Archive of Our Own

December 18th, 10:23 A.M.

“Dazai. Wake up.”

Chuuya shakes the other boy’s shoulder and is met with a loud groan.

He sighs. “Wake. Up. I don’t have time for this.”

He’s lying. They have nothing important to get to today—it’s a Saturday morning, and it’s snowing, and they have nothing on their schedule for the next seven days at least. But that doesn’t mean he’s just gonna let Dazai sleep and be useless all day.

He picks up the pillow from his own side of the bed and whacks Dazai in the head with it.

“Oof!” Dazai’s startled sound is muffled by the pillow covering his face, and he slaps it off. “Ugh. You’re irritating.”

“And you’re taking up all of the space in my bed. Go to your own room if you’re gonna sleep in this late.”

Chuuya isn’t sure when it stopped being the guest room and started being Dazai’s room—probably sometime after he crumpled that stupid shipping container into dust as an 18th birthday present for Dazai. He knew he never liked living there, and he just wanted to give him an excuse to stop pretending that was his home.

When Dazai just glares at him in response, he sighs once more. “Y’know, I was gonna make you breakfast. But someone didn’t go to the grocery store yesterday like I asked him to.”

Chuuya has to pretend he doesn’t enjoy seeing those two dark, uncovered eyes looking his way, even in a glare.

“I thought you were just saying it to say it,” Dazai grumbles.” I didn’t think you actually wanted me to go out in that,” he looks at the window and shivers, “just to get you some stupid, expensive, organic food.”

“Just because I don’t get the cheapest, unhealthiest option, it doesn’t make me some sort of health freak.”

Dazai throws the pillow back at his face as he speaks.

Chuuya catches it and scoffs. “And it was barely snowing last night! Walking three blocks in that wasn’t gonna kill you.”

“Having this conversation any longer will.” Dazai, ever dramatic, pushes himself into a sitting position like a sickly child on his last breaths. He sniffles deeply for good measure. He just looks stupid. Chuuya bites back a smile.

“Whatever.” Chuuya shakes his head. “Get dressed. I’m hungry and we’re going shopping. And you’re coming with me this time.”

This is totally to get Dazai to be responsible. Not because Chuuya’s heart skips a beat at the thought of grocery shopping with Dazai. It’s just such a normal, domestic task—two words he never thought he’d get to apply to his and Dazai’s interactions. It makes him feel almost hopeful. Which is dangerous.

To break himself away from that train of thought, Chuuya gets to putting his own clothes on. Socks, then jeans. He takes his shirt off to shrug on a binder. He would use tape, something he’s gotten more used to in recent days, but he may have overused it and given himself a bit of a rash. So the binder it is, until his skin stops being mad at him.

He puts on two shirts and a baggy-ish sweater. Dazai is suspiciously still during all of this.

“I can hear you not getting dressed, Dazai.”

Chuuya crosses his arms, turning around to be met with a pair of brown eyes staring holes into him. He blinks.

“...You’re kind of distracting me, to be honest,” Dazai says slowly, feigning innocence. He seems to think that, if he flusters Chuuya enough, he can get away with being lazy.

He’s right.

“Get over yourself,” Chuuya huffs, but he makes no further remarks as he walks to the bathroom.

By the time Chuuya has brushed his hair, washed his face, and returned to his bedroom, Dazai is already fully dressed and wrapping bandages around his head. The soft kind that Chuuya has always kept on hand since just a few months after they first met.

Chuuya walks over and shoves a pair of gloves into Dazai’s pockets. They’d been drying on the handle of the shower door after he got snow on them the other day. “You’ll want these once we get outside,” he explains, looking up at his face.

And gosh, the angle he has to bend his neck at has increased drastically recently.

When they were sixteen, Chuuya hit his growth spurt before Dazai did, and for a few glorious weeks he was one centimeter taller than his partner. He’ll never forget it. Dazai says he needs to stop clinging to the past. Chuuya thinks he’s just bitter.

But then, Dazai began to grow, and it never seemed to end. Even now, Chuuya swears he’s taller than he was last month. Roughly fourteen centimeters separate the tops of their heads.

“Chuuya dotes on me too much,” Dazai complains as he’s dragged to the front door. “Always feeding me, keeping my hair clean and brushed, bungling me up, making sure I get outside enough... are you sure I’m not the dog here? Because I thought that was supposed to be you.”

“You do bark quite a lot,” Chuuya goads him on, and does nothing to disprove his accusations. “But dogs are supposed to enjoy being pampered.”

Dazai pouts and Chuuya wraps a scarf around his neck and the bottom portion of his face. He backs up, hands on his hips, looking proud of his work.

“We’re also buying new decorations. Lights and a wreath and stuff. So we’re gonna be out for a while,” he explains as he walks back to Dazai and puts a pair of fluffy earmuffs on his head.

“…So, even if I got groceries yesterday, you’d still be dragging me out? For Christmas decorations?” Dazai looks unimpressed. He wouldn’t usually be this grumpy about it, but it’s early.

Chuuya smiles. “Pretty much, yeah.”

Dazai could probably brave a blizzard with how many layers he has on. Chuuya would rather be safe than sorry—his partner gets very easily cold, and has no meat on his bones to help with that problem. It’s better to have him looking a bit silly than complaining the entire walk.

Satisfied, Chuuya laces his and Dazai’s gloved fingers together and walks him out the door.

｡･.🐌🐈‍⬛🐟 ｡･.

Chuuya didn’t always have an affinity for Christmas.

He never got the luxury of celebrating when he was young—it was kind of hard to focus on some big commercial holiday while he was too busy making sure none of the other kids froze to death or starved. Winters were always his least favorite.

(He’s sure he celebrated Christmas with his family back before he got taken to the lab. But why spend time thinking about something he has no memory of? It’s better to just ignore, in his experience.)

Then, he joined the mafia. He got a real apartment, (with a heating system, something he definitely wasn’t used to), and a steady source of food. And suddenly, he found himself loving winter.

Snow is beautiful when he can be inside to watch it fall, instead of having to feel it freeze to his skin. The cold is lovely to be outside in when he can wear layers and layers of clothes, instead of having to give them up to the younger children who need it more. And Christmas is awesome when he can afford presents and food and decorations.

Christmas would be even more awesome, he thinks, if Dazai would stop annoying him already.

A deep, exasperated sigh leaves Chuuya’s lips.

“What are you doing.” He runs a hand over his face, grimacing.

Dazai’s head whips around to face Chuuya, an irritatingly innocent expression donning his features. “Nothing, what do you mean?” He says, smiling sweetly. Meanwhile he’s frantically trying to hide the stacks of canned crab he’s been piling in their shopping cart.

