Work Text:
“That’s him?” He raises an eyebrow, using his chin to gesture at a man several meters away. “The guy who supposedly caught a glimpse of the world Beyond the Door?”
Still clad in his protective gear, Tachihara nods, rubbing his arms as if he’s just been blasted by a snowstorm. “Yeah, that’s him! Also, Chuuya-san! Can you please stop saying that term so casually? I’m getting the shivers!”
Theirs is a world constantly locked within an everlasting Apocalypse. Humans have barely been able to scrounge up together several bases underground, linking up the pitiful amounts of survivors after the end of the world. There are supposedly gates that connect the underground to above-ground, but after a couple hundred of years, the state of the world above remains undiscovered.
There’s one such ‘gate’ that they’ve been able to locate. Nobody’s been able to open it—at least, until that man.
For someone who’s supposedly been so traumatized from looking at the horrors Beyond the Door, he looks like he’s having the time of his life.
Dazai Osamu. Bandaged all over. Quite tall. Barely passable looks. A gentle smile on his face, as he approaches a woman. This public area has a number of people, all impolite in their observation of the man. Even so, a melodious voice still loudly asks, “Would you like to have a romantic double suicide with me, mademoiselle?”
An equally-loud slap smacks his face, but it doesn’t scratch the smile away. If anything, it only coaxes it to grow wider. “No? But there’s nothing to live for. It truly is better for us to just surrender and die!”
Most people who live in the underground bases have strong desires for survival. Death is too easy to achieve—simply neglect to wear protective gear before stepping out of the base, and the dark miasma would reduce one to sludge in under a minute. Therefore, those who persist to live in such an abysmal setting would at least possess a continued desire to live. Those who truly believe in suicidal ideations don’t last more than a week here.
Beside him, Tachihara stiffens, then makes a report to his headset. One that culminates in an affirmation that Dazai Osamu must remain under observation and protective custody. Nobody knows what this man has seen—this man is the only recorded survivor of opening the gate. He must possess invaluable information. Unfortunately, it seems that the trauma to his mind is too big, which leads to him simply chattering about with cryptic words, and then having headaches whenever he’s interrogated.
“He stinks like a troublesome fish,” is his unbiased assessment. He narrows his eyes as he watches Dazai twirl around by himself, eyes half-closed as he’s seemingly trapped in an illusion only he could see.
Cautiously, “Chuuya-san, you’re on bodyguard duty…”
“I’m not going to kill him,” he promises offhand. He doesn’t say anything about not smacking him in the face. It’s been too long since he’s had a fruitful mission outside, so his fists are itching to beat something up.
Tsk. If only he’d known that killing off some miasmic monsters would be considered such a terrifying achievement that they’d hesitate on sending him out again—he would have held back and declined to kill those monsters. His rank has shot up several levels, earning him various accolades, but it comes at the cost of having to remain inside the base for prolonged periods of time.
It’s boring as shit.
And now, he has to babysit some annoying guy who reeks of fishiness.
“A protection mission,” is an additional reminder, as Tachihara leads him forward. “But if you’re able to extract some information in a noninvasive way, that would also be nice.”
He raises a hand to wave the other off. His other hand stays inside his pocket as he approaches Dazai. His posture is deliberately relaxed, almost lazy. “Yo. I’ll be your security detail for the foreseeable future.”
Since he’s not slated to go on a mission outside the base, he isn’t wearing the uniform with the protective gear. Today’s weather is set for summer, so he’s only in his slacks and white button-up, the long sleeves folded up to his forearms. The brim of his hat keeps his eyes from being blinded by the artificial sun. A black choker around his neck, which means that the microchip that proclaims his citizen number is hidden from prying eyes. Thin leather gloves protect his hands from getting too callused from handling weapons.
He has foregone his overcoat due to the weather. He also isn’t wearing the stuffy coat that proclaims his decorated rank.
Still, there’s no doubt that Dazai has recognized him.
“…Ah, I seem to hear some barking?” The man deliberately looks around, spinning on his heel. He even squats down, as if to find someone from the ground. “Strange… I could have sworn I heard some yapping just now…”
He clicks his tongue. “Just because I don’t have any weapon with me now, it doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t kick your head clean off your neck.” After all, he’s always operated under the assumption that his entire body is a weapon itself. Swords, daggers, guns: they’re simply supplements to his fighting skills.
