Chapter Text
Dazai had just watched Atsushi spill hot soup over the only outfit he owned, for the 7th time this week.
“AHHHH”
Screams filled the air as the wereboy reached for a napkin but only managed to spill his tea as well.
Dazai was sat at his desk watching the scene, mindlessly listing everything that would happen.
First, Kunikida would jump out of his seat and lecture everyone on the hazards of hot liquids without a lid.
Then, Tanizaki would weakly protest that Atsushi needed first aid, not a lecture.
Rampo will simply walk past the scene as if nothing was off, sparing Dazai a suspicious glance. However, anything he wanted to say, he decides not to.
Yosano will then burst into the room out of nowhere and forcefully pull Atsushi’s trousers off, much to his dismay and reddening blush.
Kyoka will then jump through a window (why was she out there in the first place, Dazai didn’t quite know) with a tub of water and douse Atsushi with it. The situation would’ve been saved, if she hadn’t accidently hit the fire alarm, activating the sprinklers.
As the whole office got drenched in a matter of 10 seconds, Kunikida will jump into action to unplug all the machinery, yelling about electrical safety.
While this situation was normal enough, the part that irked Dazai was a certain chibi who will make his regular appearance, as he had the past few days.
Thud.
“…”
“…”
The agency freezes in action at the sight of the visitor, whose face, hidden behind his hat, will have a dumbfounded expression.
And then he’ll-
“… I’ll come back later.”
“What the fuck?”
That’s not what the chibi was supposed to say.
For the past few days, Chuuya had sighed and wordlessly used his ability to turn the sprinkler off before ranting about the incompetence of the Agency. While each day his wordings were different, there was a rough script he followed. To be fair, it was the same with everyone. Everyone had more or less been saying the same things for the past week. While Dazai couldn’t say he didn't realise that that was quite strange, he kinda just didn’t care. It wasn’t like anyone was affected and it was only him as far as he knew that was aware of it. Ranpo might know something about it, but it was probably just based on Dazai’s behaviour he himself was unaware of.
Chuuya was glaring at Dazai, who had absentmindedly been staring.
Dazai quickly followed through.
“Are you sure you’ll find your way back down the big staircase with your tiny legs?”
He wasn’t exactly sure why he was covering his tracks. If anything, he could probably get out this loop with Chuuya’s help a lot faster. And if his gut feeling was right, Chuuya was somehow involved as well.
As he smiled a sickeningly sweet smile at Chuuya gritting his teeth, he realised he just couldn’t bring himself to help the chibi in any way. Somehow all his problem-solving abilities fled his brain when he saw Chuuya.
Just as Chuuya was turning to storm out, something dawned in Chuuya, a minor epiphany. The shorter male paced across the flooding Agency with his squeaking leather shoes and physically dragged Dazai out by his wet collar.
Dazai’s eyes widened by a small fraction, not unused to being manhandled by the redhead. However, he did still have some dignity (however small) to maintain in the Agency.
All the Agency members watched him with wide eyes as he flashed a sly smile and waved while he was dragged away like a deer in a tiger’s maw.
When he was finally released on dry ground in front of the staircase, Chuuya turned towards him with a firmly set face. His hat had held most of the water off him save a few locks of orange hair that were held across his forehead like he was some sort of Greek statue that came to life and decided to adopt the most garish colour scheme to fill its blank canvas.
“Touch me.”
“Huh?”
Chuuya forcefully grabbed his hand and held it for five seconds before sighing and dropping it. He then walked away, leaving Dazai in what was an increasingly warm stairway.
--------
Splash.
Cue the screaming.
“This is what I always say! Either use a straw-”
“Uhh… Kunikida-san maybe we shouldn’t-“
“Ahhhhhhhhh”
“-you still wearing the trousers? Take them off.”
Crash
Hiss
Bang
“…”
Today, Chuuya sighed again.
But this sigh was a bit different. It sounded… defeated.
Dazai wasn’t sure if it was the indoor rain distorting Chuuya’s expression, but he didn’t look good.