“You’re gonna give yourself some sort of disease with all of that,” Chuuya grumbles, pushing the cart forward, knocking Dazai off balance. “Eat some fruit once in a while, why don’t you? You’re gonna get fucking scurvy or something.”

He continues, “We’re here for decorations. And real food. You know, the kind that’s good for you? Go put that back.”

Dazai pouts but complies—he’s not about to bite the hand that feeds him. Literally. He probably would just eat more disgusting preservative-riddled shit every day if Chuuya didn’t cook for the both of them.

Chuuya shakes his head. Dazai is only two months younger than him, but he swears he feels like a parent some days.

Still, he can’t help but smile. Dazai is infinitely irritating, yes, but he’d much rather his partner put his energy into annoying him instead of trying to hurt himself. That thought reminds him of the present he has for Dazai, wrapped up and sitting sadly in their living room without a home. He hopes Dazai will like it...

He’s still lost in that thought when Dazai comes back over, thankfully free of any extra items this time.

The rest of their shopping trip is, amazingly, uneventful. The holiday section of the store is busy, given that Christmas is in exactly a week, and everyone else procrastinates just as much as they do. They pick out way too many strings of lights and ornaments and everything one could possibly need for a Christmas tree.

Then they check out and it’s time to head home.

｡･.🐌🐈‍⬛🐟 ｡･.

They should’ve been back at their apartment approximately five minutes ago.

However, Chuuya’s learning that it’s a bit hard to walk at a consistent pace when there’s a stinky mackerel slumping over onto his shoulder and complaining every thirty seconds.

“I know it’s cold, but I promise it is not that hard to just fucking walk—“

Chuuya suddenly cuts himself off, stopping in his tracks. He perks his head up, alert, and looks over to his right, towards the alleyway they were just walking past.

He swears he heard a noise. A tiny whimper.

Dazai is thrown off balance as Chuuya stops suddenly and has to grab his sleeve to stay upright.

“Chuuya,” he says warningly, “no. It’s probably a raccoon or something, and I promise, you don’t wanna have to get rabies— shots...”

By the time he finishes talking, Chuuya has already pushed him off, handed him the grocery bags (too fast, they just fall to the ground), and darted over to walk down the shadowed, snowy alleyway. He isn’t even sure how all of that snow got in there with the two tall buildings on either side. He doesn’t have the time to think about that as he sighs and stalks after Chuuya.

“Don’t care.” Chuuya continues on, coming up on a pile of flattened cardboard boxes next to an over-full dumpster. Dazai’s nose wrinkles at the sight.

Chuuya pushes a few boxes aside. “Even if it is a raccoon, it isn’t any less deserving of our... aww.”

Chuuya’s whole being seems to soften at the sight of whatever he just uncovered. Standing a good ten feet back, Dazai watches anxiously as Chuuya bends down...

...and stands up holding the tiniest little kitten Dazai’s ever seen.

It can’t weigh more than two pounds, and it’s shivering terribly when Chuuya pulls it to his chest. It doesn’t seem to fight being picked up, though—almost like it knows Chuuya is there to help. The mess of fur covering its body is a mess of browns and oranges and blacks, (a girl, then), but most of that is hidden underneath the layers of snow that the redhead is currently brushing off.

Dazai sighs. This is going to be a long day.

｡･.🐌🐈‍⬛🐟 ｡･.

Chuuya smiles as he carefully watches Dazai.

The poor boy looks so out of place in the cheery, colorful environment of the waiting room of the nearest vet clinic they could find. He’s standing awkwardly next to the chair Chuuya sits in, his dark grey sweater and black pants and black shoes clashing horribly with the vibe of the place.

That smile falls away into annoyance when he hears a loud sigh from Dazai’s lips.

Dramatic bastard. He’s been doing this, like, every two minutes.

Dazai opens his mouth to speak.

“No, I don’t care that you wanted the crab from the store, I don’t care that you’re cold, and I don’t care that it “smells bad in here”, because it literally doesn’t. Okay?” Chuuya interrupts, preemptively going over Dazai’s long list of complaints.

Dazai pouts, plopping down onto the floor next to Chuuya’s chair, legs crossed.

“...Aren’t dogs supposed to hate the vet?”

“I’m not a dog. And that one over there looks like he’s having a pretty nice time.” Chuuya replies, nodding to a medium-sized dog with brown fur who is standing by its owner, tail wagging happily.

“You should be more like that.” He continues, smirking, gently ruffling Dazai’s hair. “I’d say you’re more like a cat, though. Acting annoyed with everything, always so prickly...”

Chuuya is interrupted by the actual cat on his lap mewing at him.

“Awww, shh, it’s alright,” Chuuya coos at the tiny thing, hand withdrawing from Dazai’s head to pet her cheek and the top of her head with just two fingers. Anything more feels like it would suffocate her. Only her head is visible at the moment—the rest of her body is swaddled up in a soft pink blanket with a pawprint pattern that the receptionist had given him when they came in. She’s mostly dry now, fur puffed up around her instead of frozen down to her skin.

Dazai grumbles something under his breath and looks away, arms crossed like a toddler pouting over being told “no”. Chuuya raises his eyebrows. A realization sparks in his head, and he grins.

“You’re jealous, aren’t you?” Dazai pointedly continues to look away.

Chuuya’s smile widens. “Ah, I’m right. That’s what this is all about. You don’t actually care about the crab, or the weather, or any of that. You just hate watching my attention go to something that isn’t—“

“Nakahara Chuuya? We can see you in exam room two now,” a voice calls out from the front desk, followed by the sound of typing on a computer.

The chair slides back a few inches with how fast Chuuya stands up, hitting the wall with a dull thud, and Dazai follows, trying awkwardly to stand without leaning on anything. He only really ends up making a fool out of himself. Not waiting for parter to get on his feet, Chuuya speed walks to the room he was told to enter. It’s the middle of three doors—it’s a small clinic.

He opens the door cautiously and peeks his head in first. The walls of the room are light blue, an accent wallpaper covered in painted cats and dogs along the bottom. To the right, an L-shaped bench is attached to the wall. In front of the bench is a counter in the same shape, wrapping around the back wall. It stops at a door he assumes leads back into where all of the equipment and other things are.

A man sits at the counter in front of a computer. He’s maybe in his late twenties or early thirties, wearing a white coat over a sweater and slacks. He has glasses perched atop his head of red hair. It’s only a couple shades darker than Chuuya’s own hair.

When he notices Chuuya at the door, he puts on a personable expression, waving the boy over.

“Hey, welcome in!” The man gets up from his chair as Chuuya (followed by a very unhappy Dazai) walks in. He meets Chuuya halfway, holding out a hand to shake. “I’m Doctor Sato. I’ll be helping you out this morning.”

