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1.
Chuuya is not stuck in fucking the past.
Which is why he is not sitting here for sentimental purposes.
He just happened to be passing by and had nothing better to do, nothing at all.
Yes, that is the only reason why he’s watching them empty the arcade.
This is purely to kill time before he has to go back to the office—the weather is nice today, so it would do him some good to breathe in the fresh air. After all, he still has remnants of a metallic scent stuck in his nose after his last mission.
He imagines he makes a quite pitiful sight—sitting on a bench across the street from a bankrupt arcade. He watches the workers haul heavy, outdated arcade games to a dumpster on the back of a truck and tries to ignore the pit in his stomach every time a machine crashes against the bottom.
Truly it was inevitable that the arcade would go out of business, it just couldn’t keep up with the changing youth. It was a time capsule separated from the rest of the city. Unchanging, just like the top scores in every game.
It’s only a few more minutes till the workers toss the final machine, lock up the doors for the last time, and drive off. If anyone asks, that’s when he left too.
The hours he spent watching the sun set on the empty arcade will stay between him and the cigarette butt in his fist.
—
The door to Chuuya’s penthouse is unlocked.
He knows he locked the door. Though it’s obvious that someone broke in, he’s not worried. None of his security alarms were tripped and he is very careful about who knows where he lives. He’s not arrogant to enough to think that it’s impossible that someone could have found out, but he already knows who the culprit is.
Like a sixth sense.
Chuuya gags at that.
He braces himself for whatever diaster he’ll be met when he opens the door and turns the knob. He’s met with pitch darkness so he goes to turn the light on and—
Low and behold, in all of its metal glory, the first arcade he and shitty Dazai ever played together. Chuuya’s shocked, but at the same time he’s not—really, it was to be expected.
He sighs and uses his ability to move it closer to a wall. He grabs the dusty—and concerningly sticky—cord to plug it into an outlet. It takes him a second to find an on button, but when he finds it the machine buzzes to life with its signature theme faintly playing. The music sounds a bit like a scratched record, but that doesn’t stop Chuuya from feeling a little fuzzy at the noise. Despite the years of use and probably thousands of games played, at the top of the leaderboard still stands the same, familiar scores.
1351 - StinkyMackerel
1350 - StupidSlug
He tries, he really does, but he can’t stop himself from smiling a bit.
Chuuya’s not stuck in the past, he swears, but it would be a waste to throw it out. It still works, after all.
That’s what he tells himself anyway.
2.
Chuuya was on a forced vacation.
By no fault of his own, Kouyou decided that he hadn’t taken a break in too long. She believes that he needs to move on from hopeless teenage crushes—her words, not his—and get out more. She insisted that he should at least “get some” on Valentine’s Day. Chuuya didn’t even realize the date until she used it as an excuse to kick him out.
What teenage crush is she even talking about?
But regardless of what Kouyou says, he has no intention of going anywhere but his apartment for the rest of the day. Since he’s not allowed to do work, he may as well enjoy the time off—he has a nice vintage red waiting for him on his kitchen counter and a corny soap opera to get back to.
But things never go his way, so, naturally, the moment he goes to retrieve his wine, he finds it missing.
Great. That’s fine. He might have just left it in his bedroom, he tends to do that when he’s distracted.
He feels it then, while he’s making his way down the hallway to his bedroom, that damned sixth sense. With growing dread, he opens the door—
Holy teddy bears.
On his bed—a california king mind you—is a giant fucking teddy bear that covers the entire thing. Surrounding it is what looks like hundreds of normal sized bears piled up on and around his bed. In the hands of the giant teddy bear is the wine he was planning on drinking, and behind him, the TV is on, paused right where he left off in the soap opera.
Chuuya glares at the stuffed animal like it personally offended him before he sighs and accepts his fate. He grabs the wine and sits right on the lap of the teddy bear.
He hums, surprisingly comfortable.
And later, if he kept the bear, well, no one needs to know that.
3.
Chuuya didn’t mean for this to become a tradition, but he finds himself with a day off…on the same day…for the third year in a row.
There is really no use fighting it at this point—Kouyou has already convinced herself he’s found himself a secret lover and he has no intentions of correcting her. She can believe whatever she wants as long as it gets him some peace and alone time.
Coincidentally, today happens to be the day that the bottle of 1947 Château Cheval Blanc he won in an auction two weeks ago arrived. It cost him a pretty penny, that’s for sure, but it will be well worth it once he sets the mood just right. And he has every intention of doing so right fucking now.
