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Before today, had Chuuya been asked to choose the most unavoidable day of his life, he would, without a second thought, have chosen the day he met the shitty mackerel.
After today, he has changed his mind.
He never imagined another character could exist in this universe with a personality worse than the youngest executive in Mafia history. Apparently, drenched sickly rats surpass pucker-faced mackerels on the scale of nuisance to Chuuya and to the society. One of these days, he really is gonna yeet both of them into outer space with a gloved suckerpunch, mind you. The world will be so much better off without these good-for-nothing twigs who should have snapped into two long ago if not for their uselessly smart brains.
Know the worst part of it all? Chuuya doesn’t remember anything. He doesn’t remember why he went to work in his casuals, how he ended up in some prison—doesn’t remember why he got so distracted that he took no action for the rapidly flooding room, the water now licking its way past his chest and fast. Why did he not break through the walls with his ability and escape the moment the water started to leak in instead of running the danger of being drowned alive?
The only thing he is damn sure of: the bandage wastage must be involved in some way. Don’t tell me! Is he forcing me to be his double-suicide partner? No way!
There, too—unfortunately, he was wrong. Well, not entirely. Chuuya had just mixed up some minor details. The mackerel is involved. Just not in the way he imagined.
For example, he isn’t the one who was drowning alongside Chuuya.
Chuuya had reached out with his gloved hand and tapped the not-mackerel’s shoulder with a, “Oi, what the hell are you trying to do?! If this is your usual sick joke—double suicide is so romantic!—or whatever, leave me—” only to find a pair of eerily shrewd eyes studying him from under a plume of dark hair which should have fallen over his forehead in that attractive untidiness some guys can pull off unlike his own unruly hair which can only be tamed with the help of his hat. Well, today must be Mr. Purple-Eyes’ bad hair day too because the strands are sticking all over his damp forehead. Chuuya might or might not have fought the urge to brush it away to get a better look at his face.
Of course, all these unwanted thoughts come to him later. His first instinct on finding someone else in place of what he expected to be the bandage wasting machine is to let out an embarrassing yelp. So undignified for a fearsome Mafia executive. Mori-sensei should be proud. “Huh! Wh-what are you?!”
Before the man could reply, a mic is tapped on from somewhere above and into it speaks a familiar voice. Too familiar, in fact. Chuuya sighs, more exasperated by the voice than the water rising above his sternum now. “How does it feel to die by drowning, Dostoyevsky?”
“You can’t kill me,” his drowning companion says evenly.
“I like that response,” continues the mackerel who had, for whatever reason, decided Chuuya too should drown according to his plans. He is gloating about something–or–the–other into the mic, but his words go right over his head because of the one foreign word that has stuck to him.
How does it feel to die by drowning, Dostoyevsky?
Dostoyevsky?
The Dostoyevsky?
The one everyone, even the Boss, calls a demon? The one who got Ace to kill himself? Chuuya bore no particular rapport with the dead guy but the fact that an outsider got one of the Port Mafia executives so easily is a prick to his ego too. Not to mention, he is the mastermind behind the whole Cannibalism nonsense which almost got the Boss killed as well.
This guy is the one Chuuya had vowed to crush to smithreens as soon as he got his hands on him.
Good thing Dazai is drowning this piece of shit but… Port Mafia, no, Yokohama’s worst enemy looks like this…? He is nothing like what Chuuya had imagined—frail frame, pale face, exhausted eyes. Nothing about him screams criminal to him (except for his prison garbs, of course.) Why, Chuuya might even have helped him with his bags or something someday.
Oh, but there he is proven wrong. When his eyes flare up in the most murderous look he has ever seen, directed up at the source of the voice that’s been taunting him for more than half a minute now, Chuuya sees him—the real him—the man beneath the calm, world-weary exterior, the man who has resolved to shake the world by its roots—and for a shameful split second, he is grateful he is not on the receiving end of this man’s rage.
“Chuuya, this is farewell to you too.” Chuuya snaps out of his trance at the mention of his name. He had almost thought his ex-partner from the dreaded Twin Black of the past had forgotten all about him. “It’s a shame things turned out like this…”
Of course. He has always known it. How expendable he is to Dazai. Dazai could simply pick up and leave the Mafia one day and find a new partner but Chuuya can’t do that. He can’t drop everything and move out just like that. He has to—wants to stick around for his family. Although whether or not his family cares about him as much he does is up in the air. The ones who really did care for him are all dead now.
Even then, livid as he was, he still felt an odd sort of exhilaration getting a chance to work with him against the Guild duo. Dazai, though? He probably didn’t feel anything.
Chuuya always ends up being an errand boy for the Mafia, for Dazai, for the government, for the glasses doc.
Not that it mattered. Not at all.
Against his will, his hatred and resentment stir somewhere deep in him—he hears the familiar whispering of the dark deity whose vessel he had been forced to be for years. Wake me up, wake me up, wake me up…
“Shut up,” he murmurs softly, not sure if he meant it for Arahabaki, for the bandaged freak or for the guy next to him, curiously watching his every expression.
Above them, Dazai has finished his little farewell speech for him. “Sorry, there were none~ Goodbye~”
Asshole.