“Nice to meet you.” Chuuya shakes his hand, having to shift around his little bundle of a kitten to do so. He notes that the veterinarian isn’t much taller than he is. He can practically feel Dazai holding back a remark.

“Likewise.” Sato smiles kindly, gaze shifting to the blankets in Chuuya’s arms. He gently reaches out to uncover the kitten’s head. “Aww,” he coos, carefully allowing Chuuya to hand the creature over. Sato looks at her with adoring eyes. “I always get excited when I see a cat on my schedule, but especially kittens. I’m guessing you found her outside?”

“Yeah. We were walking back from the grocery store and…” Chuuya retells the whole story. Meanwhile, Dazai plops down onto the bench, and Dr. Sato and Chuuya walk over to stand on either side of the counter.

Sato frowns once Chuuya’s done. “Poor thing. It’s been so cold out recently. I can’t imagine having to be out all alone in this weather.” He settles the star of the hour onto the countertop, letting her find her balance on her tiny, spindly little legs.

Chuuya’s heart squeezes painfully as the doctor pulls a scale out of one of the drawers, one that looks made for cooking. She’s so tiny she needs a separate scale.

“Help me keep her still?” Chuuya’s thoughts are interrupted by Sato’s question, and he perks up, nodding out a yes.

The doctor smiles. “Alright, perfect.” He scoops up the kitten with one hand, met with minimal protest in the form of a small “mew”, gently placing her onto the scale after he turns it on. “Just cup your hands and put them I’m front of her and behind her, be careful not to bump her... perfect.”

The scale beeps and Sato scribbles down a number on a notepad he has sitting on the counter near his computer. Chuuya takes a peek at the number on the scale for himself.

31.5 ounces. Not even two full pounds.

“How old is she? Is she healthy?” A voice that hasn’t been heard by Sato yet pipes up, and, turning to look at him, Chuuya actually thinks Dazai seems mildly worried for once. The doctor probably just thinks the look on his face is disgust. Dazai can do a thorough job of masking his emotions for others—but that little trick stopped working with Chuuya little more than a month after they met.

Doctor Sato doesn’t falter at the new voice. “By her weight I would say two months, but since she was outside and without a mom, I’d guess somewhere around three months. And she’s most likely healthy, just a little underweight. I’ll need to run some routine tests on her, though.”

He does a few more doctor-y things, like listening to her heart and lungs, checking her teeth, eyes, ears, taking her temperature. He lets Chuuya help with whatever he can—he can see the mix of interest and curiosity in the boy’s eyes as he does tasks that he himself finds very mundane. It’s nice to have someone so engaged around.

All the while, the kitten just looks between the three people in the room with her big, green eyes, observing. She’s very compliant, for a stray—it’s like she knows they’re helping her.

When they begin to wipe her down with warm washcloths, Dazai watching while pretending not to be interested, Sato speaks up again.

“So. The big question. Are you—two? Planning on keeping her?” He asks somewhat cautiously. He’s unsure if these two boys have the sort of relationship where they’d parent a cat together. He certainly gets that vibe.

“Yes,” Chuuya answers, at the exact same time Dazai answers, “No.”

Chuuya whips around and glares at Dazai.

“Yes,” he says again, more firmly this time. “My place, my decisions. If you don’t like having a cat in the apartment you can find your own.”

And of course he doesn’t mean that. He wouldn’t kick Dazai out. But he’d sure as hell be mad at him—and maybe kick him back to his own bedroom for once. It’d be nice to have an excuse.

A loud sigh.

“...Whatever,” Dazai murmurs, crossing his arms and shifting to sit lower in his seat. He looks dumb.

He then continues. “Shouldn’t you be, like, upset that we found a cat and not a dog? I thought you liked cats less,” Dazai points out, and Chuuya huffs. He always has to find a way to turn everything into a jab.

“I don’t like cats less. I just... like dogs better.” Chuuya takes the initiative to grab a clean towel and dry the kitten off until she’s nice and fluffy again. More fluffy than before. The vet just smiles.

“...Shouldn’t you be, like, happier?” Chuuya continues in a semi-mocking way. “I thought you’d be a cat person.” Dazai just continues to sulk.

“If you want it to be a dog so bad, why not just name her Dog? So you can at least pretend,” Dazai stands up, coming over to hover next to Chuuya at the counter. He cautiously holds out a single finger to the kitten’s face.

“Dog is a stupid name,” Chuuya grumbles, but he thinks the idea is actually a bit cute. “And I never said I wanted her to be a dog.”

“Puppy, then,” Dazai suggests, face twitching from the smile he’s holding back. The kitten whose name is currently under discussion is licking his finger, eyes staring off into the middle-distance as if she’s very deep in concentration.

“...Puppy.” Chuuya tries it out on his tongue.

Puppy, as she’s now apparently called, looks up when he says it. And that’s about all it takes to convince him.

“Anyways.” Chuuya puts the towel down and looks Sato in the eyes, determined. “Yes. We’re keeping her.”

The rest of the exam goes by in a blur, and then Chuuya is learning just how much paperwork comes along with adopting an animal. He always thought you kinda just... took it home. Apparently not. After he’s signed his (fake, used for any legal purposes) name more times than he can count, and scheduled another appointment in a month for a spay and all of her vaccines, they’re finally given the okay to leave.

“Aww, I’ll miss this little baby. She’s probably the most cooperative kitten I’ve ever worked with,” Sato says as he and Chuuya help get Puppy into a carrier. She actually does protest this a bit.

Chuuya gets it. I mean, who would want to be carried around in a plastic tub with a cage for a door?

“Thank you for all of your help,” Chuuya says politely. He inclines his head a slight bit with the words. The veterinarian shakes his head and puts a hand up.

“Ah, it’s my job. No need to thank me. You boys,” he leans down to peer into the carrier, “and you, little baby,” Puppy responds with a trilling little meow mixed with a purr, and he smiles, “have a good day. And happy holidays.”

Sato watches from the door of the exam room as the two boys bicker their way out the front door. He shakes his head.

He thinks to himself that Chuuya would make a very good vet. He’s just so gentle, when it matters most. And he has a very big heart.

He hopes they’ll do alright with the new addition to their lives.

｡･.🐌🐈‍⬛🐟 ｡･.

December 19th, 8:45 A.M.

Chuuya’s heart feels as though it’s about to beat its way out of his chest.

He scrambles to open closets, cabinets, move pillows and blankets out of the way— nothing.

He can’t find Puppy.

Anxiety wells up in his stomach and chest, creating a sinking feeling that drags his spirits further and further down the heavier it gets.

Dazai is looking in another room—he had been just watching Chuuya nervously until he yelled at him to go search for her, as well.

He can’t have lost her.

Not the day after they took her home. That would be cruel.