So here he is at the konbini down the street from his apartment looking for the candles. Normally, he would’ve gotten them from one of the suppliers that work for the mafia—they need them for Kouyou’s teahouses—but he’s in a bit of a rush. He has to make it to the florist before the Valentine’s Day rush. But that is neither here nor there—right now, he needs candles, but he can’t find any. He has been searching for at least five minutes
Well, he may as well ask the cashier. Behind the counter is a teenager completely ignorant of the world. He doesn’t blame them—he would have headphones on, too, if it wouldn’t leave him too vulnerable.
When he walks up to the counter, he has to tap on the counter to get the kid’s attention. “Hey, where are your candles?”
The kid just looks at him for a second, “We’re out.” Then goes back to whatever he was playing on his phone.
“The fuck do you mean?” The kid ignores him, so, very maturely, he smacks the counter.
The kid doesn’t even flinch at that, just sighs and rolls his eyes, “I said we’re out. Some guy came and bought our entire supply,” he shrugs. “Said something about not knowing which one to choose and compromised by buying all of them.” He goes back to his game.
Well shit. Chuuya turns and leaves without another word. It’s fine, he can go without the candles. He’ll just go get the flowers and call it a day.
The closer he gets to the florist, the more he starts to feel a persistent feeling growing in the pit of his stomach. The feeling continues to attach itself to every one of his nerves until everything comes to an abrupt halt when he’s standing right in front of the entrance.
On a sign that looks like a middle schooler's handiwork, spelled out in pink glitter—
Sorry, we’re out of roses. Happy Valentine's Day! ♡
Chuuya must be on the ass end of some big cosmic joke because what the fuck.
Okay, it’s not like he needs the flowers, just like he doesn’t need the candles. While his plans to soak in his bathtub with rose petals and cedarwood permeating the room were ruined, he could still enjoy a nice date with the wine bottle waiting for him at home.
And that’s when he feels it. That damn sixth sense. The sense of foreboding follows him all the way to his front door. He debates actually going inside, but he’ll have to face whatever's waiting for him eventually. He just hopes his wine is where he left it.
It’s not.
He really should have expected that. Chuuya just cannot have nice things in this world. He’s always known it, but he just wanted to maybe hope that this time would be different.
His plans have officially fallen through. Maybe next year.
As he’s walking down the hall to go sulk in his bed, he catches a faint scent of…flowers?
It gets stronger the farther he goes and light shines through the crack under the door of the bathroom and he just has a feeling. A strong feeling.
He opens the door and sighs at the sight of his bathtub full of rose petals. All the way to the rim. He plunges his hand in and the tub really is just full of petals—no water, completely dry. It’s not a small tub—it’s actually quite comically large and could maybe fit three people.
No wonder they were all out.
Candles of many kinds cover every surface in his bathroom and his very expensive wine bottle is precariously balanced on the edge of the bathtub.
Chuuya sighs, again.
Maybe his evening plans aren’t ruined, just different than he expected…
4.
Chuuya swears he’ll catch him this time.
He’s waiting on his couch—has been for the last hour.
It’s Valentine’s Day again, and he refuses to be caught off guard again. He’ll gut the stupid fish the second he walks in. He just has to wait.
He decided to read this poetry book Kouyou-san got him on his birthday last year while he waited. Another hour and he’s so engrossed in the poems he almost misses the knock on his door. Almost.
He’ll deny it till the day he dies—and probably after—that he practically sprints to the door. He flings it open and nothing is waiting for him outside. He peeks his head out, and the hallway is empty. Chuuya would be concerned that he might be hallucinating, but the boring cardboard box left in front of the door both gives him a sense of relief and a sense of foreboding. A foreboding sixth sense, if you will.
He half expects it to explode when he picks it up. It does not. It’s also lighter than he expected, but he doesn’t dare shake it, lest that make it explode.
He sets it on the counter to inspect it a bit more, and really his curiosity gets the best of him because he just grabs a knife and slices it open with no regard for potential glitter bombs, which he really should be wary of at this point. But instead of glitter or an actual bomb, inside the box is a heart-shaped box with a ribbon and a card.
He takes out the card first. On the front are puppies with a generic and corny “Happy Valentine's Day, My Pawsome Partner!” in an obnoxious, close to unreadable red and pink font. He opens the card, and on the inside, in infuriatingly familiar handwriting, is “this u?” with an arrow pointing to a simple drawing of a chihuahua.
In a great act of self-control, he gently places the card on his counter and does not leave a dent in the marble—not at all. He picks up the heart-shaped box and opens the top to find chocolates. It seems to be a wide variety—some are white, and some have oddly colored drizzles. Quite foolishly, he picks one up and eats it without hesitation—his first mistake, and therefore last mistake, because he’ll never trust suspicious chocolates gifted to him by stinky mackerels ever again—and immediately spits it out.
They’re fucking dog treats.
Fuck that guy. He hates him, truly.
Which is why he did not store the card in his bedside drawer or anything.
Chuuya’s not stuck in the past, after all.