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Chuuya opens the door to his office and sees a fish lying on top of his desk. There are papers scattered all over, and Dazai is simply staring at the roof.
“Oí mackerel, there’s a couch barely seven feet away," the read head walks to his desk and pushes Dazai off.
He lands with a thump.
The short one bursts out laughing at the motionless bamboo stick.
"Ahhh, Chibi’s so meannnn," the brunette says whining.
“Suck it up, Dickhead.”
Dazai stands up and plops onto the couch. “I swear to god you just had (italics) to dump everything on the floor." Chuuya huffs and starts picking up everything while muttering under his breath.
“Stupid fucking waste of space bandage hoarder, this is why women stay away from you-“.
Dazai sits there silently, and Chuuya looks up from his grumbling.
Huh, usually he’d say some idiotic stuff back? Is that kid alright? Huh, wait, wait, why am I worried about him, that stupid bastard.
And just as before, he goes back to his complaining. “Why are you even in here? This is MY office; you HAVE your own.”
“But Slug has a couch," he says as he lays down and starts rolling on it.
“I swear you call me a dog, and you’re the one rolling around like one." Chuuya sits down at his desk and starts organizing the collected papers. As he orders them, he finds it calming and satisfying.
Then an annoying worm speaks up.
“Ne Chuuya, do you celebrate birthdays?" the bandaged freak asks in a strangely serious manner.
“Why?”
“I just wanna know”, the brunette says with a fake laugh. The red head looks up at this and squints, "Hm well, in the sheep no one really remembered their birthday, so," he sighs and separates another stack. “When someone did it was a very big deal”.
"Hm," he responds quietly.
Chuuya looks up again and finds Dazai looking down at his wrist, playing with his bandages.
Is he really okay? “Hey Dazai," the mackeral looks up. “Are you…okay?”, he asks with slight hesitation.
The brunette blinks slowly, then smiles widely. “Awwww I didn’t the slug cared”, he cooed.
“HUH? Wha-what are you on about I don’t-”, he cut himself off because did he care? He didn’t know;he shouldn’t care but he kinda does. If in his dilemma Dazai smiles in relief, he wouldn’t know.
——————
Once the mummy freak leaves Chuuya is once again confused. The entire time he was here,Dazai barely said a word- except for the brief moment when he first came in. No slug is my little doggy doing my work because Dazai mixed his into chuuya’s, no height jokes. Not even talking about how annoying Morí is.
Something’s up with Dazai today and he doesn’t know what. He doesn’t have long to ponder on it though, because ane-San calls him.
“Hello , ane-san”
“Ah Chuuya care to come for a cup of tea, I got a new blend”, Chuuya smiles softly and reply’s. “Of course Ane-san”
When he makes it to her office, he stops and pats his clothes making sure it’s dust free then knocks. In return a slightly muffled “come in” is uttered.
He opens the door and bows slightly “Ane-san”, then looks up and pulls open a chair to sit. Koyou studied his face for a little then gets up and pours him a cup of steaming tea.
“It’s caco shell tea”, she hands it over then sits down with her own.
“How are you doing lad”, she says with a slight worried look. “Fine Ane-san I’ve been fine”. Koyou then fixes him a look that suggests he’s hiding something and he gives in.
“Today I’ve been worried about someone”.
“Hm”, she says urging him to continue while she takes a sip of her tea. “Dazai he..he said some things and has been acting weird today”
“Oh?”, she supplies in return.
“He just he’s been so quiet today”, Chuuya pauses and wonders how to put this in words. “He asked how if I celebrated birthdays today, I don’t know it’s just been stuck in my mind” . He sighs and looks down at his cup and swishes it slightly. “It’s no matter just been thinking about it”.
Koyou pauses and looks at Chuuya for a moment before taking another sip.
“Say do you know the date”, Chuuya looks at her confused because how does she not know the date?
“It is June 19th”, he says slowly.
“Correct”, she takes another sip then looks at him. “Do you know what today’s date intel’s?”
He looks at her in confusion, his silence being a telling answer. “Chuuya it’s about Dazai”. He looks at her the same utter confusion on. “Ah I see, lad it is Dazai’s birthday”
His eyes widen slowly, the mackerel has a birthday? Didn’t he just pop into existence?
Instead of speaking he takes a sip of the tea, pretty pleasant, he’ll have to order some for himself.
“Well Ane-san it’s seems something came up and I’ll have to leave early” , he puts the cup down.
“Goodbye”,and he leaves as quickly as he came.
——————
Chuuya goes to a grocery store and immediately goes to the baking section. He just looked up quick vanilla recipes, he didn’t know if the telephone poll liked vanilla but he guessed since he always is eating those disgusting sweet. Ew can’t even think about that.
He already has most the ingredients so he’s just picking a few other things.
unsalted butter,kosher salt and pure vanilla extract, nice. He checked out swiftly and practically ran home.
When he made it home he immediately pulled out everything. Pre-heating the oven to 325°f, he started the dry batter.
When he starts mixing the batter, the person he’s making this for comes in. Or well really breaks in. Dazai walks to the kitchen and stares at Chuuya.