Chuuya takes a deep breath. He needs to calm down. He’s not being rational; there’s absolutely no way she’s anywhere other than inside this apartment. Nobody has opened either the front or balcony door since they got home last evening.

It’s going to be okay.

Another spike of fear hits him and he swallows. It’s not going to be okay at all.

He starts to get frantic now—checking inside the fridge, the freezer, the toilet. Places cats have no right being. He just wants to rule out anything scary.

He groans and thunks his head against the counter when he catches himself crouching down to look inside the dishwasher.

Everything is going to be—

“Chuuya? You should come look.”

He’s brought out of his mind as he hears Dazai’s voice, calling from what sounds like his bedroom.

Chuuya springs to his feet so fast he feels something in his back twinge, and he speed walks (not running, this isn’t serious enough to need to run, he tells himself. Everything is fine) to where Dazai yelled to him from.

He steps through the door to his own bedroom cautiously.

Dazai is standing in front of the dresser, a big, goofy smile on his face.

Chuuya scowls. “I swear to god, Dazai, if you brought me in here just to say some stupid joke or insult you came up with, I’ll—“

He stops in his tracks as he watches the taller boy gently tug open the second highest drawer of Chuuya’s dresser.

Inside, nestled between two neatly folded sweaters, is Puppy.

She looks up at the two of them, blinking harshly against the new light hitting her eyes. She seems thoroughly disgruntled. She was warm, and comfortable, and now she’s cold and it’s bright. A protesting noise between a meow and a whine leaves her tiny lungs.

A laugh leaves Chuuya’s lungs like a deep exhale, all of his anxiety escaping alongside the air he breathes out.

“How—how the hell did she get in there?” He asks incredulously, reaching out to scratch her cheek as an apology. She takes it in stride, a purr starting up in her chest. Her little feet, claws out and all, start to knees at the sweater she’s laying on. She’s little enough to not be able to retract her claws just yet.

Chuuya feels like crying. He’s just so incredibly relieved.

Dazai shuffles in front of Chuuya, pushing him back a few steps, and slides the drawer completely out of the dresser. Puppy looks startled at the movement, but not enough to get up.

“Here,” Dazai pulls the shorter boy over to peer into the piece of furniture, “look.”

He points to behind where the drawer he just pulled out was. Chuuya looks down and, to his surprise, sees that there’s about three inches of space behind each layer. Going all the way down to the bottom. She could have gotten under the dresser, then climbed her way up behind all of the drawers.

Chuuya shakes his head and smiles. “Clever girl.”

They keep their spare pillows stuffed under any suspicious pieces of furniture from there on out.

｡･.🐌🐈‍⬛🐟 ｡･.

December 20th, 7:00 P.M

“What the fuck am I meant to do with this?”

Chuuya had ultimately decided against buying a real Christmas tree this year. The plastic one shoved in the back of one of his closets was good enough, even if he wanted to finally experience having a genuine one.

(It’s totally not because he noticed how sneezy Dazai gets this time of year. And, with him living in the apartment full time now, he doesn’t want to make the poor boy constantly miserable. That’s his own job, not some stupid tree’s. Only he gets to make Dazai suffer, thank you very much.)

He’s quickly beginning to regret that decision as he stares at the aforementioned plastic tree—standing about 2 feet shorter than it should, one chunk of it still in Chuuya’s hands.

Dazai snorts.

“Ah, I think it’s... charming,” the boy says, putting his hands on his hips. He’s wearing less layers than he would on a normal day, now just in a simple black zip-up hoodie and some sweatpants. “It matches you.”

Dazai emphasizes his words by closing one eye and pinching his fingers around his view of the tree, then panning over to Chuuya. Showing how tiny they both are, of course.

Chuuya scowls at him. The tv drones on in the background, whatever cheesy holiday movie was on at the moment playing at a low volume.

He’s absolutely fed up with this damn tree right now. He walks forward, bracing one hand on the center of the tree and standing on his tiptoes to put the middle segment of the tree right smack on the top of it.

It’s... definitely something. A normal Christmas tree, up until about the middle, where it comes to a point far too fast. Then, the new addition—at what was supposed to be the pointed top, it gets suddenly wider again, then only tapers out a little. It’s flat on the top.

“Wow.” Dazai grins and nods. “Truly a masterpiece. Belongs in a gallery, if you ask me.”

As he speaks, he trots across the living room, detouring around the couch to pick up the dusty bags of Christmas decorations they had pulled from the closet. (Neither of them know where the stuff they bought at the store ended up. Getting Puppy to the vet kinda took priority.) He drops them dramatically onto the couch. “So! Decorations.”

“I thought the decorations were “stupid””, Chuuya quotes Dazai’s whining from the store and the walk there with one eyebrow quirked.

“They were stupid when it was ten in the morning and freezing cold and snowing. Aren’t you the one always telling me to just get more sleep when I’m complaining a lot?”

Chuuya turns to root around in the various collections of decorations he owns while Dazai speaks. Some ornaments, mainly jokey ones Dazai got him previous Christmases. Lights that are barely holding on to life. And it’s all super dusty.

It’s just then that he hears a distinct rustling from behind him.

“Dazai, whatever you’re doing— oh.”

Chuuya turns around, prepared to give his partner another set of scoldings. All he’s met with is the sight of Puppy halfway up their very structurally unstable Christmas tree.

He frowns. “Baby, no, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

“Puppy!” Dazai gasps dramatically. He scoops her out of the tree, holding her to his chest. She looks unimpressed. “You’re such a troublemaker. And very annoying.” He pouts.

Chuuya just shakes his head. Dazai went from disliking all animals to being an aggressive cat person in a matter of days. Two days, to be precise. An annoyed meow sounds throughout the room, and Dazai huffs but puts Puppy down anyways.

“So. I guess that’s a no on any of the breakable ornaments.” Chuuya sighs.

And so, he and Dazai make work of accessorizing their sad, ugly, plastic tree to the best of their abilities and with their limited resources. There’s quite a bit of swearing, and Chuuya manages to tie one of the garlands into a knot at one point. It’s not a smooth operation by any means. But Chuuya thinks it’s worth it to see the lights of their finished product reflect in Dazai’s sparking eyes.

He observes his partner carefully. Dazai never acts exceptionally one way or the other when it comes to Christmas—which is odd. Dazai is usually very opinionated, even if it’s just a mechanism of hiding the real opinions underneath.

But, he thinks, none of that actually matters all that much. He’s enjoying himself now, and that’s all that’s important.

...even if it means their dumb, three-month-old ball of fur and claws has one more way to cause trouble.

｡･.🐌🐈‍⬛🐟 ｡･.

December 24th, 5:41 P.M

This is a bad idea, Chuuya thinks as he watches Dazai grin at the knife in his hands.

