interjected, and Yosano was absolutely delighted to see the smirk on his face. It was common knowledge that he had some kind of vendetta against Dazai, something about a lost chess match. “I have a better idea.”

All heads turned to him and he continued.

“I believe our pep rally is coming up soon, and the events are still being decided, I’m sure if we put our heads together, we can figure something out.”

“Fyodor,” Yosano stated, “you are a mad genius.”

Unfortunately, before they could delve into their plotting Yosano picked up the sound of footsteps and she stood from her chair.

“Get out of my office, some kid is about to come in asking for an ice pack. I can’t feel it.”

Oda tilted his head, “Wha-”

And speak of the devil, Nakahara and all of his glory knocked on the open door, firmly holding onto the arm that was wrapped around his shoulder, the arm belonging to a regular at Yosano’s clinic, Atsushi Nakajima.

Atsushi always had issues with getting injured, half of the time Nakahara was the one to carry and or drag him to her office.

“Back again?” she asked, shooing Ranpo off of the cot, “It’s been what, a week?”

Atsushi smiled sheepishly as Nakahara helped lower him down, “just a sprained ankle,” the teacher informed, “nothing broken.”

“I see,” she nodded, Atsushi’s shoe had already been taken off, an ice pack in his hand. Her lips quirked, “Well then Nakahara, you may as well take my job.”

“Chuuya,” the man corrected because for some reason he always insisted his co-workers and even students call him by his first name. “I figured I would start helping you with this one a little, though this time it wasn’t his fault.”

The coach's eyes hardened as he turned back to the entryway where some kid with black hair and white bangs stood, looking as out of place as one could be. “I can’t have my students tripping each other,” Chuuya reprimanded.

Chuuya sighed, placing a light hand on Atsushi’s shoulder, “let me know tomorrow how long you need to sit out for, heal up kid.”

Atsushi gave him a sunny, yet strained smile, “thank you Nakahara-Sensei!”

Chuuya didn’t even bother to correct the student on his name as he headed towards the exit to grab Akutagawa by the scruff, “We need to have a talk, you and this strange one-sided rivalry is ending.”

They all watched as Chuuya and Akutagawa disappeared down the hallway and Yosano had been the one to huff.

“That’s not the only one side rivalry he needs to worry about.”

The other occupants of the room all snickered, aside from Atsushi, who gave them a confused yet open look.

The adults resumed their plotting.

It took a lot of organization, a lot of convincing the staff to agree, but the plan had been set into action.

There had been a meeting held about the pep rally, Fukuzawa himself overseeing it. They pitched new ideas for the celebration, the last event had been a competition between the band, orchestra, and choir, something about sight-reading on the spot. The one before that had been dodgeball between the baseball and softball players.

All in all, their events tended to heavily include the student body, no matter how shy or unwilling, they were all given a job to do.

Which was why it would be risky to change it up, though the chance was too much of a golden opportunity.

“I suggest we include the teachers in this pep rally, perhaps a little friendly competition?” Yosano proposed, and Fukuzawa didn’t seem opposed to the idea, a few teachers even openly nodded.

“This seems like an exciting prospect,” Mori said after turning the idea over in his head, “what competitions do you have in mind?”

Yosano smiled, all fake and cheery. The trap had been set.

“Well, you see…”

The students were practically buzzing with excitement that Friday, or at least the ones with an inkling of ‘school spirit.’ Dazai never brought into that whole ordeal, but to each their own, he supposed.

It was the last Friday of the month and it was the day of their monthly pep rally. Normal schools spread their events out though the principal claimed that it would be good for morale or something like that.

In Dazai's opinion, these little shits did not need their spirits raised, they were rowdy enough as it was, gossiping in his class and whatnot. Not that he cared, especially when the details were juicy.

Dazai also knew that he was considered one of the more popular teachers among the students, something that he would smugly hold over Kunikida’s head for the rest of his life until the Algebra teacher was old and gray. (Not that he was too far from it.)

So in conclusion, Dazai was idly wondering if he could skip the pep rally, playing Pac man on his computer while his students suffered through their worksheets. That was when the door had opened, surprisingly silent, and Dazai watched, horrified, as a head of fiery hair came into view.

“Kid,” Nakahara tapped on one of the students who had been standing in his way.

“Ah,” Atsushi made a noise of surprise and quickly scrambled away as if he had been burned, “sorry coach.”

Chuuya waved him off, “You’re fine Atsushi, how’s the ankle?”

Atsushi gave him a sheepish smile and flexed his ankle a few times, it had been injured as far as Dazai could tell, but not to a point where he needed crutches.

“It’s doing good! I should be fine by next week!”

“Good good,” Chuuya nodded, "sit down before you hurt it any further.” And to Dazai’s disgust, Chuuya then continued to his desk.

Dazai’s nose scrunched up, “Chuuya.”

Chuuya rolled his eyes, leaning in so he could speak without being heard by the students. Dazai was repulsed. “Don’t fucking be like that, I was sent to tell the teachers that pep rally would be going differently since we’re the ones involved, all students to the bleachers.”

Dazai could have concluded that himself, but instead he placed his hand on his cheek in a bored way, a gesture that he knew got on Chuuya’s nerves with the way his gloved hands clutched the edge of the desk.

“Say Chuuya, any chance I can skip out on this? Maybe stay in my room or take the chance to stuff your gym lockers with slugs?”

Chuuya scoffed in disbelief, azure eyes widening, and Dazai would probably see that color in his dreams with how annoyingly vibrant they were. And that hair too-

“Slugs? Where in the hell would you even find so many? You got some illegal slug farm you want to tell me about?”

“I don’t think that slug farms are illegal, Chuuya.”

Chuuya opened his mouth to retort, but a beeping sound over the intercoms signaled the end of their conversation. Chuuya lifted himself back from Dazai’s desk and shot him an exasperated look, “just be at the damn gym on time.”

“Such a potty mouth for a teacher~”

“I’m a coach!” Chuuya yelled over his shoulder as he exited the room, and the silence when he left was stifling... “Hmm?” Dazai scanned over everyone who had been pointedly avoiding eye contact with him, trying not to look like they had been listening in on their conversation. Dazai swore he even saw someone put their phone's camera away.

For some reason whenever Chuuya was in the room his students got all quiet and started talking behind his back, though Dazai supposed that maybe they hated the ginger too.

(A year later he would find the gossip column with his students, packed with videos and photos of Dazai and Chuuya and theories about them being secretly married or ‘gay for each other.’)

The announcements dismissed the classes by order, the students were confused when none of the electives were called down beforehand to set up the competitions. Well they sure would be in for a surprise, though Dazai himself was too because he never took part in the planning of pep rallies, all he knew was that he would somehow be involved as would the other teachers.

What a pain.

Perhaps if it was a game of chess he could beat Fyodor again, but activities were never repeated twice.

So Dazai complained to Oda as they made their way to the gym, silently stewing as the students filed into the bleachers until they were at full capacity.

“Alright, I believe everyone is settled down,” Principal Fukuzawa announced through the mic after clearing his throat. Sometimes the vice principal would try to announce things but the sound system hated him and kept giving him feedback like he was some sort of demon.

Yet another rumor circulating through the student body.

“Now,” Fukuzawa continued, “this pep rally will be significantly different from the others of the past. There will still be some crowd participation, but Yosano-sensei,” the school nurse waved from the spot next to Ranpo, “proposed that we let the staff do all of the heavy lifting and competitions this occasion. What do you think?”

The gym was silent for a long moment, then the students were going absolutely wild, and now Dazai knew that they just wanted to see him suffer.

“Well, it sounds like you enjoy the idea,” Fukuzawa said once the cheering died down. “We have a few competitions in mind, a three-legged race with students and teachers, and of course, our well-known game of musical chairs.”

Once again, the crowd cheered and Dazai groaned, knocking his forehead against his palms. “Odasaku, is there any chance of escape?”

The teacher next to him solemnly shook his head, “if I have to do this, then so do you.”

“You sound like Ango,” Dazai groaned, and Ango, from next to Oda, slapped Dazai’s head. What a mean literature teacher.

“To decide who is paired for the three-legged race, we will randomly draw names,” Fukuzawa gestured to Mori, who had a large container in hand. “The winners of the first competition will win bragging rights, though the teacher who wins musical chairs wins a free dinner at Tookies seafood.”

That made Dazai’s head snap to attention.

Dazai didn’t normally like food, in fact, he skipped out on most meals, never in the mood to actually eat. But that place had the best crab that Dazai had ever tasted in his entire life and he would gladly trade a limb-

He met Yosano’s eyes from across the court and noticed her sly smile.

Oh.

She had planned this, she knew Dazai’s favorite restaurant and she did it to force him to participate.

A fire had been lit under Dazai’s bones because now he couldn’t lose. He was never the competitive type unless it came to tactical games, but it seemed he would have to logically think about it.

He could do that.

Odasaku nudged him, and when Dazai faced him, he chuckled. “Well, I knew you liked crab but now you look hell-bent on winning.”

“I am going to win Odasaku,” Dazai said, very seriously. “You just watch.”

The first round wasn’t exactly uneventful, but it could have played out better in Dazai’s favor.

All of the teachers got paired with students they knew, Dazai was paired with Akutagawa. He didn’t know much about him other than the fact that he had some weird hatred towards Atsushi and some strange admiration towards him.

And Chuuya was paired with Atsushi, though no matter how much the teacher denied, claiming that ‘Atsushi was hurt,’ Atsushi said that he was fine and that the doctors cleared him for physical activity.

The race was across the gym, and Dazai didn’t much care for it, though apparently, Akutagawa did because the sight of Atsushi lining up next to him made him start at a hellish pace. Dazai was quick to keep up with long strides though Atsushi seemed to be just as competitive.

Chuuya was competitive too, though Dazai could tell that he was slowed down because of him not wanting to overwork the student's ankle, and, well, the height difference.

It was quite comical.

Though it certainly wasn’t comical when Akutagawa, too blinded with victory, did not realize where he was going and crashed straight into Atsushi, sending both teams to the floor.

Of course, the two students engaged in some sort of ‘roll around on the floor’ tussle while they pulled Chuuya and Dazai along like limp ragdolls.

Dazai was sure it made for an amusing sight, but it certainly wasn’t an amusing spot to be in. Not when he and Chuuya practically collided, heads knocking into each other so hard that Dazai momentarily saw stars.

Ew, Dazai had touched Chuuya. Gross.

Chuuya (who looked just as dazed as Dazai felt,) had ended up having to bodily wrestle the teens apart like some kind of wrestling champion and held them down with his thighs. Dazai momentarily wondered what it felt like for the students but didn’t let his mind stray on the subject because Chuuya’s thighs were not attractive.

They were ugly in every way.

Two concussions later (Not really, Yosano had sat them down and given them ice packs) found Chuuya and Dazai sitting off to the side while Atsushi and Akutagawa stood in the middle of the gymnasium, heads hung low.

“Now students,” the principal addressed the school, “what shall we do with students who get into fights?”

Mori, from next to Fukuzawa, smirked and leaned to whisper in his ear.

“Ah, what a wonderful idea,” Fukuzawa nodded, “grab the chairs.”

Oh, Dazai knew what this was. He smugly watched as the two students sat in chairs next to each other and regretfully held hands and grumbled out their ‘sorrys’ as the other students recorded.

Well, perhaps that would end their fights.

