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1.
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There are many words that Chuuya could use to describe Dazai. It’s just that he doesn’t have enough free time to bother jotting them all down, preferring to treat the other man as some noxious presence to be ignored, instead of wasting time on thinking too long about him.
But if he has to pick one and only one, he’d go for ‘brat’.
He likes to fool others into thinking that he’s some cool, cocky, confident, collected cucumber of a cold cadre in the mafia. Clothes do make the man, even if said clothes are tainted by the bandages underneath. However, as someone who has to deal with the other’s bullshit on a frequent basis, Chuuya knows that it’s all fake.
Dazai is a brat, childish enough to have a level of possessiveness that would be scary if he actually exercises and improves his grip strength. He’s also very vengeful when it comes to his revenge, even towards people who’ve slighted him in very inconsequential ways. He’s petty as shit, and he keeps a goddamn diary of his grievances, writing them all down like he’s about to present them at the end of the week and collect payments. He throws tantrums when things don’t go his way, like Chuuya doing the normal thing and refusing to wear a frilly maid dress.
It’s not even the notion that he’s wearing ‘female clothes’ that upsets him. It’s the fact that it’s so cumbersome to move in all those frills, and the cloth is quite itchy. Not even the added flair of having a balloon-like skirt that could hide weapons underneath could tempt him into wearing it, especially since the outfit is apparently customized by Dazai somehow. Nothing good ever happens when related to that mackerel’s handiwork, so it’s only prudent that he refuses to touch that, even with a ten-meter pole and the power of gravity.
Yet another display of his bratty tendencies: Dazai would deliberately arrive late to meetings, but would complain incessantly if someone is even five seconds late to an arrangement.
Worse, he’d claim someone’s late even when no appointment has been actually set.
“You’re five minutes late,” Dazai tells him one night, when he walks out of his apartment and goes for a late-night snack convenience store run. The mackerel’s overcoat is folded over his lap like a blanket. One of his hands is fiddling with a bottle of grapefruit soda, while his other hand is juggling his phone. “I’m so hungry, go buy me food already!”
“Ha?! What the fuck do you mean, oi!” It’s only the fact that they’re outside, on non-mafia territory, that he doesn’t actually sock the fish in the jaw. Getting the cops called on them would be downright sad, especially since getting scolded for public disturbance when they’re doing so much more illegal shit is… not ideal, to say the least.
“I waited for you here,” is said so slowly, like it’s for his benefit, like he’s too dimwitted to understand words with less enunciation. “And it’s because you’re supposed to buy food for me.”
“Use your own goddamn money!” It’s obvious advice that shouldn’t even count as practicing common sense.
Dazai blinks at him, like he’s the stupid one in this situation. “Why should I, when my dog is here?”
Like with every situation they’ve ever been in, it ends up with him throttling the bastard’s neck.
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2.
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“You’re late by five minutes,” Dazai tells him, pouting even though he could undo his cuffs with a flick of his fingers, and kick away the person holding him hostage. “Thanks to you, I got hit three times!”
He rolls his eyes at this display. This bastard has the gall to leave a message on a damn microscope just to complete his joke, and then has the audacity to complain that he’s late, even if he could have just left him to rot here? Truly annoying.
But it’s par for the course.
Ever since he’s met this bastard, he’s already sensed the damn fishiness. This is a guy who’s annoying to deal with. It just so happens that they work incredibly well together, especially when fighting against a common enemy.
Right now, they still have to deal with the White Qirin, so he can afford to not beat the bastard up yet, and instead focus on their next task.
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3.
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“You’re late,” is the greeting that he receives. Full of inconsideration, as expected. “You’re supposed to be here fifteen minutes ago, Chuuya. Were you slacking off? You were probably being lazy, as expected of a slug.”
Chuuya looks at his annoying partner. It’s difficult, and not only because the other’s face inspires so many feelings in him—feelings of wanting to beat him up. It’s a feeling that he usually follows, because restraint isn’t something that he enjoys adding to his life, especially when it involves mackerels that deserve to be kicked.
It’s just that, there’s blood caking his hair to his scalp, and the wind has dried it so that it sticks uncomfortably to his skin. It’s gluing his eyelids together, so he could barely see anything, aside from the hazy red of the mackerel’s face.
‘Soukoku’ is a name that inspires fear, awe and hatred amongst underground organizations nowadays. Their feats have only grown since the Assassin King Incident and Dragon Head Incident, and there’s no self-respecting underworld group who hasn’t made plans to deal with them.
As such, them getting separated during a mission or a battle isn’t that new. It’s an expected process, because two is usually considered better than one, and therefore, a single member of soukoku should be easier to handle.
Of course, nobody has ever succeeded in separating them for more than twenty hours. Whether it’s because Dazai is possessive enough that he thinks it’s appropriate to place trackers on a person he calls ‘his dog’, or because Chuuya’s sense of smell is sharp enough to smell fish even from kilometers away—the fact is, they’d always find a way to find each other.
Even if they have to drag an injured body over.
“I’m not late,” he gripes, because it’s not as if they’ve made an arrangement about when to meet up again. “I fucking cleaned up the north base, oi.”
“No talkbacks from dogs, unless you’re groveling or barking,” Dazai snipes back, but he’s standing up and wrapping him up in his oversized coat. “If you’ve got nothing nice to say, then you can just rest, Chuuya. Leave everything else to me.”