Dazai felt his chest grow a bit cold, probably due to being soaked in the water for 8 days in a row. He should probably talk to Yosano. But maybe not. For someone who wasn’t the biggest fan of doctors, Yosano by far took the cake in the scary doctor competition.
Chuuya had stepped into the room today. He could’ve used his ability to keep the pouring water away from him, but he didn’t. Instead, he stood there, slowly getting drenched.
Kunikida had broken out of the confusion first. He attempted to wipe his glasses on his waist coat, only to quickly discover the waist coat just made it wetter. He made a quick decision to put his glasses away and turned to face the visitor. Alas he was a few centimetres off and was offering a hand to the fire extinguisher near the door.
“Uh, sorry to receive you in this condition, but as you can see, we are having some maintenance issues so would it be ok to have the meeting tomorrow?”
The word ‘tomorrow’ caused a small twitch in Chuuya’s right eye. However, he smoothly covered it up by walking up to Kunikida and slapped his outstretched hand away, the smack reverberating across the room and silencing the chaos.
“If this was a matter that could be solved tomorrow, I would be here tomorrow. But I’m not here tomorrow.” Chuuya said with a low growl, face hidden behind his hat. “I’m here today. Which means we are doing this today.”
Kunikida, with his hand still outstretched in the water, was taken aback but he did his best to not let it show. After all, he shouldn’t expect pleasantries from someone in the Mafia. They were only on a temporary truce as well; the bad blood from before couldn’t be cleared just because they had held a couple of casual conversations before.
Kunikida’s face hardened “Well, I’m afraid we can’t really help you in this situation. Our paperwork is soaked, and the machines will be turned off till the water is cleared. “
Chuuya’s hands clenched and everyone in the Agency tensed, subtlety reaching for a weapon. Everyone here was aware of Chuuya’s capabilities.
Chuuya took a deep breath, which was closely watched by everyone in the room, excluding Dazai, who was attempting to slip away before he got dragged into the mess.
With a heavy sigh, Chuuya floated up to turn the sprinkler off and when he landed, he didn’t return to his spot, but instead closed in on Dazai, who was one foot out the door.
The pitter-patter in the room had stopped, giving the room a still fragile silence.
“Well I’ll just borrow this useless slug then.” He said, a hand pushing Dazai fully out the door.
A weak protest followed as Chuuya slammed the door behind them.
Chuuya stood on the welcome mat for a while and shrugged his coat away irritated. Dazai just watched as Chuuya took his hat off and shook his hair like a dog. While he was tempted to make a comment on it, he knew better. Chuuya’s patience seemed so volatile it would only take a whiff of smoke to shatter it. He did want to see where this was going after all.
Chuuya pushed his hair back with one hand and put his hat back on, clearing any strands that had stuck to his face to reveal his forehead, which had a thin layer of moisture. The redhead was checking his pockets and pulling out some wet pieces of paper with a grimace. Chuuya’s eyes, Dazai noted, had lost a hint of its shine. It was as if one of the stars in the constellations that lived in his eyes decided to go back to the sky, leaving behind a gap through which you could see the gaping, true darkness that lived inside Chuuya. It was this darkness that sucked Dazai in, the darkness that he was oh so familiar with in the mirror.
Before Dazai could bring himself to think about why this unnerved him, Chuuya looked up to meet his eyes.
Dazai noted the crinkles near the chibi’s eyes had gotten deeper.
A moment later, Chuuya broke away from the gaze with a sigh (he was sighing a lot today).
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but…”
His lips pursed.
“… come with me if you want.”
With that, he took long steps with his short legs and half-ran down the stairs. Dazai wasn’t sure why his legs automatically moved.
-
Chuuya was sat in his car when Dazai reached the road, wet shoes leaving a trail on the dry summer pavement.
Dazai slid in easily into the passenger seat of Chuuya’s car, just in time before Chuuya wordlessly started to drive off into the busy traffic.