Of course, to wrap up their pep rally was the fated game of musical chairs. Dazai would have been content with sitting for the rest of the day but he needed to win the free crab if it was the last thing he did.

There were ten chairs set out and eleven teachers participating, Dazai was surprised that Poe the librarian even decided to participate, and wasn’t so surprised that he didn’t even lunge for a chair, instead just standing there and accepting his fate.

‘Eye of the tiger’ played in the background as the students cheered and recorded, and really, Dazai would never understand why they were so bloodthirsty, wanting to see their teachers perform normal student activities.

A few more teachers got out, (on purpose, as it seemed. Yosano shrugged her shoulders when the music stopped and simply dragged a chair away, Oda following soon after.) Dazai narrowed his eyes, wondering what they were planning, though he would ask after he won the game, of course.

If one was to say that musical chairs was not a critically thinking game, then they were wrong. Mori had been the one to play and pause the music, and Dazai had counted exactly thirty-six seconds in between each pause. And by extension, every time he moved his thumb to press pause, his gaze shifted over to the chairs for one millisecond.

The vice principal was normally hard to read, though now it was incredibly easy.

In fact, Dazai had lasted without any problems until there were a mere three chairs left, all spread out about seven feet apart in a triangle formation. He, Ranpo, Chuuya, and Fyodor were left, and Dazai was surprised that Fyodor didn’t pass out from the physical activity yet.

Once the music stopped, Chuuya quickly made it to his chair and Ranpo easily jumped over the back of one like some kind of overexcited kid. But when Fyodor didn’t even do anything, Dazai knew he was planning something.

They proceeded to the next round, and again, Ranpo purposefully lost, leaving him and… Chuuya.

Of course, Chuuya was competitive and athletic, a good combo, but Dazai was smarter and had longer legs.

So when the telltale signs of the music stopping were shown, Dazai prepared to change direction and run. He had the advantage, being closer to the chair in the center of the basketball court than Chuuya, but it seems that he had severely underestimated him.

Because Chuuya made up for his lack of height by being quick, of course, he would, because he sped like a bullet, and by the time Dazai had reached the chair Chuuya was about to sit down on it.

Though instead of sitting on the chair, Chuuya was met with empty air as he tumbled to the ground. Dazai had pulled the chair out from under him.

Dazai stared down at him with a glint of evil in his eyes and Chuuya stared up at him with a look of rage that quickly transformed into a challenging smirk that had Dazai’s heart got stuck in his throat.

The gymnasium was dead silent until a deafening cheer filled the room, and that was when Chuuya sprung into action because before Dazai could sit down on the hard-earned chair, he grabbed Dazai’s ankle with a strong hand and yanked him down. Chuuya crawled back to his feet, using Dazai to steady himself, then grabbed the chair once again, their positions reversed.

The audience was going absolutely feral, but Dazai could no longer hear their hollering as Chuuya looked down at him with a raised eyebrow.

Oh, it was on.

Dazai and Chuuya were already mildly concussed from the three-legged race incident, but neither refused to back down as Dazai grabbed the chair leg and got back to his feet, successfully starting a tug of war with a chair. Dazai distantly noticed the bystanders ducking for cover.

“Let go of the damn chair!” Chuuya shouted over the cheering, and by now Dazai was spinning them in circles. “We both know I'm stronger than a bean pole like you!”

Dazai grinned, “Correct, but I'm smarter!” And with that he let go of the chair, successfully using Chuuya’s own momentum against him as the redhead fell back to the floor, the chair escaping his grip and skidding about five feet away.

Chuuya was quick to recover, and they stared at each other for a moment before both lunging for the chair.

Dazai didn’t remember much of what happened next, whether it was the condition of his head or the memories being repressed from the trauma, but they both somehow catapulted over the chair in their haste to get to it, and were sent tumbling to the floor in a ball of rage and frustration.

The next time Dazai’s vision stopped swimming, he was on his back on the floor, a heavy and uncomfortable weight on top of him. He blinked the stars away from his vision and glanced down to see the most horrid sight in human history, red hair tickling his chin and Chuuya sprawled out on his chest.

Dazai tried to form some intelligent response but all he could do was gap as if the air had been punched from his lungs.

Chuuya groaned, shifting from his position to lift himself up, and blinked stormy blue eyes at him. His face was uncomfortably close to Dazai’s, their noses nearly touching, though Dazai could see the slight haze in his eyes.

The sight was-

Then the sounds of the gym returned and they both remembered that they had an audience.

Chuuya flushed, “Shit! get off  of me!”

Now it was Dazai’s turn to blink, “You’re the one on top of me, chibi.”

Chuuya didn’t even correct the nickname as he sat up further, quickly getting out of the straddling position to sit on the floor, and Dazai took it as his chance to lift himself up no matter how comfortable the cold floor was.

Then he remembered the chair-

Mori was sitting on it, eyes glittering with some sick amusement as Fukuzawa stood next to him and the crowd was untamable, phones all out and hooting and hollering and even letting out a few wolf whistles.

“Well,” Fukuzawa murmured, “that was an eventful game of musical chairs.”

More cheering.

In the end, Chuuya and Dazai were sitting right where they were after the three-legged race, ice packs held to their heads as they grumbled curses to each other under their breaths.

So that was what Yosano had been planning.

The two of them were given an extra day off to recover in case they actually did have concussions, and Dazai could have spent the rest of the weekend without seeing Chuuya’s face again, but unfortunately, since they both won musical chairs, they both got to eat.

The crab wouldn’t taste as good half-priced as it would be free, but Dazai would take it.

The restaurant that Sunday night wasn’t as packed as it normally was, it was a popular place, though Dazai didn’t come by much because it was expensive and he was on a teacher salary. At least it was half off, he supposed.

But it was at the cost of trying to eat while looking at Chuuya’s face and trying not to vomit at the sight.

Though Chuuya’s competitive fire seemed to have diminished slightly as he nodded to Dazai once they had met up by the door. It was strange to see him not wearing clothes in dress code, a leather jacket, and tauntingly tight pants as if he had known about Dazai’s internal crisis and decided to rub it in his face by wearing sinful clothes like that.

Though if Dazai was to actually get to know Chuuya, then he would know that Chuuya only dressed for himself.

Dazai’s lips curled downwards and caught sight of the hot pink motorcycle. Disgusting.

“Are you done studying me?” Chuuya asked impatiently, arms crossed over his chest and an eyebrow raised.

Dazai’s eye caught on the bandage on his head, mostly hidden by his hair and bangs, hatless, thank god. And not in a ponytail either, Dazai hadn’t seen him with his hair down naturally in a while, not that it mattered, he would always be ugly.

“Did Chuuya actually get hurt that bad?”

Chuuya grunted, fingers carding cautiously through his hair, “Yeah, I got it checked out and they said-” his eyes scanned Dazai, “you didn’t go to the damn doctors?”

Dazai shrugged, sure everything was slightly disoriented but it would go away with time. “Nope.”

Chuuya snarled, “you’re a dumbass,” he didn’t wait for Dazai as he pushed past the restaurant's doors, “you need to get injuries checked out before they become major.” There was something lingering in his tone as if he wasn’t just talking about Dazai.

“Whatever you say, hatrack. I figured you can sit at one table in the very far corner of the restaurant and I could sit in the opposite direction as to not see your face-”

“Welcome!” The waitress greeted them, “are you here for the couples discount?”

Dazai was about to walk right out of the restaurant, crabs be damned because he was not ever going to let Chuuya and his slimy hands date him, but the sign the woman was pointing to read ‘50% off for our February deal,’ and 50% would mean that Dazai’s meal would be completely free…

Chuuya stiffened next to him, “Absolutely no-”

“Why yes we are,” Dazai smiled, tugging Chuuya close to him, and before the redhead could push him away Dazai squeezed his waist warningly, and when his fingers didn’t burn upon touching him Dazai’s smirk grew at Chuuya’s shocked face. “It’s our first time out together so he’s a bit shy,” he whispered conspiring with the waitress who nodded in understanding.

“Well lucky for you two lovebirds, there is a table open in the back, a booth off to the side so you can have your privacy.”

Well, the situation couldn’t possibly get any better. Dazai nodded “Thank you very much, we'll take it!”

Chuuya wiggled uncomfortably, looking about ready to karate chop Dazai’s hand off and kick him to the sun, so when the waitress turned her back to them Dazai quickly let go of him before he could smack him.

“You,” Chuuya hissed under his breath, “are unbelievable. You couldn’t have just paid for half of your meal you cheapskate?”

“We’re teachers Chuuya,” Dazai pointed out, and Chuuya seemed to deflate.

“I hate you.”

“The feeling is mutual.”

The waitress turned around and their expressions of malice quickly morphed into strained smiles, Chuuya awkwardly patted Dazai’s arm as if he had just told a funny joke. “Well, here we are. A server will be with you in a minute,” she winked at them before disappearing off to the front again.

As they sat down, across from each other, it then occurred to Dazai that Yosano had planned this for the couples discount also. Or maybe it was Ranpo or Fyodor, they were also prime suspects.

“Idiot,” Chuuya cursed when their knees had knocked together, “get your gangly ass legs away from me.”

“My apologies, my dear~” Dazai could practically see the inner turmoil in Chuuya, his own guts stirred at the nickname. “I cannot control that my legs happen to be long and yours are devastatingly short.”

Chuuya’s cheeks were red as he delivered a harsh kick to Dazai’s knee, “I fucking hate you.”

“You love me~”

“I do not.”

“Do too.”

“Do not.”

“Do too.”

“Do too- argh,” Chuuya tugged at his hair at the slip up just as a woman cleared her throat who had been standing next to the table through their whole argument. And when Dazai turned his head to the waitress he could see the exact moment his soul got crushed because their waitress was Naomi Tanizaki, the most gossipy student he ever had the displeasure of teaching.

She must have been in Chuuya’s class too because he immediately recognized her and his eyes widened.

“What would you two like to drink?” She asked cheerily, and slightly smugly, and Dazai knew that his whole career was about to go down the drain with the look in her eyes.

“Water,” he said plainly.

“The strongest thing you have,” Chuuya mumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Got it, I’ll be back~” she waved to them, and as soon as she started walking away she pulled out her phone, thus marking the beginning of the rumor fever.

“We…” Dazai started.

“Are so fucked,” Chuuya completed for him, and for once they were on the same page. “Naomi is a damn good tennis player but she's twice as good at running her mouth.”

Dazai shrugged fingers playing with the end of his menu, “she’s not the brightest at Chemistry. She had to transfer classes, apparently, she was bothering her brother or something.”

Chuuya winced, “she has this weird-ass brother complex…”

Dazai didn’t expect the snicker to escape his mouth, and Chuuya seemed equally as surprised but a lopsided grin twisted on his lips as he chucked along with him.

Dazai never thought he would be talking shit about his students with Chuuya Nakahara of all people, and he didn’t expect it to be pleasant.

Eventually, their drinks were set in front of them and their food was on the way.

Perhaps Dazai could be civil for one conversation.

“Are you sure you should be drinking alcohol?” he teased as Chuuya instantly downed whatever Naomi had served him.

He shrugged, “I figured I’d need it.”

Fair enough.

Thus started the game of twenty-one questions, because apparently grown adults needed an excuse to learn more about each other in a discrete way. They both knew it but refused to bring their genuine curiosity to light.