“Chibi is what are you making?”, the bandage freak sits on the kitchen island.
Chuuya rolls his eyes,”making a cake”. “Hm”, Dazai walks over and stares at the thing the red head is mixing. Before Chuuya can react he sticks his finger in the batter.
“Hey!”, Chuuya smacks away his hand. “You can’t go and stick your hand in people’s food even thought it is technically for you”. That last part was muttered though.
“I want to help slug”, he says smiling.
The shorter one of the two sighs but agrees. “Fine but don’t do anything I don’t tell you to”, “yes yes chibi, the dog is so demanding” he laughs.
The brunette stares at the the red head. “You can mix this but slowly and I mean slowly”. He smiles steadily but before Chuuya can do anything he’s being shoved away from the bowl.
He goes and starts lining the pan,while Dazai finishes the cake batter.
Look he doesn’t know how this happened but it did. In the process of transferring the batter to the pan, him and Dazai got batter all over them and flour. Which the flour wasn’t even out so it doesn’t make sense but knowing the mackerel it’s not surprising.
They barely manage to put it in the oven and he means barely.
“Alright shitty Dazai we need to make frosting”, at that he smiles mischievously which Chuuya finds mildly concerning.
Despite that he takes the ingredients out. Salt,sugar,butter, that and some heavy cream. He pulls out an electric mixer and waves off Dazai.
“When did you have that?”, he asks with an accusing tone. “Always had it you’re just never allowed in the kitchen”.
Dazai blanches at that. In return Chuuya smirks.
Chuuya plugs in the mixer and dumps in some butter,salt,and sugar. “Ne Chuuya what’s this even for”, the brunette says smiling even though his eyes say something different.
“What’s what for?”, the red head replies.
“The cake”
“A birthday”, Chuuya shrugs.
Dazai freezes ever so slightly, no one would’ve noticed well except Chuuya. “Who’s birthday is coming up”, the telephone poll asks shakily.
Without replying Chuuya stares at Dazai. He stares back.
“Oh”, he says almost silent.
“Oh”, Chuuya responds with the same silence.
Not wanting to continue this silence, Chuuya starts pouring the heavy cream into the mixer.
Then like a switch Dazai starts singing, “the hatrack cares about me the hatrack cares about me”.
Chuuya in response punches his head and finishes the buttercream frosting. “Of course I care dumbass”, he pauses and looks in Dazai’s eye. With the upmost sincerity “you’re my partner”.
They both pause at the sudden declaration and honest feelings.
Then the oven dings and the cake is done.
Dazai goes over to it and is about to grab the pan ungloved when Chuuya comes over and shoves him with gloves on. He takes it out easily and puts it on the counter.
“It needs to cool down for a while”, Dazai instead ignores this and takes out a glass dish, dumping the cake on it.
“Dazai!”, Chuuya shouts exasperated. At this Dazai takes the frosting and dumps it all on one spot.
He then grabs a huge chunk and gets a mouth full that’s 98% frosting and 2% cake, in return he gets slapped against the head and a burned hand.
Chuuya grabs his hand and immediately runs it under cold water, then goes to the fridge and pulls out mustard he also grabs a random cloth.
“I swear all those bandages must have taken away any common sense fucking dumbass”, he pats dry Dazai’s hand then sauirts some mustard on the palm.
“Ew chibi this feels weirddd”, the telephone poll complains.
“Well if you didn’t dig your hand into an oven hot cake I wouldn’t have to do this emphasis on wouldn’t”, he says frustrated with Dazai.
While rubbing the mustard in Dazai stares at Chuuya in aw.
“Now don’t touch that don’t mess with it don’t do anything to it, it’s preventing any blisters any anything from forming”.
“Bla bla bla”, Dazai responds with a roll of his eye but Chuuya notices that he is making sure to lift it away and above things.
Chuuya turns around and stares at the now mess of a cake. “Well your birthday cake is now ruined”, the red head says sighing.
“Eh doesn’t matter I don’t celebrate my birthday anyway”, he responds shrugging.
“Well I want to celebrate it, you deserve to have someone to celebrate it with I’ll be that person for you”.
Dazai looks through Chuuya just breathing then suddenly a small smile is there, most people wouldn’t notice but it’s grateful extremely grateful.
“Well”, the worm claps his hands together, “emotions are for the weak and I wanna watch a movie”.
Then he pauses “Chuuya where are my birthday presents?”, he says smirking.
Chuuya walks over to his room and comes back with a a little bag.
“I don’t know much about whiskey and stuff but I heard this is kinda cool”, he looks away somewhat embarrassed.
Dazai takes it hesitantly but when he opens it he smiles, he pulls it and just holds it. Black Nikka Clear it is good.
Setting it on the counter he grabs the rag and wipes off the left over mustard on his palm not caring anymore. He then grabs Chuuya’s arm and pulls him into the living room.
“CHUUUUUU CHUUUUUUUU I WANNA WATCH A MOVIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”, they both are smiling wide and laughing not a care in the world.
If tomorrow they don’t talk about this or the weeks coming they don’t talk about it, it doesn’t matter because this time next year they do the exact same thing.