“Mm, an instant death.” Dazai claps his hands, then hops away like a frog. “But that sounds so inelegant. Why are you such a brute, shorty?”
Based on the reports, Dazai Osamu’s mental state is very fragile. He’s to be kept in a comfortable cage, and everyone should take great pains in avoiding possible landmines that could trigger any mental breakdown. Until he’s been studied so thoroughly in order to understand the state of the world Beyond the Door, he has to be pampered and protected from harmful stimuli.
Chuuya thinks that it’s a load of bullshit. “Hasn’t anyone told you about how you shouldn’t provoke certain people?”
“Oh, I could certainly acknowledge your fighting prowess.” So insufferably flippant. He makes it sound as if Chuuya’s indomitable feat of defeating miasmic monsters is as common as genetically-modified crops, or as unimpressive as the artificial weather system in place. “Powerful or not, it doesn’t change the fact that you’re a tiny, tiny man.”
He hums. One hand remaining inside his pocket, he immediately shoots out like a meteor, one leg stretched out to choreograph his kick. Dazai reacts fast, for someone who has no physical training under his belt. At the last split-second, Chuuya pulls back his leg, then stretches out another to deliver a kick to the other’s chest in order to send him careening all the way to a public park’s wall.
The action startles several citizens, but they know enough not to interfere and mind their own business. Everything in the underground bases is carefully monitored, in order to ensure that no dark miasma manages to sneak inside. There’s also a top-of-the-line alarm system that’s included inside each citizen’s microchip—if Dazai is truly in distress, he’d be able to send out an alarm using his brainwaves. Crime is nigh-impossible to pull off inside the base, so this kind of roughhousing would be resolved, one way or another.
“Ah, what a short-tempered shorty,” Dazai sighs after several moments. He’s flat on his back, limbs sprawled out like a lazy starfish. He sounds as brainless as one, given his constant provocation of someone so much stronger than him. “How can you be so small-minded that you can’t even accept facts about your sorry height?”
“Annoying shitheads deserve to be kicked to death.” Chuuya makes sure that his heel is right there on his windpipe. He grinds it against the other’s shirt button, a promise to burn a hole into his chest if he irritates him too much. He has seen the other’s assessing gaze; he knows that Dazai wouldn’t actually file a complaint that would replace him as his security detail.
If he has to pick a reason as to why he thinks so, he could only blame it on instinct.
His instincts have always served him well, and today isn’t any different.
“What to do, what to do,” has a pinched, singsong quality to it. Too obviously fake, along with dark eyes growing shiny with unshed tears. “I don’t feel so well, little fairy. My head is starting to hurt.”
He narrows his eyes, shifts so that he can lean down and drag the other up by his lapels. “You’re faking it,” he says after a few moments of going nose-to-nose with the other. “I don’t smell your distress at all.”
For his part, Dazai’s limpid expression immediately dissolves, returning to an unprecedented calm, the type who’d be unmoved even as the world falls apart around him. “Wow, you can even smell that? Aren’t you just like a dog?”
Of course, given the raging apocalypse, the pets of this era are on a completely different level from before. The dogs of this era are part-machine, genetically modified beings that could be used as trackers of dark miasma, as well as hidden mineral deposits.
“Your stink of bullshit is way too obvious,” he says, rolling his eyes and dropping the fishy bastard.
It’s immediately followed by a plaintive moan, and a muffled complaint about being hurt. It’s all fake too, he knows. It’s probably a tactic that has worked on many others, but it would never work on Chuuya.
“Say, you do seem like someone easy to fool,” Dazai says without shame. He stretches as he stands, looking much like someone who’s just taking a lazy stroll around the base. “Yet, you’re not even moved by my tears?”
“Fake tears,” he’s quick to clarify. “I’m not so stupid as to believe someone who looks like they eat lies for breakfast.”
Dazai is unperturbed by his harsh assessment. His lips stretch out to a small smile. “Speaking of food, a seafood feast would do wonders for my psyche. I might end up remembering more details about that gate today.”
“And what makes you think that I’d be willing to file for additional expenses so I can order seafood for you?”