“Say, why is Chuuya so short? Did he not drink enough milk as a child?”

Chuuya nearly threw the fork right at Dazai’s eye, “I can’t control my height dammit! And I'm twenty-two, I'll grow some more!”

...Right.

Well, at least now Dazai knew that they were the same age.

Not that it mattered.

“Why are you a teacher?” Chuuya shot back, and despite the defensive tinge in his voice, Dazai could tell he was genuinely curious. “You don’t seem the type.”

“No offense taken,” Dazai mumbled, staring down at his crab leg. “I’m going to be a chemist someday.”

He expected Chuuya to scoff, to say that he was delusional for ever wanting to pursue anything more than being a teacher, but to his utter surprise, Chuuya looked at him with understanding eyes. “I don’t doubt it.”

Dazai’s mouth went dry, and suddenly the curves of Chuuya’s face were highlighted by the dim lighting of the seafood restaurant, his long eyelashes casting shadows upon his high cheekbones and endless ocean eyes staring right into his own rust-colored ones and-

Dazai’s concussion must have really been playing tricks on him, to make him believe such lies as Chuuya actually looking…

Well, there was no word for it.

Heart Stoppingly ugly?

“Oi, Dazai?” Chuuya snapped gloved fingers in front of his face, “are you in there?”

“Yeah,” Dazai said, and his voice didn’t crack. It totally didn’t. He reached for his cup to down the rest of his water because suddenly it was very hot in the building.

Chuuya eyed him wearily, and Dazai shrugged. “The school setting isn’t for me,” he explained slowly, “too many kids, too much relying on people.”

“Well,” Chuuya said after a long sip from his drink, his cheeks were starting to get a bit flushed and Dazai would have to cut him off soon. Of course, Chuuya was a lightweight.  “If it makes you feel better, the students don’t hate you, you damn idiot. They see you as someone closer to their age, easier to talk with.”

“They see Chuuya as someone closer to their age too, and height.”

Chuuya flung a noodle at him, his seafood alfredo was nearly gone.

“You damn idiot, why do you feel the need to insult my height in every sentence?” he growled, though he lacked his usual ferocity.

“Ah ah ah, it’s my turn to ask a question,” Dazai twirled the crab leg in his hand and Chuuya gave him a mildly disgusted look. “Why did Chuuya become a teacher?”

Chuuya, unlike Dazai, was better with the kids, more interactive and outgoing. But there were rumors, rumors that Chuuya once had been a professional athlete, and Dazai had no idea as to why someone would give up that spot to become a teacher at a public high school.

Chuuya seemed to sense the silent question.

‘What happened to make you switch professions?’

He sighed, slowly putting his dinner utensil down to tug at the hem of his leather gloves, something Dazai had come to learn that he always did unconsciously in a tense situation. Dazai had hit a sore subject in their mostly lighthearted dinner, but there was no going back now.

There was a long moment of them just staring at each other, Chuuya searching Dazai’s eyes for something unknown to Dazai, but he must have found it because he leaned back into the cushioned booth with a sigh.

“Pole vaulting,” he started hesitantly, “it was my specialty, I did it every day, it wasn’t just a sport to me… I loved it. It was fun.”

Dazai could sense the big ‘but’ coming.

“My big brother,” Chuuya continued, “he was an athlete too, an Olympic qualifier,” there was something prideful yet tinged with pain in his voice, and Dazai suddenly regretted asking the question.

“But with sports, there is always a risk of getting hurt. Unfortunately, he did, an injury that he would normally be able to walk off, though he believed it to be less… serious than it was, so there were some complications. He kept pushing himself, and if he had gone to get his injuries checked out then maybe he wouldn’t have slipped up, maybe he wouldn’t have lost the use of his legs-”

“Chuuya,” Dazai cut him off, very seriously. He could sense the undertones of Chuuya’s story, and he hadn't been blaming his big brother, not in the slightest. He had been blaming himself. “It wasn't your fault,” he said simply, and they ended up sitting in silence for a little while.

“Well,” Chuuya cleared his throat once he had calmed down, “you can guess that after that, he took me out of sports. I haven't been able to do them competitively again, but at least now I can lead kids on the right path.”

Something twisted into a knot in Dazai’s gut, because it was utterly unfair for Chuuya to be pulled out due to his brother's selfishness, and the fact that Chuuya stood by and watched as kids got to live out his own dream, that was what made his insides boil.

Now it made sense why Chuuya was so adamant about injuries, even the littlest ones.

Another puzzle piece clicked together in Dazai’s mind. The gloves. They were a comfort to Chuuya, but also to hide his hands marred with scars. Scars from practicing so much.

Perhaps they were more alike than Dazai had initially thought.

Chuuya Nakahara was interesting.

By the end of dinner they had become reluctant… acquaintances, though Dazai would never stop with the teasing and taunting, not now and not ever.

“And we get dinner for free because you are my dear boyfriend!” Dazai claimed cheerily, writing down his tip on the check.

Instead of exploding, Chuuya snorted, “if you were my boyfriend I would break up with you immediately.”

“So mean to me~”

Dazai loaded his to-go box because crab was crab and he would eat it, even if heated by microwave. Naomi took their tip with a smile, “enjoy the rest of your night, lovers.” With that, she skipped, off letting the implications of what she said sink in.

Chuuya dutifully ignored her, climbing out of the booth and stretching; they had been there for nearly two whole hours.

“I am going to make her run laps tomorrow,” Chuuya grumbled on their way out.

“I have a pop quiz planned for tomorrow, I'm sure that's enough suffering.”

The lady who had shown them to their table eyed them, confused, and Dazai quickly took Chuuya’s hand, the smile less strained than before.

“I had a wonderful time babe~”

“Oh hell no,” Chuuya said under his breath, rolling his eyes. Though his hand remained in Dazai’s, “I’m not doing this game.”

“Aww I’m glad you loved it too,” Dazai leaned closer and it was impossible to miss the pink dusting Chuuya’s cheeks. Interesting. “Perhaps tonight-”

Chuuya put his hand on Dazai’s face and pushed him away, “tonight I am sleeping in my bed. Alone… I had a good time too, dipshit.”

The waitress gave the two a knowing smile and Dazai figured it was enough acting to let them get by with the couples discount. Upon walking outside, it was dark out now, and Dazai’s hand felt a lot colder when Chuuya had let it go.

“I’ll see you tomorrow jackass,” Chuuya waved to him and Dazai tried not to eye him as he kicked the kickstand to his obnoxiously pink-colored motorcycle.

“Yeah,” he murmured, then louder, “Make sure oncoming traffic can see your small frame!”

Luckily, or unluckily, depending on how one looked at it, Chuuya did not run Dazai over with his hot pink motorcycle.

That night Dazai stared down at his phone, sulking as his thumb hovered over the google search tab.

He could do it… Or he could not.

Really, there was nothing to lose, right? Better to know more about a potential opponent in your life. Yes, an opponent, because Chuuya would definitely not be anything more… not that he wanted him to be. That would be disgusting.

Dazai slipped the towel from his wet hair and further curled up in bed. He could just turn off his phone and give in to the darkness of his apartment and stare at the ceiling for the rest of the night. Or…

He googled ‘Chuuya Nakahara’ before he could regret it.

Dazai didn’t know if he was surprised that Chuuya had a Wikipedia page or not. He clicked on it because doing a little research wasn’t stalking. He was not stalking Chuuya.

Chuuya’s picture was one of him looking younger, in his teens, though his face was just as sharp and his hair was up in that ponytail. He was smiling widely, a gold medal hanging off of his shoulders and a large pole in one hand.

The first thing Dazai read was, ‘Chuuya Nakahara, a future candidate for the Olympics.’

The air left Dazai’s lungs. Chuuya had mentioned that his brother was an Olympic hopeful, but that he himself, as a teenager, would be one of the youngest competitors out there, he had not mentioned.

There was more information, about all of the medals Chuuya had won, about his ‘extraordinary’ and ‘record breaking’ skills that left older adults in shock. A few quotes, about his potential and how he would one day leave his mark on the world.

Though that was where it ended. Dazai found himself… strangely let down because if there was such potential in the world, it should have been utilized, not diminished.

Dazai scrolled up to Chuuya’s bio, screenshotting the fact that he was 5’3, though the stone in his gut only sunk further when he read the ‘relationships’ column. Deceased parents, and only a half brother who was alive, and had taken custody of him.

So that was why Chuuya had been forced to quit. The lack of family didn’t bother Dazai as much as it should have, because life was life and people came and went, unfortunately, it was how the world worked. Dazai himself didn’t have any family to speak of either.

There was a link to Chuuya's half-brother, and Dazai decided to click on that too.

His name was Verlaine, and apparently, he was French. He himself had a hopeful career that ended due to a spinal injury. And of course, his lack of looking out for himself, though that wasn’t mentioned in the article.

And well, Dazai was already deep into the rabbit hole of the internet, so why not search even further? Without any hesitation, he searched up, ‘Chuuya Nakahara pole vaulting’ and clicked on the videos tab.

There were a lot of them, some even from his first time ever pole vaulting in a competition, in middle school. Chuuya was shorter even then, though he had no problems with slicing through the air and clearing the bar easily. Instead of gloves, he wore black grip tape in all of them, though Dazai had the sinking suspicion that Chuuya had practiced so much that even the tape couldn’t block the scarring on his calloused hands.

Dazai was not proud to admit that he had stayed up for hours, because each new video was better than the last. At school, Chuuya was living through the days, but here, Chuuya was thriving.

He probably missed it just as much as Dazai missed the vials in his hand, cool with the liquid sloshing around inside of them. As he missed the feel of the lab coat around his shoulders without a class to demand.

They really did have too much in common to be comfortable with, even if on a physical level they were polar opposites.

Dazai may or may not have saved a few of the photos he had found of Chuuya flying with that big smile on his youthful face.

They were located in his hidden gallery, of course.

Dazai should never have shown up to his job the next day.

While it was amusing that Atsushi and Akutagawa had become a meme over the weekend, it was equally as unsettling that the Dazai and Chuuya, ‘Musical chairs, enemies to lovers’ video had blown up over the internet.

“You’re famous, Dazai-Sensei,” Naomi giggled during the first period, and Dazai had given her a scalding look as he handed over her failed pop quiz. Just because she was his and Chuuya’s waiter did not mean they were about to be all buddy buddy-

She held out her phone to Dazai, revealing a picture of him and Chuuya at the restaurant, holding hands on their way out.

Dazai frowned, wasn’t that like, illegal?

“You’re not going to blackmail me into giving you a good grade,” he firmly placed her test on the table and slid it over, “it can’t get much worse than the chair video anyways.”

She smiled, all venom, “you’re wrong about that.”

Dazai highly doubted he was. Since there wasn’t much he was wrong about. Though after lunch once his students started pouring into class, he decided that she was entirely correct, it had gotten much worse.

All of his students were wearing shirts, white t-shirts with a picture in the middle, a picture of Dazai on the gymnasium floor, Chuuya on his chest looking down on him like some kind of scene on a rom-com.

Judging of the quality the yearbook people had taken it and-

Dammit, this would probably end up on the yearbook-

“Why are you guys doing this to me,” Dazai asked blankly, and his class looked up innocently at him.

“Doing what, sensei?” Gin asked, blinking. Dazai would have believed her innocence if she hadn’t been the one distributing the shirts around for the class to wear.