He’s not Dazai’s dog—and never will be—but it’s Pavlovian, the way his body relaxes upon hearing the other’s voice.
It’s also a goddamn scam, because when he wakes up, it’s to a face full of doodles made using a red permanent marker, all proclaiming a certain mackerel’s name on his skin.
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4.
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There are many words he could use to describe life in the mafia, now that there’s no mackerel haunting the hallways.
He wishes he could call it peaceful, but life never truly is. There are always new enemies, new organizations to deal with, new ways his coworkers could give him a headache. He wishes he could say that he’s got more free time, now that he doesn’t have to add ‘fishing mackerels from the river’ or ‘hunting down bastards hiding from a mission briefing’ to his itinerary. But work as an Executive is never-ending, especially with the expansion of the mafia’s influence abroad.
The heavy workload brings a relief that he’s being trusted this much. He’s still not the sort to dream, but he’s thankful that he’s usually so tired he just collapses on the nearest mattress as soon as he enters his bedroom. He doesn’t have to waste time thinking about fishy bastards who have left so much messes for him to clean up, and a gaping hole in the mafia’s operations and finances that is difficult for just one person to fill.
He has so many grievances towards Dazai, but even at his laziest, he’s still such a powerful Executive, at least when it comes to policies that bring wealth and power to the organization.
But, it’s a lot lighter.
It’s not as if there are so many powerful threats that require him to activate Corruption. So he simply ensures that his missions have solutions that don’t involve him pushing past the limit. He has to work more calmly, more logically. A critical eye is important, because there’s no bastard beside him who’d do the investigation groundwork so thorough that he could probably run a gossip show about all of his targets.
Chuuya also spends more time with his missions’ aftermath. As a one-man squad, he’s confident in his ability to wipe out the enemy. But years of working with Dazai has told him that there are always means for people to slink under the radar, even when all the soil is overturned. In order to ensure that there’s nothing that he’s missed, he has to personally oversee the clean-up too, and make sure to trim any loose ends.
In any case, it’s not as if he has another mission lined up.
Once the debriefing is finished, he leaves the headquarters, yawning as he stretches up his arms. The moon is past the zenith, and most stores are closed already, despite this being an international port city that caters to a large volume of foreigners and tourists.
An entire block has been reserved for office skyscrapers that have workers rotating on a 24-hour shift, catering to global companies. The businesses here are mostly convenience stores, a lone supermarket that’s entirely self-checkout, small clusters of fast food places and restaurants. The bars and clubs are on the other side of the city, but he’s not in the mood for that anyway.
All he wants is to get a nice, hearty meal, before walking back to his apartment, and then enjoying his day off.
“You’re late,” a familiar voice floats to him, the moment he’s seated. “You’re supposed to be here an hour ago, so you can forget about me treating you.”
“What, were you planning on treating me to poison,” comes out blithely, automatically. And then, he frowns and nearly whips his entire body around, because what the fuck is a mackerel traitor doing here, swimming near him!
They’re separated by the barrier of a tall booth between their seats. Despite Dazai’s height, even the tips of his messy hair couldn’t be seen from his angle. That said, if Chuuya really wants to, he could always stand up and go to the other side, and then throttle the bastard who dares show up here, after nearly four years of no contact.
It’s just that, he’s enjoyed a fish-free eyesight for so long. Does he really want to taint his eyeballs with a mackerel’s face? When he’s hungry and tired? What if he ends up associating that bastard’s face to wanting to eat and sleep? Urgh, that’d be too annoying.
He could only stay in his seat, because his order hasn’t arrived yet, and he doesn’t want to spoil his appetite by looking at Dazai’s face.
Dazai seems fine with this arrangement, bickering without seeing each other directly. A lofty smile could be heard on his voice, “You’re late, so you’d have to wallow on that question forever.”
“I didn’t make an appointment with you,” he grouses, closing his eyes, as if it could make the air stink less of fishiness.
“Mm, but it’s an hour past midnight now.” It’s as if the words are whispered directly against his ear. “May you fail to grow this year too, little fairy. As punishment for being late.”
A bit later, he’d realize that it’s the 29th of April, and it’s the day stated in his records to be his birthday.
How terrible to spend it in a mackerel’s company, even if he has been spared of seeing the other’s face.
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5.
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“You’re so slow, slug.” It’s a voice that’s delivered straight to his eardrums, reverberating inside his skull. “So slow, that even Gogol-kun and Sigma-kun have found me faster than you. So slow, that I had to be this injured. So slow, that you still haven’t woken up. It’s really terrible, spending the past seven years to raise an annoying dog like you.”
He opens his eyes, and looks at Dazai looking at him, through the haze of bloodlust and control fogging up his mind.
“You’re more than five minutes late. I had to get hurt more than necessary, waiting for you.”
Chuuya looks at his shitty mackerel partner, and thinks: he really is such a brat, only this time, this brat looks like he’s about to be torn between laughing crazily and crying childishly.
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+1.
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He’s not late. He never is, but especially this time.
If this shitty Snow White could wait for a punch to be woken up, then he could wait for an interesting way to be woken up too, one that’s truer to the story that they’ve woven for themselves.
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end