He’d only wanted to get Dazai to finally contribute a little for once. It’s Christmas Eve, y’know, and isn’t this time of year supposed to be all about giving? The least Dazai could give him was a little bit of a helping hand with dinner.

Now, he’s beginning to realize why he’d never asked the dumbass to help him in the kitchen before.

The situation is also made more difficult by the fact that they’re cooking using whatever was lying around and in the fridge—Dazai has no clue (lie) what happened to the groceries they bought the day they found Puppy.

(He dropped them. It’s not a mystery. But Dazai would rather die (or, live?) than have Chuuya be in the right for once.)

Speaking of Puppy, Chuuya realizes he hasn’t seen the kitten much at all today. Which isn’t all that unusual—she loves attention, but only when it’s on her own terms. And he gets it. He feels the same way.

He’s ripped out of his thoughts by the sound of sizzling.

Chuuya looks up from the carrots he’d been chopping to see Dazai, standing in front of the stove, emptying a package of ground beef into the pan.

Ugh.

“Dazai,” Chuuya says dangerously, “did I not just tell you to ask me before doing anything?”

Dazai pauses, caught red handed. “I was just... following the recipe?” He says hopefully, through gritted teeth.

Chuuya walks over and pulls the pan off the burner. “I don’t follow the recipe in this one. Every time I do you complain about the carrots being too hard. That’s why I cook them before the beef.”

Really, it’s just a simple pasta. How can it be this difficult?

Chuuya doesn’t understand how people talk about cooking together as this intimate, romantic activity. The only desire it’s sparking within him is the desire to smack Dazai in the face. But, that’s pretty much a constant desire. So he guesses it’s a fairly neutral activity for the two of them, in terms of evoking new emotions.

Dazai shrugs at him and Chuuya swears he feels wrinkles forming on his face.

It seems that Christmas with Dazai will be just as annoying as every other day with him.

｡･.🐌🐈‍⬛🐟 ｡･.

For all the struggle cooking it, the food had actually been surprisingly good. Dazai ate a fair amount of it, too, which is always a win in Chuuya’s book.

But, that’s the last thing on his mind at the moment.

The way Dazai’s cracked, scratchy bottom lip slides over his own (much softer, he actually knows what chapstick is, thank you) takes precedent. Dazai’s mouth may be annoying when he’s using it to spew teases and insults his way—but that doesn’t mean it isn’t good for at least something.

This is one of those somethings, Chuuya thinks, a heavy breath passing from his mouth to the other boy’s.

Dazai’s back is pressed further against the couch cushions as Chuuya settles more tightly into his lap. The lack of space between their bodies would give even an ant trouble while trying to crawl between them.

Bandaged hands roam up and down Chuuya’s torso, not a trace of the hesitance he had once operated with remaining. Chuuya likes when Dazai lets himself do whatever he wants. It’s nice, to know how much trust his partner puts in him. Reassuring.

Chuuya prods at Dazai’s lips with his tongue, tilting his head and leaning up to better the angle. Dazai acquiesces quickly and no time is wasted before Chuuya’s tongue is licking at Dazai’s own.

Chuuya never understood the appeal of having his tongue in someone else’s mouth, or vice versa. It just seemed unsanitary and weird.

Even when he and Dazai first began regularly kissing, he didn’t understand it. Mouths are gross. You don’t know what’s been in there. The feeling of lips rubbing together was more than enough for him. And getting to see Dazai flustered.

But, as he got to know the other half of Double Black better, he began slowly yearning for an even deeper physical connection. He wants to know Dazai, inside and out.

Now, he itches to shove his tongue down the other boy’s throat whenever possible. He feels like a teenage boy. Well, he guesses he is. Eighteen is still a teenager.

Chuuya grips at Dazai’s hair with one scarred hand. Dazai’s hands squeeze Chuuya’s waist in retaliation. Then, just as Chuuya’s hips begin to roll down onto the lap beneath him—

An annoyed “myeh!” sounds through the room, and suddenly there’s a tiny head shoving its way between their bodies.

Chuuya pulls back with a jolt and a yelp, reaching down to pull a tiny, pokey claw out of the meat of his hip. He levels the kitten with a stare, and she stares right back, not looking like she’ll back down any time soon. She sits back on her haunches, standing her ground.

Chuuya can still feel Dazai’s chest heaving against his palm. “Bad kitty. Couldn’t you tell we were busy?”

“Mew.” By the confident look on her face, it seems as though she’s winning this argument.

He sighs and looks away from Puppy. Blue eyes meet brown once again.

They blink at each other.

A long moment of silence passes.

Dazai breaks out into a fit of giggles. Chuuya feels a sense of deja vu at this scenario—laughing had interrupted the two of them making out before their first time, too. And multiple other occasions. Chuuya thinks everyone should be with someone who is this easy to feel comfortable around.

Chuuya shakes his head fondly as he watches Dazai’s cheeks, (still rounded out with baby fat, it’s very cute, even if it gets thinner every day), curve up into a big smile, pressing his eyes into a crescent shape.

Dazai continues to laugh, softer now, and Chuuya speaks before he can even think about it.

“God, I love you,” he blurts out.

And suddenly, it’s silent again. Only this time, there isn’t the anticipation of a round of laughter to break the tension. He can hear the soft impact of Puppy’s feet on the rug beneath them. Even she knows when the vibes in the room are too off for her to be there.

Dazai stares. Chuuya stares back.

Dread begins to bubble up in the pit that’s rapidly forming in the redhead’s stomach.

Chuuya swallows. “I— you don’t have to say anything, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for— I didn’t think before speaking, I’m so sorry. I really have boundary problems, huh? I keep doing this, I’m so—“

“Shush.” Dazai makes eye contact with Chuuya’s shirt. His face is a bit too much right now. “I...”

“Really, you don’t have to—“

“Didn’t I say to shush?”

“...”

Dazai nods. “Good.” A pause. “So. I...” He takes a moment to put together his thoughts, looking more concentrated than Chuuya has ever seen him. He rarely has to think this much.

“I knew you’d say that to me at some point. I’m not trying to sound like a smartass,” Chuuya snorts a little at that, “I just... I know you. I know how strongly you feel.”

“It’s... harder for me, than for you. Love, I mean.” The word leaves an anxious aftertaste in his lungs. “Your emotions were always the one thing that led you to doubt your alleged inhumanity. It’s the opposite for me. I know, physically, I’m human. It’s my feelings that set me apart.” The light in Dazai’s eyes fluctuates with his words. It’s captivating to watch.

Chuuya listens carefully. It’s rare that he gets such a genuine conversation, even one sided, out of the other.