“You all just like to see me suffer.”

“Wrong sensei,” Tachihara grinned, “We’re just trying to support you and coach Nakahara! You two make a kick-ass couple!”

The class murmured in agreement and Dazai was quick to shut that down.

“Tachihara, I wish I could say the same for you and your makeout partner. Glad to see that those hickeys went away, by the way.”

Tachihara went bright red as the class let out a collective ‘Ohhhh,’ but it didn’t stop there.

“Next time Chuuya comes by,” Dazai gestured to the door, “I’m telling him all of the athletes in this class misbehaved.”

The athletes in the class all paled, immediately scrambling to take off their shirts and back to the normal clothes they wore underneath them. Now about a quarter of the class had foregone the shirts and Dazai could deal with that.

But for the rest of the day, he would be forced to look at more and more shirts as they were distributed across the school, it got to the point where Dazai so dearly wished to wash out his eyes with bleach.

It was around sixth period when Chuuya had finally come knocking on Dazai’s door, poking his head in. Normally it would be a disgusting sight but by the look of disdain on Chuuya’s face, they were in the same boat and Dazai was not as disgusted.

As Chuuya eyed the occupants in the room, Dazai could see the betrayal on his face when he spotted Atsushi with the shirt on.

“All of you,” he snapped his fingers, and everyone collectively jumped, “get those shirts off and burn them when you get home unless you want to run laps for the rest of the school year.”

The students listened and Chuuya walked further in the room, eyeing Dazai with the same sort of exhaustion he himself had felt all day.

“We need to talk, idiot.”

“Yes yes Chuuya, I agree.” He flapped his hand at the class, “I'll be back, try to annoy Kunikida-Kun's class in my absence.”

“You’re a real dick, you know that?” Chuuya snorted once they were in the empty hallway.

“Thanks, I try.”

Chuuya sighed at the response and leaned against the wall, Dazai eyed him, “Your bandages are gone,” he noted.

“Hah?” Chuuya instinctively reached for his head, hair pulled back with a ribbon that Dazai had seen before. “Oh yeah, I'm all healed up now.” He gave Dazai a look and Dazai held his hands up in a surrendering manner.

“I went to the doctors,” Dazai admitted, “they said there was nothing wrong with me, no concussion.” In truth, he actually did go to the doctors, right after he left the restaurant because after what Chuuya had admitted about his brother… Well, it seems that he had learned a lesson.

Chuuya’s shoulders relaxed, was he relieved? “Good, that’s one problem out of my way, I'm sure you know the other?”

“What,” Dazai smirked, “the students walking around with their Soukoku shirts on?”

Chuuya choked on his own spit, “What the fuck is a Soukoku?”

Dazai shrugged, “It means double black, apparently we were both wearing black in that video of musical chairs.”

Chuuya groaned, “There’s a video?!”

“Wow, Chuuya is very uninformed.”

Chuuya let out a small noise of frustration that sounded slightly like a dying cat, and Dazai couldn’t help but chuckle.

“What,” Chuuya twisted to glare at him, “you think this is funny?”

“Well, just a little. But believe me, I want them out of those shirts just as much as you do.”

Chuuya, once again, pulled at the hem of his leather gloves and this time, Dazai could see the slight scar peeking out from under one of them. “Well, how do we do that? Make it against dress code?”

Dazai put a hand up to his chin, “well, they’re just a bunch of students poking fun, there is no rule we can use against them. We have to nip the problem at the bud, there is someone distributing these shirts out to the teenagers.”

“Like…” Chuuya hesitated, “a teacher?”

“Exactly!” Dazai clasped his hands together, “now your small brain is catching up!”

Chuuya’s lips pulled back as he bared his teeth like some feral dog, “Why you-”

It took longer than Yosano thought to be confronted about her shirt selling. But well, she saw her opportunity on one of those cheap shirt-making sights and after discussing the plan with Ranpo and Fyodor, it had been set into motion.

The musical chair operation had far succeeded her expectations. Fyodor was truly a mad genius with his plan. The first steps had been completed, and even the two of them at a restaurant that just so happened to have a couples discount was incorporated.

When Naomi showed the three of them the pictures, Yosano was absolutely delighted. Because the whole operation was just to mess with Dazai a little, and for Oda’s sake, get him to shut up about ‘hating Chuuya.’ But judging by the picture, they had accomplished much more than that.

This is why the holy trinity (Yosano, Ranpo, and Fyodor) had gotten together once again to discuss further plans. (Oda was not willing to participate.)

The shirts were only the first step in the grand scheme of things.

“You!” A voice pulled her from her musings, and Yosano looked from her clipboard to see Dazai pointing an accusing finger towards her, eyes narrowed. “It was you, wasn’t it.”

Yosano looked down at her Soukoku shirt and shrugged, “I think it flatters my figure very well, don’t you think Ranpo?”

“Wha?” The teacher drew back the curtains, Ranpo wearing the same shirt. “Oh, they finally up showed huh?”

Chuuya appeared from behind Dazai, arms crossed over himself, “Yosano… I can’t believe you actually did it.”

“Just look at her!” Dazai exclaimed, “that is the face of a guilty woman!”

“I’m not actually guilty,” she admitted shamelessly, “it was very entertaining.”

“Of course you aren’t,” Dazai grumbled, “don’t you think we’ve had enough now? You can stop distributing the shirts now, I think we get the point.”

From his place on the cot, Ranpo shrugged, “Why would we?”

“Because,” Chuuya said, clutching a piece of paper in his hands while gritting his teeth, “we have a better alternative.”

“Oh?” Yosano raised an eyebrow, “Do tell us, perhaps we can come up with a sort of… agreement?”

Chuuya stomped over and placed the paper on her desk, “Idiot Dazai said you wouldn’t agree to stop mass-producing the product until you had an even better proposal…”

Yosano observed the contents of the paper with a large grin, “Smart man.” She passed the paper to Ranpo who looked equally as thrilled.

“We will have to discuss with Fyodor before making any changes, though I’m sure we can work something out!”

Dazai’s hands balled into fists, “You’re associating with that Russian… of course you are! I’ll go and pluck all of the strings off of that cello of his.”

Ranpo waved to him, “it’ll be lost from your budget!”

Dazai didn’t end up wrecking the Orchestra room, not when Chuuya forced him back to his classroom.

Though in the end, their little deal had worked, because the next day upon arriving at school, the staff and the students alike were all wearing shirts of Akutagawa and Atsushi holding hands. There were no more Soukoku shirts to be seen.

The days at Yokohama high passed quickly, the same agenda, the same schedule, every other day. Dazai had grown used to the tempo of which he worked, though ever since becoming acquainted with Chuuya… he was thrown off of it.

Not that he was complaining, because suddenly the days were less bland.

Chuuya dropped by his room more often under the guise of ‘threatening Tachihara of the soccer team’ or ‘telling Naiomi not to be late to a tennis match again.’

But after that, he would always pull up a chair next to Dazai’s desk and have a genuine conversation with him, and it certainly made Chemistry less painstaking.

Chuuya even let Dazai use him in an experiment to demonstrate the class during their very small biology portion, but when Dazai stated that Chuuya’s hair and eye color combination was a strong sign of an incestuous relationship in the family, Chuuya never did a demonstration again.

Of course, this only sparked more rumors throughout the school of them ‘dating,’ but strangely, Dazai was okay with that. They were students looking for something to talk about, none of it was true.

And if it was… would it really be that bad?

Then other days were pranks. Sometimes Dazai would get his students involved (note, the height incident where every time Dazai was around Chuuya, he bent down to ‘see the world from his level.’ A few students also took part in the teasing but were promptly sent to detention.)

Of course, Chuuya would get him back, decorating the skeleton in Dazai’s room with horrid clothes each day of the week. (Monday being a clown that had scared Dazai shitless. Tuesday being a ballerina, Wednesday being some kind of princess, and well… it only got worse from there.)

Though it was getting awfully suspicious when weeks had passed and there were no more movements from Yosano and her little trio of demons. They were simply… letting him and Chuuya become… not enemies.

It was getting annoying and dangerous because Dazai still didn’t have an answer to why his heart rattled in his chest every time he saw the obnoxiously bright features of the redhead.

Has he always had freckles?

Well, that was beside the point.

Tragedy struck about a month later.

Well, not exactly a tragedy, but more of a relapse of Dazai’s previous life without Chuuya becoming a constant pester.

He stopped visiting Dazai’s room on Thursday. Thursday of the huge soccer game Chuuya had been talking about nonstop. At first, Dazai had come to the assumption that he was busy making plans and setting the field, but when he had dropped by the gym to annoy Chuuya, just as school was about to end, and he wasn’t present…

Well, that was certainly a cause for concern.

Dazai idly traced slender fingers against the walls as he headed to Yosano’s office, conveniently placed near the gym.

“Yosano-sensei~” he poked his head into the doorway and two heads turned towards him.

“If you’re looking for your boyfriend,” Ranpo blabbed, lollipop falling from his mouth, “he came in sick this morning.”

“Damn right,” Yosano nodded resolutely, “I sent him home, he won’t be coming back until next week.”

Oh, well Dazai supposed that made sense. Of course Chuuya, headstrong and stupid, would try to make the game.

“Well, that is an issue,” Dazai mused, “his game starts in…” he glanced at the clock on the wall, “twenty minutes time.”

“Yes it is unfortunate,” Ranpo hummed thoughtfully, “though the show must go on.”

“He tried to ask us to FaceTime him,” Yosano added, “but his voice was shot, he wouldn’t be able to talk to his team.”

Dazai winced, “that bad huh?”

Chuuya was infamous for giving his teams pep talks before their games, somewhat of a tradition. It was something to motivate the team and now without their head coach, they would only have the substitute and assistant coach Adam to watch them.

“Does Dazai want to nurse his boyfriend back to health?” Ranpo asked, and Dazai was quick to shoot down the accusation.

“Absolutely not. I’m not a nurse and he can take care of himself.”

Though the team…

Dazai was not a man to care for others, to keep others' feelings in mind, but for some reason he found himself exiting the office without another word, on autopilot as his feet took him to the locker room.

Of course, the identifying thing of the path to take was the stench, because locker rooms always smelled like shit, and even if Chuuya went through it once a day armed with Febreze, his cleanliness could not beat the body Odor of teenagers.

Dazai knocked on the open door and the sound of shuffling could be heard, he proceeded into the pits of hell, a hand cupped over his eyes. “Is everyone decent?”

“…Dazai-sensei?” A familiar voice asked, and Dazai put his hand down.

“Ah, hello Atsushi-kun~”

The occupants of the room were all familiar faces, some he hadn’t even known were on the soccer team. They all wore their uniforms and looked downtrodden by the absence of their coach.

“Dazai-Sensei,” Akutagawa asked, sounding hopeful. “What are you doing here… In the locker room?”

“I know very well where I am, Akutagawa-Kun.” Dazai traveled further into the room and sat on the bench. “I am here in the chibis steed, he was upset he couldn’t come to watch so I took it upon myself to hype you up!”

Tachihara stared at him, “hype us up with what… chemical formulas?”

Dazai pulled a tight smile, “don’t test me, because if you really want me to…”

A chorus of groans filled the room and Dazai smirked, “that’s what I thought.”

Then there was a still moment in the room, the occupants all looking to the floor.

