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Chuuya Nakahara hates Osamu Dazai.
He has since his eyes unfortunately landed the useless clump of living bandages, and Dazai’s teasing and comments have fueled his anger even more. It’s natural you see, like the fight between cats and dogs, or in this case, mackerels and slugs. They’ll never get along, no matter how many times Dazai tries to say “I love you” and all the phrases similar.
And Chuuya plans to keep it that way. Even if Dazai is now currently sprawled out on Chuuya’s floor, playing some sort of game…
Wait what!?
He just got the place! Why’s it being infested by mackerels already!?
Chuuya stomps over in front of the clump of bandages, shoving his hands in his jacket, or else there’s a higher chance of hands being thrown. The ginger opens his mouth to demand an explanation, but is promptly interrupted by the boy in front of him. Typical.
“Dammit! I almost had it!” A tune plays from Dazai’s gameboy as he casts it aside, falling to his side in despair as whines. Is he only here to play games!?
“Hey! Why the hell are you here!?” Chuuya resists the urge to pick Dazai up and throw him out the door, but can’t help but raise his tone. Dazai can make even the most patient people want to rip their hair out, not that Chuuya fits that, but he’s already on his last straw.
“Don’t have to be such a mean chibi. Just had to improve my skills so I can beat you even harder next time and see your stupid face,” Dazai says as he gets up off the floor, waving his hand dismissively, as Chuuya shoots him a glare at the nickname chibi. Nicknames are supposed to be fun! Not infuriating!
“I’m not-! Wait!” Chuuya then remembers one too many things Dazai has said and done, and so the ginger tries to quickly switch how he’s taken this so far. “It’d be a pain to lose this fucker now” is what Chuuya tells himself to pretend he’s required to care, and not that he actually wants to care...“Did something happen?”
His tone slightly lowers, trying to be a little soft but keep a firm guard from this tall mackerel wrapped in bandages.
"Do you need something?"
But Dazai doesn’t seem to take such concern well, narrowing his visible eye as his face grows more stern. But not stern as he would with an enemy of the mafia, but more as telling Chuuya to not bring it as concern again.
Dazai just narrows his eye as he picks up his gameboy off the floor, fixes his black coat and turns away from the ginger. It almost jumbles around the perspectives in Chuuya's mind.
“Wait, don't leave!” Chuuya moves towards him, finally moving hand from his pockets to Dazai’s shoulder because as much as he may hate the walking clump of bandages, he sure as hell knows that Dazai knows how to pass the time.
That’s what Chuuya tells himself anyway.
No other reason.
“What? Miss me that much, slug?”
“No I don-!”
“Shush chibi, I came here to go through your cupboards and keep back the slug infestation,” Dazai says as he waves his hand dismissively, Chuuya rolls his eyes, literally rolling his eyes, in response as he immediately moves hand away from the bandaged boy’s shoulder, trying to act in disgust. He worked hard to keep his cupboards at least half stuffed, for himself and not for mackerels!
“I worked hard to not let my cupboards go empty, y’know.” Chuuyas grumbles, crossing his arms. The ginger doesn’t really believe Dazai only wants his cupboards, if at all, but it’s Dazai. Only he has an idea of what he wants, presumably.
The clump of bandages looks at Chuuya, almost expectantly. The ginger sighs as he sulks. “...Fine. Do what you want and I’ll follow you to the arcade,”
“Good puppy,” Dazai puts on a teasing smile, patting Chuuya’s head like a dog, who looks like he’s about to punch a mackerel.
“Fuck you!”
***
There’s a reason why-
“Ha! I beat you!”
-A reason why many places now ban teenagers from entering without supervision.
Chuuya cherishes his victory as he makes a point of letting everyone know of it in the small arcade as he steps up from the small chair to face Dazai better.
“First outta five, Chuuya,” Dazai scoffs as he waves his hand, looking away from his screen with big letters saying “K.O!” across it. The first time he’s seen that across his screen today.
“Well I still won goddamnit!” The ginger crosses his arms, the few others in the arcade looking at him in annoyance.
Dazai rolls his eyes, but then his eyes narrow as a girl walks up to them.
“Hey! Keep it quiet over there!”
A girl says sternly as she walks over towards the two, black hair in a low ponytail and a nameplate on her shirt reading “Mizuki”, probably only slightly older than them. Mizuki places her hand on her hips, glaring just as sternly as she talks.
Chuuya rolls his eyes, literally, in response, but reluctantly sits back down in his seat. Dazai shoots him a look before he seems to open his mouth to try and speak. But something seems to click inside Mizuki’s mind before he can get the words out. "You're the ones who almost destroyed the pinball machine last week, aren't you?"