Dazai continues. “...Sometimes I think I don’t feel anything at all, but when I do, it’s for you. It’s always you. And I think… I think I might love you, too. As much as I’m capable of loving.”

Something about that line feels like it’s right out of a movie. Chuuya finds he has to remember to take his next breath.

Chuuya opens his mouth to speak.

“But, don’t get your hopes up. I don’t want you to be disappointed by your own expectations of how much I feel for you.” Dazai frowns. Contradicting his words heavily, his face is swimming with a thousand different emotions. “Ugh, that sounded asshole-y. I just mean that you shouldn’t put too much faith in me in the feelings department. I’ll only hurt you.”

Sighing, Chuuya puts his hand over Dazai’s mouth before he can interrupt him further.

“Now you shush.” Dazai complies swiftly. “I think you have a serious misunderstanding of how normal emotions work. Because you have them. Love isn’t easy for anybody. Especially not me.”

Dazai blinks at him.

He chuckles. “Loving you is the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he murmurs, and it feels so weird to freely say it out loud now. It’s always been known between them, but it’s never been so tangible. “It’s supposed to be difficult. That’s what makes it so rewarding when you get it right.”

“It isn’t a measurable exchange. There isn’t such a thing as you loving me “less” than I do you. It only works that way if you make it work that way. So don’t.”

Chuuya smiles sadly. “And, even if you don’t love me at all, that’s okay, too. Love doesn’t have to be an exchange at all. I’m happy just to have you alive.” He pats Dazai’s hip like you’d pat a dog after petting it.

A minute that feels like an eternity passes, and then Dazai quietly speaks up.

“...I’m just not sure.” He repeats, sounding very conflicted and a little scared. He’s obviously going through some big internal conflict that Chuuya has no business trying to resolve with his own thoughts.

“That’s okay,” Chuuya says, and he smiles. But his cheeks feel so unbearably heavy and he can’t keep it up for long. It really is okay—he’d never be mad at Dazai for something as stupid as being unsure of his feelings. He never expected anything in return, he tells himself. Maybe he’s not angry, or even sad. But he’s allowed to be a little worried, right? For Dazai’s sake, of course. This much emotional turmoil can’t be good for him.

And it’s not like Dazai doesn’t feel for him at all. Those emotions are there, Chuuya has felt them with his own heart and body. They don’t need to be named to be real.

“It’s getting late.” Chuuya clears his throat, followed by a cough, distracting from the warbled undertone in his voice.

“...it is,” Dazai adds helpfully, and now it’s awkward all over again.

Chuuya crawls out of his lap, offering out a hand. “Bed?”

Dazai nods and pulls himself up. Their hands linger on each other’s for just as long as usual and Chuuya feels a small bit of the tightness in his chest dissolve.

Chuuya can only hope that they both forget about this, even if just for tomorrow morning.

｡･.🐌🐈‍⬛🐟 ｡･.

December 25th, 6:01 A.M

“Chuuya! Wake up!”

“Wha...?”

Chuuya blinks awake, a ray of white light shining over his face and his shoulder being shaken so hard you’d think Dazai was trying to wake him from a coma.

He rubs the sleep out of his eyes and focuses on the face inches from his own.

“...what the fuck are you doing?” Chuuya groans, voice still scratchy. It always is in the morning. It takes him at least an hour and a full cup of water to start sounding like a normal human again.

“It’s Christmas! You can’t sleep in on Christmas. C’mon, get up,” Dazai repeats, tugging on Chuuya’s bare shoulder.

“It’s also,” Chuuya glances to the bedside table, “six in the morning. Being asleep at six in the morning is not sleeping in.” He also notices that it’s snowing outside. Must be why it’s so bright out for being so early.

“And?” Dazai doesn’t seem convinced. Chuuya just sighs and runs both hands down his face.

This, apparently, is what he was missing out on by not having lived with Dazai on any of their previous Christmases together. Don’t get him wrong, he loves seeing his partner excited and lively about something for once. He just... wishes it wasn’t also at an ungodly hour. He, unlike Dazai, actually enjoys getting his beauty sleep, thank you very much.

Realizing that the taller boy isn’t going to back down anytime soon, Chuuya sits up, the covers remaining on him slipping off into a pile around his waist.

Dazai scrambles off the bed and stands halfway to the door, practically bouncing in place. Whatever he got for Chuuya, he’s obviously excited to give it to him. It’s probably just some stupid gag gift.

Chuuya pushes himself up and onto his feet, running his fingers through hair.

“Whatever you got me better be good enough to make up for waking me up this early,” Chuuya warns with a half-smirk, bumping purposefully into Dazai as he walks past.

The apartment feels cozy, even if Chuuya likes to keep it a crisp 65 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter. The snow outside mixed with the warm lighting of the Christmas tree, the only light turned on at the moment, creates an almost stereotypical childhood Christmas feel.

Not that he would really know what a childhood Christmas feels like. Dazai either, for that matter. But he’s watched more than enough movies to grasp the concept.

He snorts when he sees Puppy curled up on the kitchen counter, right under one of the vents pumping out warm air. He decides to leave her be.

Dazai, trailing behind him, does not make the same decision.

“Awww, I know, you must be so cold, poor baby. Your daddy is so cruel, letting us freeze while he walks around in a tank top like a lunatic,” Dazai bemoans, cupping Puppy’s tiny little face with his hands and scratching both her cheeks at once. She doesn’t even open her eyes, content.

“I’m not cruel. This is a normal temperature, you two are just dramatic.” Chuuya smacks Dazai upside the head, not even hard enough to make a noise. Dazai still cries out like he’d received blunt force trauma with a metal baseball bat.

Puppy stares up at them, unimpressed. With a quiet, almost annoyed meow, she jumps off the counter and stalks off to wherever she’s been hiding all day recently.

Dazai pouts. “See, even she’s upset at you,” Dazai grumbles, and Chuuya shakes his head fondly.

“Whatever you say.” Chuuya rolls his eyes. Despite all of that, as soon as he sits down on the couch, Dazai is scurrying after him and grabbing the presents from under the tree. They each just got one box of things for the other.

He plops right down onto Chuuya’s lap without preamble. The older sighs.

Chuuya’s hands still settle on Dazai’s hips, even if he’s annoyed. “You do realize I can’t open any presents if I can’t fucking see them, right?” He asks, making intense eye contact with the back of Dazai’s neck. It’s at eye level with him when he’s on his lap like this.

He can practically feel Dazai grinning mischievously up there. “Oh, really? Ah, I’m so so sorry, it must be so hard living life so short that you can’t even function with your partner in your lap...” He rambles off, voice dripping with fake pity.

“Shut u— what are you doing?” Chuuya asks for what feels like the millionth time this morning, feeling Dazai’s hands prying his legs open. “Pervert.”