“Look,” Dazai sighed “he tried to make it today and even came up to school, but we all know Yosano-sensei, and the moment she knew something was off she sent him home.”

There was a ripple of chuckles throughout the room before it became silent again, well, that was until Tachihara opened his big mouth again.

“You know, I think it is very nice that the coach's husband decided to show up in our darkest time. Very noble-“

Dazai stood up from the bench he had sat on and started to walk out of the room.

“W-wait Dazai-sensei!” Atsushi scrambled to block the doorway.

Dazai paused once he saw the desperation in the kid's face. And he remembered that this game… was one of their most important ones. Apparently, it was against some rival school they had been at odds with for a while. They needed someone, an adult figure.

“…what school are you up against?”

The sudden change in topic made Atsushi freeze, a look of surprise on his face.

“What… team?”

“Yes, team.”

“W-well you see it’s-“

“Yokohama private high school,” Akutagawa cut into Atsushi’s stuttering explanation. “The guild.”

The very name made something inside of Dazai crack. He clutched onto his phone so tight that he could feel the case give way beneath his hand. The students watched in amazement at the tonal shift, eyes trailing after Dazai as he suddenly reclaimed his bench in the center of the locker hall.

“Those capitalist bastards?” He snarled, and the occupants of the room scooted back on their benches. It was normal for their coach to act this way, but the one unspoken rule for Dazai was that the teacher never lost his cool. Not when one of his students poured hazardous chemicals on the floor and not when one of the teachers spilled boiling hot coffee over his trousers.

“We’ve uh… We have struggled against them in the past. Their forward, Mark Twain, is insanely good-”

“No excuses,” Dazai snapped to Tachihara, “you guys are going to absolutely decimate them or I’m giving you homework for the rest of the school year.”

Dazai never handed out homework.

The room sweatdropped.

Dazai got flashbacks to the guild- run by Fitzgerald, an American who had taken over many companies in Yokohama. Who had brought out the laboratory that Dazai had worked at, forcing him to teach chemistry at a school instead of doing the job he really wanted.

The students sensed his competitive aura, the vengeance rolling off of him in waves, and Tachihara smirked. “I see,” he looked to the others, “Dazai-Sensei’s got a score to settle with these punks, also meaning that we’ve gotta beat them to a pulp!”

The locker room, once silent, filled with noise even louder than the school assemblies.

Well, consider them fired up.

Dazai stood, determination etched into his face. “We’re way better than that private Guild school, a bunch of posh stuck-up losers.”

A loud roar of agreement.

“Seriously,” Dazai continued, pacing the room. “Their mascot is a literal dollar bill. Ours is a white tiger, who is the obvious outcome here?”

“Us!” A few shouted, and Dazai strained his ears.

“What was that? I said who is going to win this game!”

“Us!” They all echoed, and Dazai nodded, satisfied. He eyed their clock- they only minutes left until they had to be outside.

“Now,” he said once everyone had settled down, “I have a little plan that may help you,” he smirked, “it’s not cheating, but it’ll help you out a bit with the Mark Twain situation.”

It was in the heat of battle, a clash of two foes who had been feuding for the top spot in Yokohama for years now. It was an on and off battle, a constant push and pull, and coach Nakahara wasn’t present, but he was there with them in the form of Dazai, who calmly watched from the sidelines, phone in hand as he reported what was currently happening to who Atsushi was assuming was their bedridden coach.

At first, Atsushi hadn’t believed the whole Soukoku scandal and just went along with it as everyone else did, but seeing how close they had gotten and how Dazai fervently reported their scores dutifully over the phone as assistant coach Adam watched robotically, well, he was starting to buy into it just a bit more.

It was towards the end of the game and everyone was wearing out, but their spirit had never been broken. They had been tied for pretty much the whole game, one team constantly inching just a point above the other until it was their last play that would count.

The guild was in possession of the ball currently.

Mark Twain, their scariest opponent yet, smirked sadistically.

“You know what to do!” Dazai shouted over the sounds of the game, aimed for Atsushi. And Atsushi sucked in a deep breath as Mark Twain grew closer.

He would grapple for the ball and-

“You’re brothers Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer suck ass,” he said once the teenager was in earshot. And that split second of surprise was enough to encourage Atsushi to shoot forward and successfully take the ball.

Atsushi tried not to linger on the cheap trick because Dazai-Sensei was smirking at him proudly as he passed the ball over to Akutagawa, who then passed it to Tachihara, who secured their win by driving the soccer ball into the net.

There was silence over the field for what felt like forever until the deafening cheering came.

“You hear that?” Dazai asked into the phone, “that’s the sound of your team beating Fitzgerald’s ass.”

There was coughing on the other end of the line, Dazai had been forced to call him no matter how much rest Chuuya needed, and to give him a live update on the game.

“Thanks… bandaged idiot,” there was a sniffle on the other side and another cough, but Dazai knew that Chuuya must have been feeling better now that the worry of his team was out of the way.

“No problem,” he chirped, for once meaning it. “Now it’s around Chuuya’s bedtime, so perhaps he should get some sleep?”

Chuuya made a noise of agreement, “Yeah yeah, I hear ya.”

Dazai’s lips did a weird thing where they tilted upwards in some genuine emotion that he had never shown in public before. “Sleep now Chuuya, I'll see you next week.”

“G’night,” Chuuya whispered, and he was asleep before Dazai even hung up.

“Dazai-Sensei!” Atsushi cheered, “come eat dinner with us! The seafood is on us!”

Dazai’s ears perked up, “Free crab? Yes please!”

He didn’t spend the night in his dark and desolate apartment littered with clothes and half-empty sake bottles. He spent it surrounded by happy students and the knowledge of Chuuya getting rest at home and it was the happiest he had been in a while.

Things would only get better from there.

“I don’t even remember texting you my damn address,” Chuuya rasped, a blanket wrapped securely over his shoulders as he opened the door, squinting at the light.

“Yes well,” Dazai pushed his way past Chuuya, “you did.”

Chuuya groaned Horsley, rubbing at his forehead in an exhausted manner. Dazai set the grocery bags on the kitchen counter in Chuuya’s apartment and eyed the redhead carefully. His wild curls were a mane that cascaded down his shoulder, unbrushed for days. The eyebags were a sharp contrast to his pale skin and flushed cheeks, nose rubbed red.

“What’re you doing here?” He finally asked, shutting his door and lumbering back to his couch. His apartment was a mess, showing levels of how bad he felt because Dazai knew that he would rather bite off his own tongue than live in filth.

“Well,” Dazai riffled through the bags, pulling out medication and canned food. “You’ve been gone for a week and a half now, I'm sure that’s enough cause for concern.”

Chuuya weakly waved him off from the couch, staring forward with exhaustion in his eyes. Dazai could already see his eyelids drooping, “th’ sickness is runnin’ its course.”

“Yeah,” Dazai rolled his eyes, “you’re lucky I even came to see you, has anyone ever told you that you’re an ugly sick person?”

A lie.

Chuuya’s eyes fluttered shut but Dazai shoved the pills into his hands. Whoever Chuuya had seen at the doctor's had obviously not done their job correctly in assigning him the right medication. Normal grade medicine wasn’t going to make the cut and it was easy to get Yosano to hook him up with medication that would work.

Of course, Dazai hadn’t come willingly. He wasn’t worried at all Yosano just wanted him to run the errands for her, and one of them happened to drop by Chuuya’s house and make sure he was alive.

Besides, life had been awfully dull without the midget around to annoy him, so Dazai supposed that would also be a valid reason.

He would pointedly ignore the other reasons festering in his gut. He didn’t miss Chuuya and he wasn’t worried-

Well, erhaps he was just a little.

The back of Dazai’s hand brushed Chuuya’s forehead as he pulled away and he winced at the heat he was giving off. If he continued like this then Dazai would have to drag him to the hospital to get him on an IV drip and that would be annoying.

“Well Chuuya” he sighed, straightening up, “it looks like I’ll just have to make sure you don’t die.”

And that is exactly what he did. And Chuuya… he didn’t argue or push him away when he helped brush through the tangled knots in his hair after Dazai had pushed him into the bathroom to take a cold shower. He didn’t complain when Dazai had forced the medicine past his lips and didn’t even flinch when Dazai set a bowl of soup in front of him. (Though he did insist that Dazai eat half of it.)

Chuuya was a pathetic sick person, a complete opposite of how he normally was. Pliant and not even caring, and that alone was alarming.

He was also… cuddly.

Chuuya had migrated from the couch to his bed (that he had vomited on and not had the energy to clean. Dazai had thrown the sheets away completely and dug out some fresh ones from his laundry room.)

Dazai was on his way out of the room when Chuuya had reached out with a surprisingly strong grip for a sick person and uttered, ‘stay’ under his breath. And Dazai would feel shitty if he denied the request, so he crawled on the other side of the bed and simply resigned to his fate as Chuuya rolled over to face him, warm breath fanning over Dazai’s neck as he breathed deeply.

When a human being came into contact with Dazai’s skin, it burned. The touch always left a scorching trail of red hot fire in Dazai’s insides and he simply couldn’t shut it down. The bandages helped with that of course, also another reason why he hadn’t noticed Chuuya's touch… It was much kinder towards him.

It was a different kind of heat, warm and welcoming, making a shiver run up Dazai’s spine and the uncontrollable urge of touch frayed his nerves.

For some reason, he felt safe with Chuuya, a different kind of safe that he felt with Odasaku and Ango. And for once, he allowed himself to indulge in the need as he linked fingers with Chuuya, who he assumed was already passed out.

Though, apparently, he wasn’t. Life was full of surprises as Chuuya moved even closer to him, murmuring under his breath.

‘“Maybe I don’t hate your face, shitty Dazai.”

Dazai hummed, the sound reverberating through his chest and making Chuuya lean in even more.

“Maybe you’re not so bad yourself, Chuuya.”

And Dazai couldn’t pinpoint the exact time that their dynamic had changed, perhaps it was that one right then, or maybe it was another one along the line of their long school year. But something in his chest had shifted, had hammered relentlessly, and ached deep in his heart. It was not a bad ache though, no, but it was a fluttering pulsating one that never ended no matter how much Dazai stayed up all night and stared at his ceiling.

He was forced to face the fact that Chuuya Nakahara wasn’t ugly, in fact, Chuuya Nakahara was quite the opposite.

He was forced to face the fact that maybe the whole student body and staff of Yokohama public high school was correct.

He was forced to face the fact that he had feelings, actual and not fake feelings, towards Chuuya Nakahara.

What a beautiful curse.

Oda had been one of the first to notice the weird change in Dazai over time. First off, he physically looked healthier. Skin not as pale as it always was, had a healthy sheen to it. Unkempt hair was slightly more tamed… and he looked like he had finally gained some weight that he needed.

Oda didn’t have to bring him lunch any longer because surprisingly enough, he had started to bring his own. Now he had a clue as to why this was because during one of their lunch breaks coach Nakahara had stormed into the room and threw the packaged meal at him, telling him to ‘eat or he would beat his ass.’

To which Dazai replied, ‘Isn’t my wifey so cute?’

And well, that was all the clues Oda needed to slot the puzzle pieces in place. Instead of getting Dazai to stop complaining about Nakahara so that Ango could come back and eat with them, the outcome was far better than he had ever expected.

Dazai no longer complained about Nakahara as much and when he did, it was in this disgustingly endearing tone that Oda could only describe as… enchanted.