All the so-called prodigies suck. Seriously. The one who got him trapped inside a book for the greater part of the crisis. This demon. That bastard. All of them. He really really wants to go up there and bonk him in his head with his fucking mic so that he never again recovers his wits but the rush of water is dragging him down rapidly. Unless he does something quick…
“Chuuya-san, do you plan on dying here?”
What?! “What the hell?” he growls. “Absolutely not! No way am I dying because of something as stupid as drowning.”
“Good to see we are on the same page. So, then, do you have a plan?”
Plan? No, he doesn’t. Planning and shit is all Dazai’s specialty. He could use his ability but there isn’t much point if the walls absorb it from what he remembers from his fuddled memories. He has to sorely cut down on his drinking if it’s gonna give him amnesia on this scale.
“Right, I thought so. Say, Chuuya-san? How about working with me? I can get us both out if you help me.”
The water is almost above his chin now. His companion, though, is speaking like he has all the time in the world. On any other occasion, Chuuya would have asked him to hurry up with whatever he wants to say because lives might be at stake. Today, it’s just him and this demon who has to be killed to put an end to all his world domination plans anyway.
Maybe, this is the right solution after all. Optimum solution for the situation, as Boss likes to put. One or two lives sacrificed to save hundreds.
But…
“Why?” Chuuya hears himself asking. “You are the Demon Fyodor—you are the one that keeps trying to destroy—bluh—bluh—!”
With a sudden firm grab of his shoulders, the man pulls him closer and up to him. If Chuuya wasn’t so desperately trying to stay afloat, he might have blushed.
Because the Demon Fyodor, as everyone calls him, isn’t half bad to look at, by the way. In his drab prison clothes and grungy damp hair, the guy still is quite a looker. Shit! What am I going about! Did I really think my worst enemy is hot?!
“Demon Fyo–Fyodor! What the hell do you think you are doing?!”
“Oh, I apologize, Chuuya–san,” he beams, not a single hint of apology anywhere in his idiotically pretty face. “I can’t hear you well over the roar of water. So…? You were saying?”
“Why?”
“Hmm?”
“Why are you acting like you know me?”
“Why? I do know you, though,” he pouts and scrunches his browns in confusion. Chuuya hates that his hopeless self finds this cute as well. “You are one of the top five Executives in the Port Mafia, the strongest martial artist—”
“I–I didn’t mean it like that, you—!” He swallows the curse that automatically tumbles onto his tongue. This guy might be a demon but he is polite at least. And suffering in the situation as himself, thanks to the shitty mackerel, so the least he can do is return the courtesy. It isn’t like Chuuya doesn’t know to act refined when the need be. Dazai just isn’t the man to deserve his good manners.
And so, Chuuya lowers his voice. “Personally, I mean.”
He tilts his head as if he still doesn’t get what he meant. Perhaps, he’s simply pretending? Although seeing how short of time they are running before they drown to death—unlikely. Chuuya clings onto his shoulder and tries to pull himself up by a bit, but fails. “Why do you keep calling me by my first name, damn it?!”
“Oh, I am sorry. Is that a problem? You are using my first name too,” he points out. Chuuya is definitely blushing now. Oh, right. He should have called him Dostoyevsky, the surname being as foreign on his tongue and difficult to pronounce as it must be to write down. “So…,” he strategically clears his throat. “I imagined we were past that point. Moreover, a situation like this asks for dropping some formalities, right?”
He is just like Dazai. Bullshitting their way out of any situation with their manipulative tongue alone. He just can’t win. “Whatever,” Chuuya grumbles. “Either way. I am not working with you. You keep trying to destroy my city, how in the world can you even—?”
“But, you know, Chuuya-san,” interrupts the soft voice. Had it been anyone else, Chuuya would have exploded at the disrespect. But his coaxing voice makes him feel like he has no choice but to listen to him. “If you don’t get out of here, you can’t protect your city anymore. We are continents away from your home country and if we die here, it’s the end. Maybe just for now, Chuuya-san might consider putting aside our differences and working with me. Once we get out, we can decide whether we wanna continue working together or not.”
“No way am I working with you—!”
“Oh, really?”
Even with the water rising above his chin and his left hand being the sole anchor to the ceiling, the guy seems composed as ever. And, somehow, Chuuya finds his calm focus on victory too damn attractive. Damn it! He has never been this distracted on a mission before. He needs to go for some sort of counseling when he gets out—how to stop getting attracted to men with big brains and trash personality.
“After this, I mean. For now?” He takes a deep breath. It is getting really difficult to breathe now. Maybe it’s ‘cause of the toxic water—maybe it’s ‘cause of the taut tension flirting between them. Put aside my differences, put aside my ego, put aside my distractions. Focus on the current situation. “Tell me your plan.”
“Oh, but one more thing before that.”
“What now?!”
“Once my plan is executed, Chuuya-san has to carry me out of here. Is it alright?”
What the fuck?
“I have a weak constitution, you see,” he goes on unabashedly. “I would, no doubt, have passed out by then, so…you are my sole hope for survival.”
Once again, he bites back his words. This guy isn’t Dazai. For all he knows, he might even end up fainting hearing some of the words that come out of his mouth. “Well, then, make it quick whatever your shitty plans are.”
The Demon gives an enigmatic smile. “Right? We don’t have more than ten seconds before we go completely underwater…so? Listen carefully. I won’t repeat my words twice.”