There’s an artificial ocean, along with genetically modified fishes and other seafood. They’re marked with exorbitant prices, and they’re mostly reserved for citizens with a long list of achievements to their name. Chuuya still hasn’t consumed his seafood quota for the quarter, but he’s not going to send that to this bastard. He could apply for a special quota for this one, but he knows that Dazai is simply gaming the system, so he’s not so inclined to help him.
He’s not going to expose him and report him, but he isn’t going to assist him in this matter either.
“You look like someone enthusiastic to do his job, so why are you slacking off when it comes to me?” Dazai flutters his eyelashes, addicted to melodramatic acting despite being rebuffed by him so many times already. “Is this your way of granting me special treatment?”
In the name of security, there’s hardly any inch of public space that isn’t covered by surveillance. The Fitzgerald Group has provided ‘The Eye in the Sky’ for everyone’s usage. Only the insides of one’s residences are not included in the monitoring; even the hallways of apartments aren’t an exception.
Instead of a seafood restaurant, Chuuya brings the two of them to his apartment. It’d surprise his coworkers, once they audit his video feed. He hasn’t brought anyone back with him in years; the last time had been when he was still the squad leader for Flags. Since then, he has made it clear that he wants to adhere to a demarcation line between his personal space and everything else.
That said, he’s also the type who diligently does his work, not having any compunctions with bringing it home.
It just so happens that babysitting Dazai is his fulltime work now.
“Oho, it really is special treatment,” is how Dazai greets his welcome mat. “No house slippers, so you’re not used to bringing visitors home.” His voice turns breathy, “Am I… your first?”
“First person I end up killing because of how annoying you are?” It’s difficult to not notice the dripping innuendo, but he sidesteps it anyway. “Yeah, you’re definitely my first.”
The welcome mat is very colorful. It matches the loud colors of his civilian shoes, while offering a stark contrast to the all-black boots that are a part of his usual uniform. Several outer coats and hats hang from the coatrack by the front door. There’s no housekeeping robot milling around inside his apartment, but it’s clean enough, despite his busy workload. “I have no extra house slippers,” he says, waving at the other man so he can use it instead. “I don’t trust your socks, so use it instead.”
An intrigued, “You think that I’d spread dirt to your floors?”
“I’m certain that you plan on littering.” He hasn’t known this man for long, but he gives off the vibes of a troublemaker. One who’d happily irritate him just for the sake of it. “If you end up dirtying my place, I’d use your face to scrub it clean.”
Even though he has his back turned to the fishy man, he could just sense him wiggling eyebrows at him.
Dazai sounds even more intrigued, “Wow, do you want me to lick your floors?”
“Maybe I should just cut off your tongue. They only asked me to guard you, they didn’t mention anything about all your body parts remaining intact.”
Despite his words, he soldiers on deeper into his apartment. The automated heating system kicks in, and motion-sensitive lights switch on to illuminate the living room, as well as the short hallway that leads to the dining room and its attached kitchen. Three rooms remain locked: a full bathroom, a study, a bedroom with a walk-in closet. This is already quite a large space for a single occupant, and he hasn’t claimed the bigger apartment issued to him as he’s moved up the ranks.
For some people, an apartment that used to be the base for gatherings with now-dead squad members would be a painful scar. For Chuuya, this apartment holds precious memories and experiences. Not to mention, it’d be even more difficult to clean a place that has more rooms than this. He doesn’t like the idea of installing a housekeeping robot, so an apartment cozy enough for one works best for him.
“Mm, will you be housing me here?” Dazai doesn’t have the shyness or politeness of a stranger. He patters around the apartment, touching this and that. He flips through books and runs his fingers across several posters from rock bands centuries ago. “This place reeks too much of a childish slug, I don’t think I can sustain a good mental state while in here.”
A noncommittal, “Feel free to sleep on the hallway outside then.”
Chuuya starts working on their meal. He wouldn’t claim to be worthy of being a chef, but he can at least guarantee edible, healthy options. Homecooked meals are rare, given that most people make do with eating compressed rations. For him who spends a lot of time outside the base, subsisting on subpar food, he doesn’t mind putting in extra effort to cook warm meals in his apartment when he’s here.
“Oh, why is there a lot of veggies?” This is the voice of someone who doesn’t appreciate this kind of service at all. “I prefer seafood! Crabs! Caviar! Steak!”