Osamu Dazai had been romanced.

Now Oda could not speak for the actual boundaries of their relationship, because while Dazai had finally seemed to accept that the reason he had a small stroke every time he saw Chuuya was because he was good-looking and not ugly, the two of them didn’t seem to be together. Yet.

They simply acted as close friends, too close for comfort, and with a lot of bad flirting in between.

It was nearing the end of the year, and ever since the musical chairs incident, the rumors around school that spread like wildfire had lost their spark, but the embers were still alive. But Dazai was stubborn, and Oda knew that if he was going to help his friend in any way, then Dazai would need to be pushed by some outwards force.

Something catastrophic was going to have to happen, something better than the musical chairs incident.

Which found himself back in the evil empress's layer.

“Yosano?” He asked, and the woman looked up from where she was bandaging Atsushi’s ankle. Oda was pretty sure that soccer season was over, so the fact that the kid kept getting injured was honestly concerning.

“Oda!” She exclaimed, patting the seat next to her, “it’s been a while has it not? Come sit!”

Oda eyed Atsushi before taking his place on the chair. He was sure that Ranpo was sneaking around somewhere in the office.

“So what brings you here?”

Oda eyed the student who tried his best to pretend like he wasn’t hearing their conversation. He appreciated the effort, though maybe having a student help with the issue… well, they had helped before with those shirts.

“It’s Dazai again,” he admitted, and Yosano looked as if she had been fully expecting the answer.

“Mhh, and what about him? I thought that he had dropped trash-talking Chuuya after falling madly in love with him and is now pining for him.”

“Yes,” Oda nodded, slight amusement in his tone when he saw the shock on Atsushi’s face. “Though that is the problem. Dazai is my friend and I want him to be happy, and there is no way he’s going to initiate a move himself. He may have recognized his feelings but he doesn't know what to do with him.”

Yosano made a noise of agreement, “a case of emotional constipation.”

“Yes, Dazai is not very good with feelings.”

Yosano finished wrapping up Atsushi’s ankle, lightly tapping it and setting his leg back on the floor. “Do you want us, me, Ranpo, and Fyodor, to regroup and come up with another plan?”

“Well, I never said it had to be You, Fyodor, and Ranpo-”

“Nonsense, it's the original group,” Yosano waved him off and rolled her chair over to the clipboard hung on a nearby wall. She scribbled onto a note and ripped it from the paper, handing it off to Atsushi who looked as if he wanted to scramble out of the room and wash his ears out-

“No, you stay right here.” Yosano snapped, pointing to where a waiting area chair was.

Atsushi gulped, “Yosano-Sensei-”

“No buts, you bore witness to our conversation and I already have a plan in mind on how to get that helpless man together with the coach, and we’re going to need the student population's help.”

“We are?” Both Oda and Atsushi asked curiously.

“Yes… You see,” Yosano smirked and launched into an explanation that left both Oda and Atsushi staring at her in wonder.

What a beast.

By the time Oda made it back to his classroom for the lunch break, Dazai was already sitting at the teacher's desk, munching on his meal.

“I don’t recall that being your seat,” Oda sighed, resigning himself to sit down across from Dazai, his original seat stolen.

“Well, it’s mine now,” Dazai shrugged, slumping even further into it.

“Don’t do that, you'll choke on your food,” Oda berated, then looked at the clock, “you’re here a bit earlier than usual.”

“Yes, well, the most important questions need the most time to be answered.”

Oda stiffened and mentally prepared himself for an onslaught of more Kahoot questions or chemistry formulas he had memorized. (He had never been good at the sciences during his time in high school but Dazai had made sure to drill the unneeded knowledge into his brain. In return, Oda would try to have Dazai memorize the genocides, though he had already known all of them. It was slightly concerning but Dazai was a concerning person in general.)

“Say,” Dazai took a moment to collect his thoughts and when he didn’t start his rapid-fire questioning, Oda sobered up. “If there was something important to you Odasaku, so important that it made you feel alive, that you did it every day, but you had to leave it, could that passion ever return?”

Well, that… had been unexpected.

Oda was floored.

He was slightly tempted to hit the emergency button on the bottom side of the desk to evacuate the school because this line of questioning was too pure. Once the school was clear, Oda could just blame it on Mafia activity-

“Odasaku?” Dazai asked, “do I need to repeat the question?”

“No no,” Oda threw the panic button plan away. He took a moment to think before he spoke again, “If I was doing something that I loved and it got taken away from me… I think that the time I'm away from it would just make me long for it more, therefore, if I had the chance to get it back, my passion would not be gone. On the contrary, it would be larger than before. Loving something and letting it go is hard, but falling back in love with it comes easy.”

Dazai was statue still for a whole three minutes, eyes flickering off and watching some unknown scene until he was pulled from the moment.

“That… Odasaku, that was wonderful advice.”

Dazai had never even asked Oda for a serious opinion just as he had done because Oda knew he wanted to give off the aura that he knew what he was doing. That he didn’t need anyone's help. But even Dazai did, and Oda told himself he would be there for him.

Even so, Oda found himself curious. “Is this advice for you, or someone else?”

Dazai blinked at him, “well… I'd say for both of us.”

There was a pause in their questioning because Oda could feel another looming question on the horizon.

“I was working at a lab for a while,” Dazai finally said, and Oda was shocked because he hadn’t mentioned anything about himself before he had joined Yokohama high school as a staff member a year ago. “I loved it and invested a lot of time and patience into it because it was what I did, though something happened, a chemical fire, and after that, the company went into hard times, where a man named Fitzgerald brought them out.”

That… that was a lot for Oda to take in. “A chemical fire? Was it…”

“No,” Dazai shook his head, and despite the story, his eyes were blank. Emotionless. Oda did not like that look on his face. “It was a coworker who was being irresponsible. Kajii never knew when to stop, and well the burns…”

Now everything was locked into place, Oda eyed the bandages adorning Dazai’s body.

“Does anyone else know?”

Dazai shook his head, and suddenly, he didn’t look like a twenty-two-year-old man, but someone years younger. “No, you’re the first to know.”

And that, well, that made Oda’s lips tug upwards into a warm smile. Because Dazai trusted him enough to actually divulge in his secrets around him and just when Oda was content with not prying on Dazai’s life.

Oda had told Dazai about the orphans to get a ground level of trust between them, but this definitely put them at a higher level than the basic trust.

“Thanks for letting me know,” he said, and the thick of the conversation was behind him. “What inspired you to tell me?”

And suddenly a look overtook Dazai’s face, so foreign that even Oda had no words to describe it. A weird mix of fondness and confusion, like a deer caught in the headlights.

“I suppose it was that stupid slug.”

“...Coach Nakahara?”

“Yes, he told me something very important about him, and I plan to do something about it now that I know his passion has not diminished. And well, you earned it.”

Oda’s finger twitched to the panic button. Where was the real Dazai and who had taken over his body?

Ever since meeting coach Nakahara, Dazai had changed rapidly. Had evolved into this… better person that Oda thought he would never be able to see. Became more open and slightly better with his emotions.

He couldn’t help but feel relief because Dazai would be fine.

Oda was a regular man with not-so-regular co-workers at an average job, but now he could rest easy

.

Dazai now knew what he had to do.

Because the pranks between him and Chuuya, they never stopped. The squabbling and the denial, that too. But there had been some new additions, Chuuya making him eat like some overbearing mom because apparently, Dazai was ‘too much of a beanpole to be anywhere near him.’

The arguments and competitions would always be a part of Dazai and Chuuya’s relationship, it came as natural as breathing and well, nothing would ever be boring with them at least.

But Chuuya, recently, had seemed dimmer compared to the large presence he always had. Being the smallest yet the largest person in the room. It was slightly moving to see the strange dull look in his eyes, the one Dazai had seen on himself when he looked in the mirror.

Dazai dug a little deeper and saw it when Chuuya was teaching his athletes when they were out on the field playing, and he was behind instructing them.

Chuuya was restless, Dazai discovered, he missed being out there because Chuuya wasn’t a retired athlete. No, he wasn’t content as most coaches were passing their skills onto the next generation because Chuuya himself still needed to showcase those skills.

If he was a professional athlete at the moment, then he would be at a peak in his career. Where he was the most able-bodied and healthy. He would be a monster because all of those years he would have spent practicing instead of watching after his fallen star brother.

But now, Dazai figured that it was time to make up for those lost years, because it was better late than never and if Chuuya got Dazai back on his feet. (His depressive episodes still came and went, and the food would always be an issue. But everything tasted less bland and the episodes were easier to manage. Dazai didn’t even have to tell Chuuya when they came around, the redhead just knew.)

Then Dazai was going to help Chuuya get back up on his feet.

Dazai chuckled bitterly, what a duo of teachers they were.

“Adam~” he called the assistant coach once all classes were dismissed that Friday. It was almost the end of the school year, in fact, their last pep rally would be held next Friday and there was always something strange about the feeling but there were better things for Dazai than being chained to some pep rally in some public high school.

“Yes?” The man asked, looking up from his stopwatch. He had always been a bit… robotic to Dazai. The students were convinced that Adam was some sort of android (with the name of his, Dazai was inclined to agree,) but their rumor this time may have been true.

“I need you to do me a favor, it’s for coach Nakahara.”

And now that got Adam’s attention because if there was anyone that he would like to work for, it was Chuuya. He had some strange infatuation with making the man proud and Dazai would be defensive if Adam was an actual threat.

That night found Dazai smirking smugly as he slid into the driver's seat of his car because the look on Chuuya’s face once he found out what Dazai had done. It would be priceless, well, after he yelled at Dazai for breaking and entering.

Dazai easily dialed Chuuya's number and held his phone up to his ear. Chuuya answered after only three rings, a record if he knew Dazai was calling.

“Idiot, why are you calling me-”

“Chuuya~” Dazai smirked, “I’m on my way to pick you up right now.”

“Wha-” there was shuffling on the other end of the line, “I was about to get in the shower.”

Dazai gulped and immediately expunged any and all images of Chuuya from his head. “Yes well, you may want to hold off on the shower. Wear clothes you can easily get around in, perhaps something you can fly around in the air in?”

There was a beat of silence, “...What’re you planning?”

“Oh nothing special,” Dazai snickered, “I’m pulling up right now~”

Chuuya cursed over the line.

Well, in actuality Dazai was ten minutes away but there was no harm in keeping Chuuya on his toes.

“‘I’m pulling up' my ass,” Chuuya glowered once he climbed into the passenger seat.

“You’re pulling up your ass?”

Chuuya whacked his arm hard. “Just fucking drive, weirdo.”

As Dazai had expected, he wore a dark dry-fit shirt, the type that stuck to your skin like a second layer of skin, and equally as tight shorts-

Was that his exercise outfit?

Out of work clothes, Chuuya was more toned than Dazai had originally thought... Not that it mattered, he would always be the same short and annoying chibi, even if he probably could reach up with a leg and dropkick Dazai.

“Idiot, what’s this about?” Chuuya finally asked, gesturing to his clothes, “I know damn well you’re not going to exercise, so why make me wear this?”

Dazai’s slender finger tapped on the steering wheel as he kept his eyes laser-focused on the road in case Chuuya had caught his gaze. “First off chibi, I didn’t ‘make’ you wear anything, I simply advised that you did. And second off, stop being so impatient, it’s a surprise.”

