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“Urgh, this is the worst.”
Given how heavy the rain is, his favorite river also has quite the rapid waterflow today. It has looked quite enticing, the depths blurred by the almost-gray quality of the air saturated with water vapor.
Unsurprisingly, he has elected to jump over the nearest bridge, hands on his pockets like he’s simply going for a stroll.
It’s the perfect timing too, because there’s an annoying case at the Agency and that means that Kunikida-kun will be shouting 2 decibels higher than usual. The case involves having to patrol certain areas in the city and who wants to work on such a nice, rainy day? This kind of weather is best enjoyed while sleeping.
Even better: an eternal sleep.
Unfortunately, it seems as if he’s destined to be thwarted once again. He looks up at the person who has fished him out of the river, before groaning out loud once again. “This is the absolute worst!”
“That should be my line, oi.” Port Mafia’s tiniest Executive has a see-through umbrella hefted up, wide enough that it can cover both of them. Not that Chuuya is courteous enough to help block the rain for him—he stands beside him, idly kicking his right rib. “If you’re well enough to complain, then you’re well enough to get the fuck out of here on your own.”
Offhand, he remembers overhearing Naomi-chan and Haruno-chan chatting about the best selfie angles. It really is such a shame that Chuuya looks like a slug no matter what, the vibrant blues of his eyes piercing from everywhere. Like he’s a see-through umbrella that can be seen-through easily.
“Eh, you’re the one who disturbed my task today,” he says with lengthened tones that he knows irks the petite mafioso. “Shouldn’t you be compensating me, Chuuya?”
An unimpressed glare. “And your task is to pollute the river?”
He sits up gingerly, shaking his head towards the other’s direction so he can splash the water towards him. Chuuya hisses like a disgruntled cat and tries to kick him harder, but it’s such a common move that he could dodge it effortlessly.
“I don’t expect that you have good memory, given how small your brain is,” he says while hopping away from an angered chibi, who tries to kick pebbles towards the direction of his neck. Of course, given how much of a musclehead the shorty is, these pebbles become nothing short of a murder weapon when kicked by him. “Have you forgotten? My daily task is to seek the best method for a cheerful, painless, romantic suicide!”
The unimpressed glare becomes even flatter. “Tsk. You may be playing at a goody-goody two-shoes detective, but some nonsense remains the same, huh.”
“At least I’m capable of playing detective,” he says with a shrug. Rain continues to fall around them, but it has tapered down a bit. As if even the skies couldn’t bear blurring his sight of an angry chibi in front of him. “Single-celled organisms can’t do such a thing.”
Chuuya gives him a look. “You really can’t help yourself, huh.”
“Stalking men under suspicion of cheating is the common job in these months.” Another shrug. “I have to find my amusement elsewhere.”
One hand on his hip, “Oh? You’re not amusing yourself by flirting relentlessly with those men’s wives?”
“Things that are too easy can get stale quickly.” He raises one hand and taps the corner of his leer. “Not that a shorty can understand.”
“Oh, I definitely understand that you’re the worst scumbag plague upon womankind.”
Despite their bickering, the two of them end up slowly walking side-by-side, following the line of the riverbank. One tall detective continuing to drip down on the soil, and a chibi so short that sharing an umbrella is bound to be unhelpful. They must make quite the sight—but most people would be busy staying inside their respective places, or have their head bowed down to ensure that they don’t step on a puddle.
In a way, this is almost comparable to having a world of their own.
After a few minutes of walking, Chuuya clears his throat. “Do you have information for me?”
“Hey, a slug that has attained a month-to-date 119.9% increase in profits should know how not to be stingy, yes?”
Without missing a beat, “Oi, an asshole who has left the organization shouldn’t be peeking on my squad’s finances!” A swipe to his shin, easily dodged. “Wait, yesterday’s reports had it at 147%!”
He can’t help but let out a giggle when he spies the way Chuuya flushes red in anger. Like this, it doesn’t seem to matter that he’s drenched from the river-water, and is still getting drenched from rainwater. It’s all so warm, and he has a lot of energy in teasing, “And if you don’t do anything quickly, the number’s going to keep falling down~ it might eventually reach a slug’s height~”
“You bastard, stop cursing my numbers!” A rude pointing gesture at him. “Shimura and Takao worked their asses off this month, because they were counting on an extra bonus, and—”
“—uwaaaaa, I seem to be hearing a buzzing bee?” He deliberately yawns. “Oh, it’s just a shorty talking about boring things.”