“I’m not a pervert. Just thoughtful,” Dazai says matter-of-factly as he slides down between Chuuya’s legs onto the floor. He leans back, head against Chuuya’s stomach. “If anything, you’re the perverted one, if that’s what your mind went to when I was just spreading your legs.”

Chuuya pauses. This position isn’t actually that bad. He scratches his fingers through Dazai’s hair, just on the border of painful. He is still annoyed, thank you.

“Well I’m sorry that I don’t think of you prying my legs open as a perfectly innocent action. I’ll have to remember that for the next time you do it,” Chuuya teases. He knows that it’d seriously annoy Dazai if he was actually trying to initiate something and Chuuya treated it like something “thoughtful” and “innocent,” in Dazai’s terms.

Dazai swallows. “...maybe don’t,” he murmurs, crossing his arms and try not to look embarrassed. Chuuya smiles.

Even if they tease each other relentlessly, at the end of the day, they fall asleep and wake up in the same bed. And, even if things between them are horribly awkward, it’s the same, too. He can almost forget about his feelings over what happened last night. Not that he should have any feelings about it in the first place. (But he does.) Except that, he obviously can’t forget, since he’s actively thinking about it. Damn it. He shakes his head.

“Can I open mine first, hm?” Chuuya quietly asks, fingers trailing lower to scratch behind Dazai’s ears. He doesn’t even seem annoyed at the idea of the gesture like he usually is, just leans into it. Like a cat. A spoiled one, too.

Dazai nods. “Mhm,” he hums, closing his eyes for a moment. He reaches forward to grab one of the two boxes he had set on the table—a cardboard box, badly wrapped, paper patterned with cartoon dogs crumpled and secured in place with unsightly strips of duct tape. Chuuya knows Dazai only did it to annoy him. He’s perfectly capable of anything he puts a little effort into. He actually thinks it’s a little endearing, but he’ll never let the mackerel know that. He wouldn’t let it go.

Dazai, straining his head back to look, carefully watches Chuuya begin to unwrap his present.

The paper comes off into a pile on the couch next to them, and Chuuya rips the taped box beneath open in one easy movement.

“Show off,” Dazai huffs.

Chuuya shakes his head.

He peers down into the box, raising an eyebrow as he sees a layer of what looks like sweaters on top. He pulls them out one by one, and realizes they look.... familiar.

“Dazai.” The boy looks at him, innocent an expression donning his features. “You can’t just give me my own sweaters that you took from me as a gift.”

“I outgrew them! Nothing wrong with regifting things.” Dazai shrugs, leaning his cheek onto Chuuya’s thigh.

“You’re not regifting anything if you were never gifted it in the first place.”

“Semantics.”

Chuuya sighs but slips one of the sweaters, a knitted burgundy one, over his head anyway. He actually kinda missed this one.

He puts the others to the side and pulls the next item out of the box. It’s another clothing item, but a hoodie this time.

Chuuya holds it up and snorts.

“Where the fuck did you get this?” Chuuya asks incredulously.

It’s a dark grey hoodie, zip-up, one similar to a hoodie of a different color that Chuuya wears around the house when it’s cold. But, on the back, there’s an obnoxiously large picture of Dazai making a kissy face, low quality from being blown up so much.

“I made it myself.” Dazai looks proud. “Got the picture printed on fabric on some website and sewed it on by hand. By the way. It took a long time,” he says into Chuuya’s leg, grinning up at him. He pauses like he’s expecting a rain of ‘thank you’s.

And it’s so, so incredibly stupid. But it’s also stupidly thoughtful.

Dazai put in the effort to find a copy of his favorite hoodie, take a picture of himself (which he hates doing), get it printed onto fabric, and sew it onto the hoodie. By hand. Chuuya can’t even feel the stitching as he runs his fingers along the edges. He smiles.

“...thank you, you Mackerel.” He murmurs affectionately. Dazai brings out a stupidly sappy side in him.

“With pleasure.” Dazai winks, and Chuuya thinks it’s the cutest thing he’s ever seen. God, what is wrong with him? You think he’d get used to his feelings after knowing his partner for three years now.

(Little does he know (or maybe a lot), Dazai is just as incredibly whipped for Chuuya, if not more. He just hides it better.)

“That’s not all,” Dazai says with a smile and a nudge at Chuuya’s thigh with his nose.

Chuuya raises his eyebrows, peeking back into the box. Under a layer of crumpled up paper, there’s a bottle of wine. He pulls it out and looks at the label.

One of his favorites. And it had to be expensive, too. He cranes down to plant a kiss on his stupidly thoughtful partner’s head.

“Thank you. I didn’t know you had it in you to get me something genuine and not a joke. Unless you replaced the wine with grape juice like last time?”

Dazai shakes his head.

“Good.” Chuuya can tell that he’s flustered by the compliment. If he was paler, he’d probably be visibly blushing. “Now. Enough focusing on me. It’s your turn.”

Dazai grumbles a bit but complies anyways. The snow continues to settle on the balcony outside, nearing probably an inch or two now, as he reaches for the box still sitting on the coffee table. This one is wrapped much more neatly; still a bit janky, but he can tell there was effort but into it. The wrapping paper is a nice light blue and it has a white ribbon wrapped around it.

Dazai snickers. “Try-hard.”

“I’m not a ‘try-hard’ for actually putting a little effort into presentation,” Chuuya scoffs.

Dazai looks upside-down at Chuuya and frowns, then clambers up onto the couch next to him. He’s tired of sitting on the floor.

Chuuya sets his own box of presents to the side and turns to Dazai, tucking his legs beneath himself. He stretches his back out and pushes his hair behind his ears before settling into a comfortable position.

He nudges Dazai’s knee. “Go on, then.”

Chuuya tries not to smile at the way Dazai’s eyes silently sparkle while he pulls off the gift’s wrapping.

(Eyes, plural. It’s early enough in the morning that he hasn’t yet found the time to wrap his face in its usual bandages. Chuuya is totally not staring. Oh, fuck it, he’s 100% staring. They’ve been “together” for basically two years now. He has no reason to hide it.)

By the time he focuses back in on the moment, Dazai is down to just the box inside, having a bit more trouble tearing it open than Chuuya did. He manages eventually.

“This had better live up to the very high standards I set with my awesome gift,” Dazai says with a tiny smirk and a tilt of his head, pulling the first item out of the box.

A bottle of soap. He blinks at Chuuya.

“Because you’re so stinky all the time,” Chuuya explains. He can’t not get Dazai at least one completely joking gift. He’d be breaking tradition.

“Am not. You’re the stinky one. You smell like sweat every morning.”

“This would all be solved by letting me shower before dragging me around the house.”

“But would it though?”