Chuuya’s eyes darkened, “Yeah, the last time you said it was a ‘surprise,’ there ended up being worms in my shoes.”

“That was once!” Dazai denied, “if I were to do another prank like that then it would be better!”

“That doesn't make me feel any better,” Chuuya grumbled as he settled further into the leather seat, placing his head against the cool window to watch the escaping scenery until ten minutes later…

“Why are we here?”

Dazai put the car in park, looking at Chuuya innocently. “What do you mean?”

Chuuya went for the door handle, stumbling out of the car and yelling over the top of it as Dazai followed his lead. “You know damn well what I mean by this. Why are we here, at school? It’s a weekend unless you have some drug dealers to catch…” Chuuye eyed him, “Or maybe you are the drug dealer.”

Dazai put a hand to his chest in mock hurt but continued walking to the backfield. Chuuya followed wordlessly. “Such accusations, here I am doing something nice for you and here you are calling me a drug dealer.”

Dazai pulled out a key and unlocked the back gate that separated the parking lot from the track, one he had stolen from Chuuya.

Chuuya didn’t bat an eye, “Technically this is breaking and entering.”

“We work here.”

“Still illegal.”

“Shhh,” Dazai supped a hand over Chuuya’s mouth, “live in the moment for once~”

Dazai lightly nudged Chuuya on the shoulder, pushing him past the gate, and he saw the moment the coach's eyes widened. “How did you get them to keep on the lights-”

“Coach Adam owed me a favor,” Dazai closed the gate shut and they rounded the corner, the spotlights shone big and bright across the vibrant green of the grassy field, particles of droplets from the earlier rain shower shone like fragmented crystals though that hadn’t been what caught Chuuya’s attention.

It was the horizontal pole suspended in the air by the support beams, yellow and high, cutting into the night sky. It was only for competitions held at their school, Dazai had noticed. Pole vaulting wasn’t a normal sport that they let their kids play in athletics.

Chuuya gaped as if he had been sucker-punched in the gut, then twisted around to Dazai with that priceless expression on his face that Dazai had been anticipating for the whole day.

Dazai smirked, cataloging the memory to the camera roll in his mind, filled to the brim with other pictures of Chuuya.

“You- how?” Chuuya asked, slightly choked up, and Dazai couldn’t help but chuckle. Chuuya punched him in the shoulder for that.

“As I said, Adam owed me a favor,” Dazai tilted his head to the side, and Chuuya’s eyes followed the direction he had been gesturing in to see the pole set up against the wall.

“This is illegal," Chuuya repeated to himself under his breath.

“Right, wanna give it a go?”

Chuuya’s face erupted into a vicious grin, an alive gleam in his eyes that Dazai had not seen in a while. “Damn right I do!”

Dazai watched fondly, making his way to sit out on the bleachers as Chuuya quickly did his rounds, removing the gloves to wrap the grip tape around them and taking the pole in hand, getting a feel for it.

If Dazai’s calculations were correct, then it had been about four years since Chuuya had done what he had truly loved.

And watching him fall back in love with it… well, it was an enchanting sight. Better than any of the pictures he could have pulled up on google search or any Wikipedia pages where he could read about Chuuuya’s medals.

Adam had set the bar high, as Dazai’s request, and at his first time around, Chuuya had cleared it easily. Sneakers slapping against the ground as he picked up his pace and lodged the pole into the ground. Dazai didn’t realize he wasn’t breathing as Chuuya was nearly upside down, letting the pole propel him into the air, and kept his form fluid yet his toes pointed to allow him to slice through the air like a torpedo.

It was almost as if no time had passed.

Chuuya easily made it over the pole, a big grin on his face, and it seemed that he couldn’t help the bubble of laughter that escaped him because once he landed safely on the cushion, his chuckles turned into full-blown cheerful laughs.

Dazai didn’t even realize he was joining in until he felt his lips hurt from the strain of genuinely smiling.

Then Chuuya went again. And again. Then he made Dazai help him with setting the bar higher. Then higher.

It was around twelve O’clock by the time Chuuya’s pole vault fever had diminished and he was left laying on his back, panting with sweat damping his shirt, his pole held between loose fingertips.

He looked beat and exhausted, but happy.

“Are you done?” Dazai asked, hovering over Chuuya with an amused tilt to his lips.

“I think so,” Chuuya said after a minute of catching his breath. Dazai held a hand out for Chuuya to take, and surprisingly enough, he accepted it.

Dazai hadn’t touched his hand since the seafood restaurant incident and didn’t realize how starved of the sensation he had been until Chuuya pulled away to unwrap the tape and replace it with his gloves.

“Well, you loved your surprise?”

“What does it look like?”

And the fact that Chuuya didn’t even incorporate any curse words into that sentence meant that it was a win for Dazai.

“That was…” Dazai trailed off, watching as Chuuya tugged at the hair tie, letting his hair loose.

Dazai pressed his lips together and avoided eye contact.

“Exhilarating,” Chuuya huffed out, his smile remaining on his face. Then it turned from pure joy to something more genuine, and Dazai had never seen such a range of expressions from him that wasn't rage in one day.

“Thanks for that.”

Dazai’s heart literally shattered into a million pieces at that moment.

And not in a bad way.

“You we’re missing it,” Dazai said as Chuuya finished up cleaning up after himself, “I could tell.”

“I was,” Chuuya nodded sadly, a distant look in his normally sharp eyes. “Sometimes I’ll pole vault, I won’t tell my brother, but I’ll go out and just… let myself enjoy it. But lately,” he drew in a shaky breath, “Paul’s mental state is declining so-“

“You’ve been trying to distance yourself from it,” Dazai finished for him. But they both very well knew that occasionally jumping over a low bar was not the same as competing, as getting real practice in.

“Yeah, but I just find myself right back here,” Chuuya laughed self-deprecatingly and Dazai missed the other laugh he had heard not too long ago.

“That’s because you love it,” Dazai stated simply, watching as Chuuya reluctantly let go of the pole he half in a tight grip to lean it against the wall. Their time here was done.

“You understand, don’t you?”

Dazai looked into questioning eyes and nodded, because his calling was not here at a school, like Chuuya’s, it was elsewhere.

“I do.”

They found themselves at a McDonald’s at nearly one in the morning, the only available place to eat so early.

Dazai had whisked Chuuya away from his apartment before he even got the chance to eat dinner, so of course, after burning all of that energy he would be exhausted and hungry.

Dazai was hungry just looking at him.

Well- not in that way- but even Dazai would need to eat after performing a physical feat like that one.

The McDonald’s worker gave them a long-suffering look as they ordered and trudged to the back. Luckily it wasn’t another one of their students.

The fast-food place was expectantly desolate, with only Dazai and Chuuya to claim the uncomfortable booth by the window. Though Dazai wasn’t complaining because the bleachers had been twice as worse.

No words were traded between them until their food was swiftly delivered to their table. It seemed that they had reached a mutual understanding of sorts, and Chuuya seemed too exhausted to actually engage in any petty arguments.

Or perhaps he was feeling gratitude towards Dazai.

Chuuya wordlessly passed over an extra burger he ordered, sliding it across the table. Dazai hadn’t ordered anything.

“I ordered you an extra burger since I know damn well you weren’t gonna order for yourself.”

Dazai stared at the burger.

“Eat it,” Chuuya hissed, digging into his own meal.

Dazai reached out for the meal and Chuuya nodded in approval. Once again, the silence overtook them, not an uncomfortable one, but more of a contemplative one.

“Why did you do it?” Chuuya finally asked, and there were many meanings behind the single question that Dazai’s midnight mind did not feel like calculating.

He decided to chance it.

“I already mentioned, you’re missing it, are you not?”

Chuuya snorted, taking a large bite from his burger, very opposite of how Dazai ate his own food. “Now I'm going to have to break into some top-secret lab so you can mix chemicals together.”

No matter how compelling the idea would be because when Dazai had told Chuuya about his old chemist job and mentioned missing it, he did not want to be blacklisted from all of the other laboratories in the area.

“With time,” Dazai murmured, “I’ll be back there.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Chuuya replied.

And that faith, well it was something to have Chuuya’s belief because for some reason that alone lit a fire under Dazai’s bones. It shone a spotlight through the darkness and-

Dazai needed to derail that train of thoughts because becoming reliant on a person like that- it would sting.

Even if he had never been drawn to such a person before.

“Hey,” Chuuya nudged Dazai with his foot from below the table, “what’s on your mind?”

“Chuuya sure can read a person,” Dazai sighed, placing his half-eaten burger back on its wrapper. Chuuya took it as an opportunity to reach over to snatch one of his fries.

“Yeah, damn right I can, now spill.”

Dazai wasn’t sure if he could ‘spill.’ His thoughts, they couldn’t simply be conveyed through words. There were too many layers, too many options to vocalize, and if he chose the wrong one then-

He felt his breath hitch and the cold sweat running down the back of his neck first, then he felt the hand, warm and slightly smaller than his yet strong. Unmistakably Chuuya’s, slot their hands together, intertwining their fingers.

“-azai, Dazai?” Chuuya asked, grip strong on Dazai, anchoring him from the harsh tides of his mind. Dazai’s breathing returned to normal, no longer the stuttering pace it had been.

“Are you with me now?”

Dazai nodded. He wanted to say something, but his tongue was cotton in his mouth.

“Whatever it is, you can’t say it?” Chuuya squeezed Dazai’s hand again and Dazai’s vision sharpened. “It’s fine, we can… We can figure it out, huh?”

“Yeah,” Dazai agreed slowly, and Chuuya didn’t let go of his hand for the remainder of the night, a fact that made Dazai have a scrape with death as he went into cardiac arrest at the very thought of it.

Their first date had been at a seafood place where they fake dated, and their second date had been at an empty Mcdonalds at one in the morning.

“The plan, how is it coming along?” Oda asked once he, Ranpo, Fyodor, and Yosano met up for the planning of their last pep rally for the year.

“Very well,” Fyodor smiled all snake-like, “the students are well informed and seemed thrilled to have a hand in the operation.”

“Atsushi did a good job of spreading the information around,” Ranpo explained, “He’s like a little messenger boy.”

"Atsushi is very responsible,” Oda agreed, “though are we sure we shouldn’t switch Dazai and Nakahara’s… court positions?”

“Eh,” Yosano waved him off, “I’m sure Nakahara won’t be too mad, and if so, It’ll only be for a few moments before he gets lost in Dazai’s eyes.”

Fyodor eyed the clock, “our time here is up, the plan will go through tomorrow.”

For everyone's sake, Oda really hoped it would.

“Is Odasaku excited for the last pep rally?” Dazai asked, for once trying so hard not to escape the events. He had lost the will to run away after the last time, though he would always shiver as he walked past the gymnasium doors.

No good had ever come from attending a pep rally, Dazai had learned the hard way.

Sometimes he still got flashbacks when he was trying to sleep, to when he and Chuuya had scrambled over each other from the chairs, to when Chuuya had looked up with that look after Dazai pulled the chair from under him. It was safe to say he had always woken up in a cold sweat.

Today’s pep rally would be one of the largest ones of the year, with the cheerleaders opening it up with some weird routine that Dazai didn’t care to watch. Then the football players were being irresponsible and tackling each other as a ‘goodbye’ though it just seemed that they wanted some excuse to hit each other.