"I don't know what you mean," Dazai lies right through his teeth, crossing his arms. Chuuya only huffs.
"Don't 'I don't know' me! You've both gotten plenty of warnings yet you still keep doing it!" Mizuki keeps her ground, and her glare as she watches Chuuya try to open his mouth, but is cut off by a certain Dazai.
"Well you're talking almost just as loud as this one here, aren't you?"
The girl rolls her eyes, only considering his words for only a moment. Dazai had talked in a friendly way, trying to get off the hook, but Mizuki can't really afford that.
"Kid, I work here. I'm allowed to if a customer like you and your buddy decide to disrupt business,"
A faint scowl appears on the two's faces at the word 'buddy'. They hate each other, she should've figured that out!
"And according to you, we almost broke the pinball machine. Even if it did happen, your make it seem like an accident and of no concern to you," Dazai keeps his calm and approachable tone. He doubts him and the ginger haven't become notorious among the arcade staff, but he tries to brush his reputation off anyway. Well, many of his.
"Listen, this and last week aren't the first or second times we've gotten complaints and given warnings. I'm being generous. So either, you get out of here and watch me add you to the list of banned customers, or you both fix your attitudes and I hear nothing about you again,"
"Wait-!”
"Out!" Mizuki quickly interrupts Chuuya's attempt at a comeback, shooing both of them out like bugs.
Knowing the girl is serious and probably done with this situation, Dazai gets up and grabs Chuuya’s hood as he heads out the double doors of the dimly lit arcade.
“Lets get outta here,”
“Wait! Hey!” Chuuya struggles as he’s dragged, waving his arms around like some sort of toddler that was told he couldn’t eat ice cream all day. “Get your hands off me!”
“I’m not the one who got us banned,”
The hold on Chuuya’s hoodie retracts as Dazai puts a hand in his pockets, taking out a light blue pack of fruit gummies. The only thing he stole from Chuuya's cupboards. He then separates the different fruit gummies based on the flavor, seeming to pick the different groups in a certain order as he pops them in his mouth. All of what Chuuya was going to say escapes his mind as he watches such a sight.
“What are you doing?”
The brunette stops for a moment, pausing before he puts the last group of strawberry gummies into his mouth. He narrows his eye slightly.
“Weirdo,” Dazai says, lightly hesitating before he finally eats said strawberry gummies.
Chuuya rolls his eyes, literally rolling his eyes again, at the new but somehow normal nickname. But it’s still better than ‘dog’ or anything about his short stature anyway.
***
“I’m kinda tired..." Chuuya complains, stretching as he yawns before he places his game controller to the side
"Imagine being tired-" Dazai, who was going to make a remark against his ever so dear ginger 'friend', immediately pauses as he feels a weight lean on his shoulder. A weight with fiery ginger hair...
shit
The realization of Chuuya leaning on his shoulder hits Dazai like those trucks in certain animes. But this time, Dazai is neither dying or isekaid into another world.
Well, maybe he was isekaid. To the world of gayness in fact.
Dazai can feel his cheeks warm as he gaze stay glued to the tired ginger struggling to stay awake, as if the boy's eyelids have obtained the curse of Sisyphus.
In the midst of his gay panic, Dazai stays as still as a stone statue
“Fuck…” he says under his breath, his body tense.
Being one of the flavors of queer is not really surprising to Dazai, not much is. But his gay ass crush willingly, even if tiredly, leaning on his shoulder!? Dazai may as well explode now!
He's a baby gay, don't be too hard on him now.
Dazai swears he can feel the gears inside his mind stop and go off like mini fireworks, a fuzzy warm feeling inside. Why must the chibi torture him like this!? And knowing Chuuya, he's always fell asleep fast and stays asleep until he wakes up on his own terms. It's led to some very interesting doodles on his face and weird positions, but today the gay panic is too much.
And fortunetely, Dazai hasn't screamed yet. He's able to slightly shift himself to a slightly more comfortable position, snapping out of his trance. His eye looks around, as if trying to find a way to get out of this despite every fiber relishing in this moment.
So Dazai hesitantly wraps an arm around Chuuya, trying to be gentle despite every lesson in his life having told the opposite.
Chuuya seems to let out a contented sigh, snuggling closer to who he’s always deemed his enemy. Dazai’s mind goes up in flames in response.
But through this panic, a part of Dazai’s mind feels calm. Like it’s always yearned for this. He can even feel his eye start to droop, an uncommon phenomenon for him…
Well fuck…