It really is quite boring.
Chuuya, the most powerful Port Mafia Executive, is also the one with the softest heart, easily pierced by so many things, including the plights of his subordinates. He’s enough of an idiot who’d give them their bonus anyway even if they don’t reach the target profits. This kind of indulgence is totally different from his stance on dealing with his enemies, pummeling them down without so much as a glance backwards.
…Tsk. Seeing Chuuya act so indulgent and caring for people who are not his owner, truly a naughty dog that deserves punishment. He makes a mental note to steal three wines from him before the week is over.
“A gloomy asshole like you doesn’t have the right to call me boring, damn it!”
They bicker a bit more, as they steer away from the river and towards one of Chuuya’s safehouses near the port area. Because of his current case, he’s probably staying there for easier monitoring. A workaholic through and through, and he adds another tally for a prank. It’s also quite annoying to see his dog work so hard for the sake of a quack doctor’s organization.
“Well, if you still haven’t solved your problem even after a week, ‘boring’ is the nicest word I can use to describe your way of thinking~”
The current batch of cases that the Agency is handling: news about a small organization metastasizing from Port Mafia and joining forces with stragglers from other underground groups. Chatter about this is that they’re targeting territory handled by Chuuya and his squad.
Not only does it sound more impressive if they can brag about getting to ‘defeat’ someone infamous for his powerful gravity manipulation—it also comes with the advantage of Chuuya being infamous for being soft towards many things. Including children. This new organization is blatantly recruiting teenagers to act as their gophers and meat-shields, because they know that Chuuya wouldn’t retaliate as fiercely if the opponents are of similar height.
“…So annoying,” he grumbles.
This earns the ire of the slug who glares at him. “Ha? I bring you to this place and you still have the audacity to complain?”
It’s a pretty discreet place, camouflaged between big stacks of metal crates. As if in direct contradiction with the metal crate he used to live in, Chuuya has furbished this area into something cozy, with a hidden flight of stairs that lead them to a more spacious underground.
“You’ve connected it to the tunnels,” he notices after a few moments of looking around and touching some of the décor all over. It looks much like all of Chuuya’s apartments: comfortable, with shelves of books and games, with a functional kitchen. This one’s unique point is that it’s underground and without a window that could overlook a sunset, one of the slug’s favorite sights.
Chuuya throws several towels directly to his face and makes shooing motions at him. “Makes it easy to get to work or whatever.”
He doesn’t have any compunctions undressing in front of a slug. He takes off his clothes and strips off his bandages as he walks towards the bathroom, leaving a wet trail on the floor.
“Acting like a loyal dog to the mafia when your owner is right here,” he complains, and gets screeched at for his mess in the process.
When he comes out of the tub thirty minutes later, his clothes are already tumbling in the dryer. There’s an extra warmth in the space, in the form of a chibi making seafood fried rice, mushroom soup in pork bone broth and seared asparagus wrapped in bacon.
With raised eyebrows, he plucks crabmeat from the fried rice. This gets his wrist whacked by a spatula, but there’s also crab in his mouth so he considers it a win. It’s not his favorite foods and it’s quite simple to be called a feast, but… it is rather nice.
He supposes that it’s good enough payment, so he sighs and slides Chuuya’s phone out of his pants. Nimble hands alternate between typing out several messages and stealing bites of food.
Despite his best efforts, there’s still a lot of food that ends up on the small dining table by the time he’s done doing his part. Eating together in peace is never an option for them, so the rare times that they’ve dined in fancy restaurants together have either ended up in an actual bloodbath, or have them politely asked by the manager to leave.
He remembers one time that they’ve had a mission in a hotel that has a sumptuous seafood restaurant, so they’ve pinched their noses and agreed to eat together in peace. Their meal got interrupted by their target, they’ve ended up gunning down the place, and he couldn’t remember how the food tasted then.
Only that, Chuuya has used all the cutlery on his attacks. So they’ve had to handfeed each other in order to finish their dinner, and that has ended up in them throwing caviar at each other’s hair.
…In any case, they’re somehow a lot more restrained when it’s Chuuya cooking in his home and him mooching along. A concept of equivalent exchange: he gets to sample the slug’s improvement in cooking, and the chibi gets to enjoy lessened teasing from him.
With his belly full, he waddles towards the couch and hugs several pillows while idly picking through the stash of games in this safehouse. “Little man, do your job well in cleaning up that group.” He wrinkles his nose. “Such a thing should have been so easy, so you’re probably slacking off.”