The band played an upbeat song that completely differed from the sorrowful songs the Orchestra and choir performed. The rally was clashy but no one seemed to care very much.

Dazai was just starting to get restless, shifting around off to the side, when Oda nudged him. He tilted his head upwards to try to listen to what the man was trying to tell him.

“Come again?”

“I said,” Odasaku repeated, “this place isn't for you is it?”

Dazai stared at him, “this cursed gymnasium? Correct, I hate it here.”

Oda sighed, “No that wasn’t exactly what I meant-”

“Alright students!” Fukuzawa announced, the room silencing almost immediately. Dazai scanned the room suspiciously, something was about to happen. Something that they all knew about and that he did not.

Dazai eyes Odasaku but he remained still, eyes casually glued on the principal as he continued talking.

Dazai should have run out of that gym right then and there while his fight or flight instincts were still working.

“As we are all well aware, this is our last pep rally together for the year. Our seniors already had their speeches and have already said their goodbyes, but now it is our teacher's turn. And we will do that with our annual ‘King and queen’ elections. And by further extent, we will have a student couple as the ‘prince’ and ‘princess.’”

The room erupted into cheers and Dazai raised an eyebrow. This was nothing new, it happened every year and was frankly underwhelming, so why did the students seem extra energized now out of all times?

Dazai hadn’t paid any attention to the voting of whoever won the top two teachers and students, too busy with his own issues. But he did hear from others that the people who usually won were Odasaku and the floral design teacher, Ozaki Kouyou. Apparently, they had won it for over three years in a row now.

“Now,” Fukuzawa continued, “I will read off the students, the two who received the Prince and Princess role are…” He unfolded the paper, and Fukuzawa was a stoic man, hard to read, but Dazai easily spotted the flinch in surprise.

He held the paper closer to his face before clearing his throat, “Akutagawa Ryuunosuke and Nakajima Atsushi.”

The first sounds of outrage were from the two students who had been sitting next to each other, while the rest of the gym burst into laughter and general sounds of joy. Oh, so that was what they had planned. Dazai allowed his own smirk to show on his face and judging by the identical looks on Yosano, Ranpo, and Fyodor’s own faces, they had some hand in this.

To prevent Atsushi and Akutagawa from getting into another unfortunate fistfight between professions of love (Dazai honestly couldn’t tell if they actually hated each other or if had such helpless crushes on each other that they expressed it through fists… Kind of reminded Dazai of someone else he knew.)

Speaking of Chuuya, he had been the one to manhandle the two students to the stage (only after asking if they were comfortable with it because he was disgustingly considerate like that.) They all watched in amusement as Atsushi and Akutagawa held hands again, faces bright red as the crowns were placed on their heads.

“Well, I suppose in this situation it is Prince and Prince, though you two may take your seats now while I announce the King and Queen.”

The two students bowed and scrambled back to their seats, earning a few back slaps from their friends.

They stayed close to each other the rest of the day.

“Perhaps they are dating,” Dazai mused, and Oda nodded next to him.

“Believe me, Dazai, they are. You do not know true pain until you catch sight of them arguing and making out at the same time.”

Dazai didn’t have time to interrogate Odasaku more on the matter because now the principal was announcing the King and Queen and-

The names that had left Fukuzawa’s mouth did not consist of the letters O-d-a S-a-k-u-n-o-s-u-k-e or O-z-a-k-i K-o-u-y-o-u.

Really, Dazai should have known that coming to this thing was a huge mistake because the gut feeling in his stomach had been correct.

“Our teacher winners are…”

The Teachers anticipated. The students anticipated. The damn birds watching from the glass windows anticipated.

“Dazai Osamu and Nakahara Chuuya.”

Really, the twist was comically unfunny. Something that would happen in a romcom or some shitty fanfiction.

Dazai didn’t realize he had been blankly staring at the wall until he was pushed forward by Oda, and the traitor-

“You were in on this, weren’t you?” He hissed, and Oda simply smiled and shrugged, playing the innocent victim.

“I am going to get you back for this!” Dazai shouted to Oda, though it was lost to the deafening roaring of the crowd as he was dragged up to the center of the gym by Ranpo. Chuuya, in a similar situation, seemed much more dismayed as he was dragged by Fyodor and Yosano, struggling significantly.

“Don’t make me embarrass you in front of all of your students,” Dazai heard Yosano announce, and when Chuuya had dug his sneakers into the floor, she sighed and heaved him over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

Dazai swallowed and chuckled nervously at the sight as Chuuya was placed down next to him.

“Enjoy your little trip?”

“Shut the fuck up,” Chuuya’s face was flushed red in a mixture of rage and embarrassment. Dazai would have felt bad for him if it wasn’t for his own amusement. Perhaps the situation wasn’t as bad as originally thought because now Chuuya could be pronounced as his ‘queen.’

A win-win, really.

“I give you… King Dazai Osamu and… Queen? Nakahara Chuuya.” Fukuzawa hesitated, but judging by the thumbs up Yosano shot him, he had been bribed into this.

“What?” Chuuya yelled, outraged, “Why is that idiot the king? I should be-”

Dazai placed a hand over Chuuya’s mouth, “Shush queen Chuuya. Do you hear that? That is the noise of our royal court cheering for our sprouting relationship.”

Chuuya shamelessly bit his hand and Dazai pulled away, wiping the rabies from his hand.

“Now,” Fukuzawa continued, and Dazai felt himself smirk because… there was more?

“We will have the dance between our king and queen.”

Dazai was absolutely delighted and Chuuya blanched beside him, “What?!” They both asked at the same time with varying levels of enthusiasm.

Before Chuuya could protest, the music played, of course, it was from the orchestra. Fyodor, the little devil, had picked the slowest and most romantic song for his group to play.

“What is this-”

“Just go with the flow,” Dazai led Chuuya out further away from Fukuzawa and Mori and to the front and center of the gymnasium. He could feel the cameras recording them, but the more onlookers the better.

“‘The flow?’ Do you know how much of an idiot you sound like right now?” Chuuya snarled and tried to pull away from Dazai’s iron grip on their interlocked hands.

“Yep! Follow my lead!”

“Your lead? No, I’m the one leading this-”

“Might I remind you that I’m the king and you’re the queen?”

Chuuya stepped on his foot, “I’m a badass warrior queen that will kill you in your sleep.”

“Be careful what you say Chibi, there are cameras recording and if my dead body happens to be found anytime soon you will be the prime suspect.”

Chuuya seemed to take it as a challenge, forcefully pulling Dazai closer, and now they were getting the groove of things.

“Don’t test me,” Chuuya grumbled under his breath.

The crowd around them would simply not shut up, ‘oohing’ and ‘awwing’ at every other move they made. The dance was more of a fight for who got to lead the whole time, neither was in the lead for more than a minute until the other stomped on the other's foot and pulled them along.

Though the noises, they were lost to Dazai because he was only able to focus on the person in front of him, even the beat of the music becoming a distant thing. For all he knew the music could have ended a long time ago, but when Chuuya continued to look up at him with that look in his eyes and didn’t stop either, well, Dazai felt a familiar stone lodge itself in his throat. The same feeling he felt whenever trying to talk about feelings and-

The music came to a climax and Dazai took advantage of it because he happened to be the one leading at the moment, and dipped Chuuya low before the redhead could even think about doing it to him first.

Which he had been, judging by his frown and not a surprised, but a disgruntled yelp when he scrambled to instinctively wrap his hands around Dazai’s neck.

“I beat you to it~” Dazai taunted, and once his eyes focused again he was assaulted with the image of Chuuya and fiery red hair and azure eyes that he would never be able to grow used to-

“Idiot,” Chuuya grumbled, he must have noticed Dazai staring.

The next words that escaped past Dazai’s lips were ones he hadn’t expected to come so easy. Ones he had never said to anyone else in his life yet-

“Kiss me.”

Chuuya’s eyes widened and his lips parted, and once he searched Dazai’s face for any sign of deception, his expression softened then morphed to his own smirk. “You idiot, it’s about damn time!”

And when Chuuya’s fingers snaked up from Dazai’s shoulders to grab fist fulls up hair and drew Dazai in closer to slot their lips together well… Dazai had never heard a crowd scream so loud before.

-5 months later -

“Mackerel, you’re being stupid!” Dazai wined down at the orange cat that just looked up at him as if he was an idiot. Well, Dazai wasn’t the one who had knocked over the can of pickles. That had been the cat.

“I don't even know why I let you stay here,” Dazai murmured as he retrieved the broom from the pantry to grumpily sweep the glass from the kitchen floor. “If Chuuya wasn’t the one keeping you here then your ass would be out on the streets to be fed top the stray dogs-”

“I’m home!”

Dazai scrambled to throw the broom somewhere out of the room and place a hand on the cat's head.

“Welcome home honey~”

Chuuya paused at the doorway of the kitchen, eyebrow raised as he stared at Dazai, then the cat. “...What did you do?”

Dazai grinned, totally innocently. “Nothing! Me and Mackerel we’re just bonding, right?” He looked at the cat, who gave him an unimpressed look.

It looked just like Chuuya sometimes.

Chuuya glared at Dazai as he set his water bottle onto the counter, probably too tired to question Dazai any further. Dazai slyly scooted close to the redhead, hand snaking over his waist adorned with a dry fit shirt and-

“Hands off,” Chuuya grumbled, shooting him a glare over his shoulder, “I’m not about to fuck with you right now.”

Dazai gave him a crestfallen look and opened his mouth to protest but Chuuya easily escaped his lecherous grip.

“No,” Chuuya whacked his shoulder, “I’ve been out working on a new technique today and I need to get it down if I want to qualify for the Pole Vaulting team, so I'm going to take a damn shower and no- You are not getting in with me.”

He cut off Dazai’s other suggestion and Dazai pouted, “I had to try.”

“You always have to try.”

With the end of their interaction, as soon as Chuuya exited the room, Dazai shooed the cat away from him, then headed to his computer to check for any new emails for updates on the newest chemical equation one of his co-workers had been meaning to try out.

It was a new company he had been working for, thankfully not owned by Fitzgerald, but by one of Ango’s friends, Ayatsuji. The pay was well and Dazai was not complaining about being able to be more hands-on with the chemicals at hand.

And speaking of Ango-

“Hey, Chibi!” Dazai called, knocking on the restroom door.

“What the hell do you want?” Chuuya shouted over the running water of the shower.

“There’s a teacher reunion at Lupin, Odasaku and Ango invited us. Want to make a grand appearance?”

There was the sound of something falling in the shower and cursing. “When is it?”

“Tonight.”

Dazai could practically feel the anger coming off in waves from the other side of the door. Suddenly it flung open and Chuuya, a towel wrapped around himself, took Dazai by the collar and dragged him into the bathroom to shove him into the shower.

“Get into the shower you idiot, it looks like you haven’t taken one for days.”

“Chuuya-”

“You dimwit, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me until the last minute!”

“My beloved Chibi-”

“Don’t use that damn two in one shampoo either, it’s the worst-”

“Chuuya~”

“WHAT,” Chuuya hissed, slathering shampoo onto his hands and reaching up to wash it into Dazai’s hair angrily, but the look on the other's face made him halt.

“What is it, idiot Dazai?”

Dazai hummed, “nothing, I just love you.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Yeah, I know you do dumbass, but flattery won’t get you anywhere, now bend down so I can get to your hair.”

Dazai chuckled and obliged.

Some things would never change.