Chapter Text
Chuuya flings his backpack on the floor and flops down on his bed, spreadeagled and spent, after the long day of nonstop working in the automobile workshop. The tiredness he feels in every limb is gratifying, though—as it means he is getting closer to his dream of setting up a workshop back home someday. He needs all the experience and practice he can get before he graduates.
Raising his head, he glances at the wall clock. Half-past seven. The mackerel isn’t back from classes yet? What a surprise. Most of the semester he is back even before noon so that for the rest of the day, he can fuck around on the campus or pass out on his bed after doing who–knows–what. Yet, he manages to top the examinations every single time without a miss and then, he’d complain about how easy the exams were, how the questions aren’t stimulating enough for him and so on.
Screw bored good–for–nothing geniuses.
Chuuya drags himself up from the bed and plods to the bathroom. He’ll take a shower before the mackerel returns and locks himself up in there for two hours.
He was just starting to unbutton his shirt when his phone rang.
Not sparing a glance at the caller–id, he swipes right. “Oi, mackerel! If it is to pick you up from some shady bar, forget it, okay?”
“Dazai is still getting on your nerves?” laughs a familiar voice. Paul? “Some things never change.”
“Paul?” Chuuya says out loud. He moves his phone away from his ear and stares at the screen to find the call is actually a video call.
And... to add to the weirdness, Paul and Arthur are sitting side by side in Paul’s... bedroom?
“What...? You guys finally really actually started dating or what?”
The two men share a nervous look. Oh, what’s going on? “The thing is—”
“Cut the bullshit and get to the point, Paul!”
“Okay–um, to put it in words—” His older brother takes a deep breath and all but blurts out the rest. “Chuuya, Art and I have been dating in secret for over five years now and we finally decided to get married. Plus, to tell everyone about this. So yeah! Sorry, sorry, sorry I didn’t tell you—I just didn’t know how to—!”
Chuuya almost drops his phone. His brother has known Arthur Rimbaud for over fifteen years now. From law school to setting up their own consulting firm, they have been together through highs and lows. Their family and friends have often hinted about the start of something special seeing the way the two behaved around each other but they always skirted the topic.
And now?! They had already been dating all this while! Meaning, they had been acting like they didn’t even know how to spell l. o. v. e....?!
“You guys have been dating? Already? So then, wait, whoa! I feel so fucking betrayed now! Why did you not tell me?! I–man—woah!”
Paul looks understandably guilty. “I just didn’t get a right chance to tell you about it. I mean all of us were going through a lot at the time with Mom’s death, then Dad’s spiral and his... well, you know the rest. Not to say our firm was not doing so well either... It was not really a good time to break the news about something like this. Art was the constant pillar of support for me and... how to say, there wasn’t really a particular day we started dating, to be honest?”
“It just happened, didn’t it?” Arthur smiles, one full of love at his currently blubbering boyfriend, no, fiancé—one which makes Chuuya a tad jealous because damn, how he wishes someone looks at him like that too. “Just one day, I knew you were the person I had been searching for my whole life.”
Chuuya is sure they are holding hands off camera. He clears his throat loudly. “Okay, okay, keep the PDA to yourself, guys! There are little children around.”
“Oh? What little children?”
“Me!” Chuuya turns up his nose. “I am…” Cue a long pause on both sides. “NOOO~! I am not little~!” He shrieks and throws his pillow at the wall—at the same time, Art whispers to Paul albeit loud enough to be overheard by Chuuya. “He said it! He said the forbidden word!” —and Paul snickers.
“Ha. Ha. Guys. Fucking funny. Remember, I still need an apology? I was your best wingman, Paul and you–? You didn’t even tell me?! That my lovey–dovey ideas were all a grand success and you already landed—”
“Your lovey–lovey ideas didn’t land me anywhere,” his brother says, as a–matter–of–fact. “It was Art who proposed on both occasions—our first date and now, our... marriage.”
Stingy–laine, damnit! “That’s because you are such a coward. Bet you went up to him with the cheesiest love letter anyone can even think of and tossed it into the trash can as soon as he turned to you? Something like you are the Arthur to my V–erlin~!”
“That’s oddly specific?”
“Art! I totally didn’t do this! Chuuya—stop! Stop being such a—okay, if you are such an expert in love affairs, why haven’t you dated anyone yet?”
“Because I haven’t found the right asshole yet. One that is down to handle my bullshit—huh?”
Shit, the mackerel is back. Chuuya had hoped it might have drowned itself in a gallon of alcohol while here it is, looking very much sober. If it were drunk, it’d be singing about the meaningless state of life and death.
Not that it isn’t singing now— “Chibi~ I am back~ And see what I brought~ It’s the same species as—” Loud and atrociously offkey. “Oh, is that Paul?”
Dazai leans over his shoulder and waves at the two men.
Paul waves back at Dazai but his voice is lowered in a conspiratorial whisper. “How about him?”
“He is an asshole but not the right one.” Chuuya whispers back, equally conspiratorial.
“Right kind of assholes exist?” Arthur whispers in confusion, his green eyes darting between the screen (Chuuya) and Paul.
“What is with all the whispering?” Dazai whispers into Chuuya’s ear, making him jump and punch his chest. But the idiot manages to get out of his range, somehow plucking the phone out of his hand at the same time.
“Dazai! Give it back! Hey, close the fucking door behind you!”