The Agency’s job will also be so much easier if they don’t have to organize strict patrols over areas where kids and teens are being enticed to join said group. Dazai’s job will be so much more peaceful, since he wouldn’t have to sift through information that other people have gathered about Chuuya.
No more listening to information brokers saying, “Oh, Nakahara Chuuya? He’s famous for having a soft spot for kids. He might look vicious but he has no fangs when dealing with previous members defecting. After all, didn’t he let his ex-partner go…?”
Really annoying.
People daring to make plans against his dog. People daring to sell information about his dog, even though they can’t even fill one notebook about him.
“I’m not slacking off,” is said with a heavy eyeroll and a spoon thrown towards his forehead, so of course they end up bickering again.
This round of bickering ends with Chuuya eventually screeching, “Get the fuck out of my sight, oi!”
…Well, it’s quite the long round interspersed with them taking their fighting to several games. Several more meals and snacks. Some updates about the group getting decimated by Chuuya’s squad, once they have the information provided by Dazai—not that they’ll ever know the source.
It’s one hell of a message to send. People are targeting him specifically, but Chuuya play-acts at being so tall that he can’t even see the ants trying to bite his ankles. Doesn’t even personally appear to demolish their bases.
Hmm, even if Chuuya’s quite simple-minded, he does show flashes of brilliant instincts when it comes to doing his work.
Dazai pats his drawstring pants. Cashmere and surprisingly not too tight on him. It’s one of Chuuya’s old pajamas that the idiot has bought long ago: big size in anticipation of growing tall. Since that hasn’t happened, it’s up to him to wear such a thing. Same goes for the shirt that he’s currently wearing.
“Well, I just have to stand and you can’t see me anymore,” he teases, and does stand up. “Ah, but since I’ve helped you out a lot today, shouldn’t you send me back home in a nice limousine?”
Chuuya stays on the couch and clicks his tongue. The expression on his face is carefully neutral when he says, “The second tunnel linked here leads to that old antique shop near the Agency’s dorms.” A smooth delivery complete with a poker face. “You can use that instead.”
A simple way of reading it is an offer to give him a path where he wouldn’t be drenched by the rain again. A lazy threat about how Port Mafia’s strongest Executive has a direct line to attacking the Agency’s dorms.
But they both know that’s not the only thing it means.
He licks his lips and watches Chuuya watching him. “You’re giving me easy access to one of your safehouses? You’re spoiling me.”
An indifferent shrug. “I’m not afraid of you barging into my space, even if you bring a whole-ass cavalry here.” Fingers point at the stash of food still on the dining table, only packed in microwave-safe containers. “Pick those things up on your way out. Throw them to the trash or eat them, I don’t really care.”
Delicious homemade meals that he can continue eating over the next few days.
His eyelids fall to a half-mast. “You really don’t know how to be honest, huh.”
“Someone who’s scaring away information brokers who’ve sold intel about me? Someone who’s leaving threatening messages to a group that’s targeting me?” Chuuya stretches his legs over the couch, a lazy smirk on his face. “That kind of person has no right to call me dishonest.”
Now that he isn’t seething in fury about how there are others who want to jump the line on who gets to annoy the shorty the most, he sees some things more clearly.
His annoyance at this kind of simple matter taking time to be solved, his suspicion that Chuuya’s become a senile slug who can’t move fast enough to resolve this quickly—
His fingers twitch with an electric shock, a certain giddiness spreading throughout his body.
“You’ve been stalling the case so that things would fall nicely on this day.”
Just so they’d end up meeting, then bickering, then going back here, then spending so many hours together until the clock stretches towards midnight.
“It’s a good prank,” Chuuya admits with a shrug. “Instead of letting you enjoy your day trying to drown or flirting with ladies or whatever shit you like to do—you ended up celebrating your birthday with your hated enemy.”
Dazai leans down so he can murmur directly against the other’s red earlobe, “It’s the worst birthday I’ve ever had.”
“Good,” and it’s the last word they exchange over the next few moments.
His thumbs seek skin underneath a leather choker. Chuuya pulls at his hair savagely and complains about him being too tall that it’s so damn uncomfortable in trying to bite his mouth off.
“I’ll make sure to make your birthday worse than this next year,” he promises with kiss-swollen lips and a strain on his neck.
Blue eyes sparkle clearly when Chuuya lifts his chin and accepts his challenge with his usual aggressiveness, “Bring it on, shitty Dazai.”
Outside, the sky starts to clear.
-
end