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It should have been the culmination of his dreams. Getting back home after a long day at work and then finding himself an accidental, but ever-grateful, owner of a stray dog.
Granted, the one that greets him isn’t a dog. And there isn’t even the slightest whiff of ‘accidental’ in this.
The sight that greets him after a day full of illegal activities is a cat illegally trespassing into his apartment. Not only did this cat somehow bypass the locks in his doors that require biometric access, this cat also bypassed all logic by somehow managing to look so uncute, given that it has bandages loosely wrapped around its body.
This bandaged cat is sprawled out in a stretch in the middle of his bed, breathing even. As if it’s so damn lazy that it ended up falling asleep mid-stretch. The tip of its long tail has a bandage tied up in a ribbon. Urgh.
Chuuya refuses to believe that there’s more than one existence in this world who has the disgusting sense of wanting to dress up in bandages and offend his eyes.
Sensing the mackerel stench in the air, he throws a dagger towards the cat, unsurprised when the cat simply meows at him cutely, knowing that he doesn’t have the heart to hurt it.
Just-before the dagger ends up shaving off chocolate-colored hair from the cat, Chuuya pulls it back with a red glow of gravity manipulation. One hand on his hip, he walks closer to his bed as he frowns at this cat-Dazai. Nyazai? No, no, giving it a cute nickname is step 1, and then becoming its sworn servant trapped by cuteness is step 2!
He shakes his head. “What the fuck happened?”
Ears twitching, Nyazai meows at him, certainly this bastard’s way of saying, “Why do you even have to ask, are you really such a stupid chibi?”
“I don’t need an explanation as to how the fuck did you manage to bypass the biometrics.” He clicks his tongue as he sits down on the edge of his bed. He uses the handle of the dagger to bop the other’s head, laughing a bit when Nyazai gives him an aggrieved look. “I’m asking as to how the hell did you end up in such a form.”
He’s pretty sure that the Agency shouldn’t have encountered any cases where there are reports of people getting turned into cats.
Nyazai rubs his cheek against his wrist. It would be cute if Chuuya isn’t aware that the other is trying to get closer to his dagger. Suicidal even as a cat, what a disgrace to the entirety of the cat race.
“I just finished work and I have time-off tomorrow,” he says with all of the indifference he can muster. He ends up throwing his dagger to a sheath in the ceiling, roughly pinching Nyazai’s ear when he gives a complaining meow. “It means that I have no desire to help you investigate, asshole.”
Nyazai lets out a huffing breath, before scratching him lightly, right on the spot where his gloves end. Not enough to actually wound him, but it gives off a ticklish sensation on his skin.
“Acting cute won’t work on me,” he returns with a huff of his own. He picks up Nyazai so he can have a serious stare-down with this idiot partner of his. “I know you’re the mackerel bastard, you’d never be cute in my eyes.”
Unless he’s crying while suffering from losing against him—that would probably the only time he’d find Dazai cute. Or maybe when he just woke up and is vacuuming all of the bedsheets using some strange power, so he can transform himself into a mackerel burrito. Or maybe on the rare time that he actually is surprised by the flavor of the food that he tries? He does that little nose scrunching thing and wide-eyed shock—it reminds him of the color of nicely-brewed tea, whenever Dazai’s eyes sparkle like that—wait, he’s getting distracted.
He squints at Nyazai who’s doing the same nose-scrunching and eyes-widening thing right now.
Like Dazai is aware of the tangent his thoughts got dragged into just now.
“Cuteness has no room in this discussion,” he affirms, before crushing Nyazai against his chest.
Dazai has complained countless times about how he’s such a brute who definitely doesn’t smell nice, after a day at work. Well, with a cat’s sense of smell, he should be suffering right now, being smooshed into his chest, his clothes retaining his scent after a full day at work.
Nyazai bats his tail against his wrist. Tsk, why does this stupid cat look so happy?
“I’m going to bring you out of my apartment and throw you out,” he explains. “I’m just making a detour to my kitchen first.”
After all, he hasn’t had dinner yet. Dazai isn’t important at all. Chuuya’s priority is taking care of his stomach, he can always kick Nyazai out after that.
As an ex-mafia, Dazai is well-versed with illegal things, such as outright stealing food from someone’s plate. He tries to push the cat away from his dinner using his chopsticks, but Nyazai has evolved to become even more agile in dodging him.
“That food has too much salt, oi!”
Nyazai gives him a look that accuses him of being an idiot.