“No can do~” He plugs in his earphones into Chuuya’s phone and flops on his back on Chuuya’s bed. Great, now he can’t hear Paul and Art at all.
Huffing at his menace, he kicks him in his shins and rises to close the door. People are passing to and fro down the corridor and he hates background noise especially when he is working or attending a call.
It’s then he notices a pale–faced guy standing on the doorstep. He is wearing a black shirt, oversized and untucked, matched with white slacks and sneakers, his droopy eyes roaming around their shared room—taking in how and where things were (okay, their room is a lot messy because of Chuuya’s design sheets yet to be filed and the mackerel’s bandages lying everywhere like a cat has been let loose in there) and his fingers absentmindedly playing with his shoulder length hair.
Chuuya’s first thought—the guy has mixed up his dorm with theirs and that’s why he is standing here, looking so lost and confused about the condition of the room. His second thought— okay, even with the dopey expression on his face, he is kinda cute.
He clears his throat. “Um, can I help you?”
The guy starts as if he’s noticing Chuuya only now. “Oh. Are you Dazai’s roommate?”
“Yeah? Who are you? His friend?” Does the mackerel even know anyone in his class?
He frowns in thought. “Friend...?” Okay, maybe not. “Guess so...?” How generous of him. “Is he in?”
Chuuya shrugs and lets the strange guy in, closing the door behind him. Dazai is still lying on the bed, his phone held up in the air, cackling and kicking his feet up and down as he chats with his brother and his newly announced fiancé.
Wait.
“Oi, shitty Dazai! What the hell are you talking to Paul and Art for so long?!”
He is gracious enough to pull one bud out and lend him an ear. Unlike other days. Which can mean two things—either he is acting like a decent person because of his brother on call or he is acting like a decent person because of his friend’s presence in the room.
“Chibi~ there is something Paul wants to ask you~,” he sing–songs, flapping his hands like a seal’s flippers. Forget what I just said. You can’t put decent and Dazai in one sentence. “C’mere, c’mere!”
How noisy! Chuuya plucks out his earbuds from his phone and raises the volume.
“CHUUYA! IS IT TRUE?!”
“Oh my god, it’s him, right? Dazai–kun is nodding his head too!”
“What? What?”
Chuuya is gawking at the number of people gathered in front of the camera now and lifts his eyes to Dazai for an explanation. Dazai merely offers him a cheeky shrug in lieu of an answer. What the fuck did you do now, bastard?!
“Where is he? Where is he? I wanna see Chuuya–nii’s boyfriend too!” Kyouka.
“Chuuya, why did you not tell us you have a boyfriend? That too from the start of this semester?! Paul, is that what Dazai–kun said?” Kouyou.
Boyfriend?! What boyfriend?!?!
He can’t hear Paul’s answer, for he and Arthur have moved away from the screen. Their space has been invaded by a lot of wild creatures who have, no doubt, been gathered, or, formally speaking invited, for the engagement—but now, for some reason, seem more interested in Chuuya’s fictional boyfriend. One that Dazai spawned out of thin air. Only idiots would believe Dazai and idiots still exist in this universe. Apparently, his entire family fits the category.
Chuuya sighs. “Guys, listen! I do—!”
“I don’t wanna see your boring mug! Ask your boyfriend to step to the camera—I wanna see him~!” Lucy.
“Lucy, that’s so rude! And what? Who is here that you wanna see? My boyfriend doesn’t—”
He is cut off by a loud squeal. The two girls are sticking their faces so close to the laptop camera that he can almost see up their nostrils. What a nightmare. “Chuuya, tilt your camera a little, you idiot! We wanna see him! Oh, or is it like—” Lucy, the drama queen that she is, puts her hand on her hip and raises one eyebrow even in a video call. “You are gonna wrap your little boyfriend and keep him only for yourself?”
A sudden realization dawns on him at her earlier words. Wait, the–what–now?
He whips round to face the new guy in the room, standing so quietly near the table that he’d almost forgotten his presence. His immediate assumption is: well, since the guy is friends with Dazai, they must have planned this shit together.
But one look at his face, mirroring his own the–what–now expression, and Chuuya realizes—
“Guys, okay, okay! I gotta hang up now! I have got a murder to commit.”
Part of his family aww–es and wishes him best of luck, some pointing out out loud it’s a murder that Chuuya’s talking about and getting talked over by the others who are still not over the hot topic of Chuuya’s boyfriend. It’s so easy to get away with crime when you got a family like this.
He presses the red button, tosses the phone on his bed, rolls up his sleeves and grabs the bastard by his collar, ready to beat the shit out of him and wipe that stupidest, shit–eating grin off his face even though his hands are raised in surrender.
“Oi, if you don’t wanna get involved in what’s gonna happen next, you can leave now.”
The guy gives a deliberate cough. “No, no, be my guest. Please feel free to kill him or whatever—”
Chuuya cracks a smile at his flippant words. At least, it got Dazai whining— “Et tu, Dos-chu-vesky!”
“—I just need my promised item before I leave.”
“What’s that?”
“Dazai said he has a pet dog here that I can take out for a few days. A cute chihuahua?”
“We don’t have any pets here, though?” Chuuya frowns at the mention of the strange animal. A chihuahua? “Dazai doesn’t even—” like dogs...
And then, it clicked.