“You just want to make me splurge on food,” he jabs back, using his elbows to drive the bastard away from the kitchen counter. Vegetable stirfry; mushroom omelet; steamed chicken with turnips on top of garlic rice; mango and almond salad. He plans on cooking enough that he can reheat leftovers. “With how skinny you are, gorging yourself on food is going to bring you more harm than good.”
Dazai pauses, before letting out a disgruntled whine. “Uwaa, that is so disgusting. Are you genuinely caring for me?”
He slants him a glance, then turns back to his cooking. “I know that you’re faking it,” he eventually says over the simmering of the food. “You just want to milk the base’s funds so you can enjoy special treatment.”
It’s a crime tantamount to treason, something that would lead to an immediate execution. He says it as lightly as the steam that wafts out from the pots.
A long pause. If not for the fact that he could still sense the other’s presence behind him, he’d think that the other man has hightailed it out of his apartment. Eventually, there’s a soft, curious, “How did you know?”
“You’re not going to deny it?” He uses chopsticks to skillfully flip the omelet so that it remains smooth and silky. “I was expecting you’d screech at my ear, demanding that I take my words back.”
“I dislike wasting time on futile endeavors.” Brisk tone. “Plus, you don’t seem like the type who’d change his mind once you issue such a declaration.”
That’s surprisingly honest. Chuuya plates the mushroom omelet, adds a sprinkle of chives on top. “Intuition,” he uses as an explanation, ignoring the other’s hiss of displeasure. “You don’t give off the aura of someone who has seen true despair.”
“Or perhaps I’ve lived such a hollow life that it hurts to breathe, therefore one additional tragedy doesn’t do anything to add to my despair.” Conversational, as if they’re not discussing heavy topics. “Even before, I’ve always wanted to die.”
He’s equally candid when he asks, “Should I kill you now?”
It’s laughably easy. Even with his back facing the other, he has at least 72 methods on how he could end the other’s life. The number rises if he turns around, it would rise even more if he doesn’t have to account for dirtying his floors too much. As much as he despises the other’s fishiness, Chuuya’s always lived with the principle of helping out those weaker than him. If Dazai earnestly agrees, then he wouldn’t mind the extra effort of scrubbing his floors in the aftermath.
But now, Dazai lets out a large puff of breath. “I’m not interested in getting killed by a chibi.”
He continues cooking. “Tsk. As expected.”
“You haven’t told me the real reason why you know that it’s a lie.”
“You also haven’t told me what actually happened there,” he points out. “Not that I’m interested in knowing your secrets. It’d be best if you keep your mouth shut.”
There’s no doubt that Dazai has stepped in front of that gate. He has the smell of one too-close to the different flavor of miasma in that area. Plus, there’s no chance that every single officer who has reviewed the footage leading up to the place could have gotten things so wrong.
Dazai Osamu has gone there to chase after two men, who supposedly wanted to open the gate. Both men ended up dead, with Dazai Osamu as the sole survivor. Nobody’s been able to return from a trip to the gate’s vicinity alive. This means that for the rest of his life, Dazai Osamu would be considered a prized specimen, the only link to information about the world Beyond the Door.
The faction that wishes to continue investigating that gate would want to keep him pampered and alive. The faction that wishes to bury that gate would want him silenced forever, in order to halt further research.
For a suicidal maniac who reeks of lazy fishiness, it’s a win-win situation for him.
“…Mm. How about we make a bet, Chuuya?”
“Does this bet end with you shutting up?”
Faint rustling, as Dazai moves forward so that their elbows brush together. “I bet that I can discover the real method you’ve used to find out my lie.”
He half-turns so he can raise his eyebrows at the other man. His left hand rises so he can give a fist-bump to seal their deal. “I look forward to your loss, shitty Dazai.”
There’s absolutely no way that Dazai has actually caught a glimpse of the world Beyond the Door.
After all, Chuuya is a creature from the other side, so he knows that there’s nothing but an endless void out there, one that sucks out one’s soul with one look, corrupting the flesh until all that remains is dust. That Dazai has survived is enough of a clue that he truly hasn’t opened that gate.
He doesn’t know how he’s ended up in this side of the world, but he finds that he doesn’t mind as much, living life as a human being.
“…Chuuya, I still want crab.”
“Shut the hell up, oi.”
—even if it comes with a fishy headache complaining beside him.
-
end