“Aren’t you a cat now? There are things that cats aren’t supposed to eat!”
Nyazai meows, then bites his hand instead.
Eyelids twitching, “The only reason I haven’t skinned you alive yet is because I don’t want to dirty my apartment.”
Even so, for the sake of his dinner being safe from a thieving cat, Chuuya picks Nyazai up and settles him over his shoulder. He’d gag the cat using his hair if only he isn’t certain that Nyazai will actually try to eat it.
Thankfully, he’s recently restocked his pantry.
He takes out real mackerel from his fridge, thaws it quickly in the sink so he can steam it. “I’m going to make you commit cannibalism,” he says indifferently to the idiot cat. “A mackerel eating a mackerel.”
Nyazai licks the side of his neck, as if to say, “I saw that you Googled about healthy foods for cats, chibi.”
“It’s cannibalism,” he insists, and cooks one-handed, because Nyazai keeps on squirming against him. “If you keep on moving and end up getting steamed alive, I’m going to laugh at you.”
Nyazai meows at him, “You wouldn’t let a pot kill me, chibikko.” He keeps on rubbing his face all over his hand, arm and chest. He stretches up and rubs paws against both sides of his neck, trying to embrace him even though he’s stuck in a cat form.
“My apartment has surveillance cameras,” he reminds the other. It’s not a necessary reminder, because the cameras have been planted by Dazai himself. “Once you’re back to your beanpole form, I’m going to show the videos to you and make you suffer from secondhand embarrassment at how you’ve been acting.”
Tea-colored eyes twinkle at him, accusing him of being even more embarrassing at being able to interpret every single one of the other’s words even though it’s just random meowing.
“Because I’m your partner,” he explains, lips twitching. Before Nyazai can purr in delight at those words, he adds, “So I’m already used with understanding nonsense.”
As expected, that has Nyazai yowling at him in protest, batting his chin with swipes of his paws.
Dinner Round 2 proceeds more peacefully, given that they both have food to occupy themselves with. After eating, Nyazai rolls all over the table, displaying his belly and waving his tail. It unfurls the bandages covering him, showing off expanses of silky chocolatey fur.
He gives one look at this display, then firmly says, “I’m not feeding you crab.”
Nyazai gives him a look that’s been passed down from saber-toothed tigers down to the housecat, a look of an apex predator marking a prey for death. Of course, since this is Dazai wearing the body of an idiot cat with messed-up fur, it only looks… kind of cute.
He reaches out and scratches the other’s chin, rolling his eyes when he sees the other’s tail automatically wrap around his wrist. “I’d treat you to crab if you manage to solve this problem without disturbing my day-off.”
Nyazai meows, full of complaints, before setting his teeth against his forearm.
Chuuya pinches his ears, amused. “Maybe you should stay like this forever,” he teases. “You’re so much more docile like this.”
Nyazai’s ears flatten on top of his head, as he continues meowing out his grievances.
It’s not exactly crying while suffering from losing against him—but it’s close. Dazai does look quite cute like this, he can’t help but want to tease him more.
“And then I can ask Ane-san to introduce me to some matchmakers,” he adds. “Owning a pet cat is bound to attract a lot of people, right?”
Nyazai leaps up towards him, eyes in slits, jealousy in full force. Chuuya catches him by the neck, then kisses his forehead, then his entire face, returning the favor of scent-marking him.
This time, there’s no faking the purring that rumbles out of Dazai’s form, body melting like liquid in his hold.
Chuuya rolls his eyes at this blatant display of weakness. Squishing his partner’s face in his hands, he murmurs, “If you can’t fix this yourself, then I won’t get to kiss your stupid mouth.”
Nyazai yowls, then sprints out of his hold, obviously eager to undo this—whatever curse or ability or nonsense—that he’s acquired.
He watches the idiot cat—his partner, his boyfriend of several weeks—leave. He immediately relocks all the doors, as he downloads the video from the cameras, so he can enjoy rewatching the cat’s cuteness. He needs to do it quickly, because he’s pretty sure that very shortly, Dazai will return even more insufferable than ever.
He shakes his head slightly, while relaxing in bed. “If he wanted to ask to move in, he could have just asked me directly, that idiot.”
How is he able to understand that from all the display today? Isn’t it obvious from the way that mackerel has scent-marked his favorite parts of this apartment? Especially Chuuya himself, the bed and the dining table.
After all, as Dazai’s partner, he’s very used to understanding things that make no sense to anyone else but them.
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