Chuuya rolls his eyes and doesn’t bother responding as Dazai keeps going. He wants to see his reaction.

Next is a big stuffed animal, having taken up most of the space in the box. It’s a big, gently weighted fish plushie, probably more than two feet long. He had thought of Dazai when he saw it in a shop window. Dazai always likes to hold stuffies while sleeping, but only if they’re smooth, without anything that could poke him in the face. Also, it’s a fish. It’s just perfect.

Dazai smiles and hugs it, rubbing his face against the soft blue fabric.

“Thanks, slug.” His voice is muffled.

Pulling away from the plushie, but keeping it in his arms, Dazai goes on to pull the final present out.

Chuuya subconsciously holds his breath.

In Dazai’s hands is a tackily decorated scrapbook, different colored and patterned papers in Dazai’s favorite colors cut and pasted onto the cover. In cut-out letters, it reads, ‘Dazai’s Anti-Suicide book’.

Dazai quietly fingers through the pages, eyes scanning pictures of himself and he and Chuuya together, half of which he had no idea his partner had taken in the first place.

It goes all the way back to when they first met—a sneaky shot of Dazai, tongue poking out as he focused on whatever arcade game he was playing. One of the two of them, passed out on one of the couches in the mafia headquarters. Kouyou had taken that one. A few pages later, and they’re sixteen, discernible by the disgruntled mirror selfie of Chuuya, permanent marker all over his face. That was the third time he has used corruption, when Dazai finally remembered to bring a pen. Chuuya was not happy.

A lot of them have little captions scribbled beneath or around them, as well—things like dates, what they were doing in the picture, his thoughts on how especially stupid Dazai looked that particular day. He can see the handwriting shift slightly the further he flips—Chuuya has been keeping this hidden for a while now, it seems.

One of Chuuya’s favorites is simply a photo of Dazai’s sleeping figure. It’s from when they were still sixteen. He loves seeing how young he used to look—and he still looks plenty young, of course, but he was just so incredibly baby-faced back then.

A noise that sounds like a scoff leaves Dazai’s lips when he sees the most unflattering picture ever of Chuuya on the next page. He remembers taking that. It was a few weeks before his own seventeenth birthday and, as Chuuya came in for a kiss, he backed off and took a picture instead. The shorter boy had chased him around the apartment to get him to delete it. He was, obviously, unsuccessfully. Dazai wonders when Chuuya snuck the picture off of Dazai’s phone and printed it out.

“This is the stupidest thing ever,” Dazai mumbles, but it’s completely lacking any real disdain. “I love you so much.”

Now, it’s Chuuya’s turn to stare blankly at Dazai, brain feeling like it’s lagging behind reality. He cannot have just said what he think he said. Right?

Dazai meets Chuuya’s stare, looking startled but nowhere near as nervous as Chuuya had last night. Maybe just a little embarrassed. It’s much less nerve-wracking to say such a thing after it’s already been said to you. Reciprocating an action is easier than initiating it.

The snow falls gently outside, settling onto the ground, and something in Chuuya’s heart settles softly into place alongside it.

“I love you, too.” And it feels so easy now. Like something as simple as ‘good morning’ or ‘how are you’. “But I guess you already knew that.”

Dazai grins and turns around, letting himself fall backwards to lay over Chuuya’s lap. “Mmh, and I already know whiskey tastes good, but that doesn’t stop me from checking every once and a while.”

“You’re awful.” Chuuya tousles Dazai’s hair, feeling greasy beneath his fingers. He needs a shower. “I love you,” he says again, because he can now, and he has years of built-up love to express.

“I know,” Dazai teases. And, for a moment, everything feels so incredibly right.

｡･.🐌🐈‍⬛🐟 ｡･.

Extra: December 28th, 4:00 P.M

“Are you sure you have to go?”

Dazai pouts as he watches Chuuya rummage around their room, gathering clothes and things. Dazai himself is laying on his back on their bed, feet towards the headboard, head hanging off the edge.

Chuuya, holding a stack of folded-up shirts, scoffs.

“Of course I have to go.” He walks past Dazai and towards his open suitcase. “Mori assigned this mission to me specifically. You know it’s important if he’s sending his strongest fighter away for over a month. He wouldn’t risk it otherwise.”

Right as Chuuya, (who isn’t paying very much attention, admittedly), goes to put the clothing in his luggage...

...he’s met with a loud ”meow” of protest.

Blinking, he pulls the stack of shirts back to his chest, meeting stares with the tiny brown kitty in his suitcase. She looks rather comfortable, surrounded by various soft items.

Dazai smiles.

“See, even Puppy wants you to stay home.”

“I think she’s just in there because it’s new. And because it’s like a box.”

Chuuya walks to the bed and sets down what he’s holding, resigning to let Puppy have reign over his suitcase for a while.

“You take everything so literal,” Dazai grumbles, flipping over to cling to Chuuya’s waist like an octopus. “Stop being so serious.”

“We’re adults. We have to be serious.” Chuuya absently places a hand on Dazai’s head. “Or something.”

Dazai snickers. “You’re nowhere near an adult. You’re eighteen, yes, but do you act it? I’m not so sure about that.”

“If acting mature makes you an adult, I’m not sure you’ll ever be one.”

“But you’re still with me. So what does that make you? Some kind of—“

“Don’t call me a pedophile. We’ve been over this.” Chuuya internally grimaces at the reminder of the month from absolute hell that was the period between his and Dazai’s 18th birthdays. Any touch he initiated between them was met with gasps and dramatic pleas of “Chuuya! I’m a minor!”

Long story short, it was irritating.

Anyways. That’s not important at the moment.

Chuuya focuses back in when he feels one of Dazai’s hands shaking just a little too high up the back of his shirt.

“Hey,” he warns, “I have to finish packing.”

A dramatic sigh from his partner. “How cruel, departing for war like this and leaving this poor housewife without so much as a kiss....”

Chuuya rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I’m not leaving for war, and you’re not a housewife. I don’t think I’ve seen you do so much as a single chore in the three years I’ve met you.”

The room gets quiet for a few minutes, which the redhead really doesn’t mind. Dazai’s slender (and cold) fingers trace patterns on his back and Chuuya’s rougher ones rub at Dazai’s scalp and neck.

“...I’ll miss you,” Dazai whispers, looking up at Chuuya’s face through his eyelashes. If his gaze happens to catch on his chest on the way, it’s a coincidence.

“I’ll be back before you know it.” Chuuya helpfully tries to reassure him. This will, honestly, be the longest they’ve been apart since they were first partnered up. They always go on these long, overseas-type missions together. He doesn’t know what Mori is playing at.

“Yeah,” Dazai agrees. “And I’ll be right here waiting when you back.”

Chuuya smiles. “Yeah. I’m sure you will.”