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Chuuya needed a new car. That was evident by the fact that he had received a carefully placed bomb as a parting gift from his (now ex) partner, the infamous Demon Prodigy, the Black Wraith- Osamu Dazai. For the past four months, he had been taking the train into work, which isn’t exactly the best idea when you are one of the most powerful ability users in Japan- if not the whole world- and also the second half of an infamous criminal duo and a mafia executive.
Chuuya aimlessly scrolled through his phone, eyes glazing over video after video of funny dog moments.
Dazai had teased him endlessly over the fact that he had the for-you page of a 40-year-old American suburban mother.
The redhead pushed the thought down. He wasn’t supposed to think about that jackass anymore, dammit! Ex-partner or not, he was still a mafia traitor. Chuuya sighed and clicked off his phone before putting it into his pocket. He needed to pay attention; his stop would be coming up soon.
And that’s when he saw him.
Osamu fucking Dazai. Alive. In the flesh. Maybe a bit underweight, but what else was new? And sitting right across from Chuuya on the bullet train at seven in the morning.
Same off-white bandages. Same scruffy, messy, I-just-rolled-out-of-bed-and-my-hair-still-looks-this-good chocolate brown hair. Same beauty mark on the left side of his mouth.
The mafia executive sucked in a breath as he felt the familiar feeling of his stomach turning itself into knots returning. Was this happening? Dazai had seemed impossible to track down for the first few months, and not even the Port Mafia’s top spies and assassins could hunt that damn bastard down. But here he was, in all of his lanky, fishy glory. Sitting on a bullet train. Found by his ex-partner, of all people.
Chuuya clenched the handrail he was clutching onto so hard that he was pretty sure it would cause a permanent dent and many questions, but it didn’t matter. How had Dazai not even realised that he was standing right in front of him? Or maybe he had and just wasn’t bothered by the fact that his ex-partner (and probably one of the closest things he had come to having a best friend other than those drinking buddies of his) was standing right in front of him? Or maybe he was aware, was very bothered by it, but just didn’t want to cause a scene in the middle of a busy train and would hunt down Chuuya’s new fancy penthouse and break in during the middle of the night and switch around all of his salt and sugar so he would be cursed with salty tea and sugary fish?!
He was broken out of his stupor by a cheery, automated voice and the feeling of the train coming to a halt. Chuuya ground his teeth and swiftly stepped off the train, although it wasn’t even his stop. To hell with that stupid, shitty bastard and his stupid fucking hair.
Fuck taking the train, he was going to walk.
I need a new car…
—--------------------
Meetings were never interesting to Chuuya. Sure, he would occasionally add in his own input or jot down a few notes and look like he was paying attention… but they were boring!
Especially since a certain beanpole defected.
Chuuya silently ground his teeth. He hadn’t even been in the damn country when it happened! He had been in the west securing some jewel trade (to be frank, Chuuya wasn’t all that interested in his previous overseas mission) and had come back three months later to find out that Dazai had up and left the mafia, leaving behind a deserted shipping container, at least one traumatised orphan, mountains of unfinished paperwork, and one lovingly placed bomb right under Chuuya’s car. The same one that both of them had shared countless memories in.
Such as late-night fast food and grocery runs, or Dazai launching grenades to high heaven while Chuuya simultaneously flung bullets while driving- the pair laughing maniacally, or even that night the two of them decided that downing alcohol with pop rocks and ice cream had been a good idea
“Hey, we’re literally in the mafia! We’ve done way more dangerous things than this! What’s the worst that could happen?” Dazai had jokingly stated, moments from disaster
The mafia executive was promptly broken out of his flashback by a familiar scent tickling his nostrils. It was the cheap as hell vanilla perfume that Chuuya had insisted Dazai buy one night when they were seventeen and the older boy was sick and tired of his apartment reeking of disinfectant, cotton bandages and ‘death’ as Dazai had put it (in reality, it was just the expensive cologne that Mori would wear that always managed to stick to Dazai like a second skin whenever he visited the man’s office)
The perfume had been the first that Dazai had spotted, so obviously, he grabbed it just so he could leave quickly. Later in the year, Chuuya had bought him a (slightly more expensive yet still cheap) cedar-scented cologne that Dazai insisted on wearing at the same time as the vanilla one. No matter how much of the cedar-scented cologne Dazai wore, the vanilla scent had always managed to come out on top.
At the time, Chuuya was sick of the cloying scent always filling his nostrils, but now, almost 2 years later, he found that he had missed it. His chair clattered behind him as he suddenly stood up, the curious gazes of his fellow executives not unseen by him. Kouyou raised an immaculately shaped eyebrow,
“Chuuya, my boy, are you alright?” Chuuya felt his cheeks heat up as he realised that he had caused a scene. He promptly tried (and failed) to swallow the embarrassment before replying,
“Yeah, ‘m fine, just need to…” he cleared his throat awkwardly “, take a piss so…” He dashed out of the room.
“Language!” Kouyou called after him, but her complaints fell on deaf ears.
—---------------------
Some fucking day Chuuya was having. For some reason, the ghost of that damn walking bag of bandages was following him everywhere, even though that damn societal outcast was more invincible than a fucking cockroach!
Just around the time that Chuuya was leaving work (*cough* 12 am *cough*), he instinctively ducked his head into Dazai’s (still empty) office, although he had deserted well over four months prior. For a split second, the petite mafioso thought he saw the distinct shape of Dazai, slumped over and asleep in his office chair in the unlit room, surrounded by sheets of dusty (and probably forever unfinished) paperwork.
Unconsciously, Chuuya’s gloved hand managed to find the light switch. As the light flickered on (Dazai refused to get it changed as it “added dramatic lighting and character”), he saw that Dazai’s chair was empty.
Of course it was.
Chuuya ground his teeth angrily, huffed and left the room, but not before he switched the light off again and closed the door. The sooner Boss found a new executive to take Dazai’s place, the better.
—-----------------------
Later that week, the executive’s private elevator had broken down, and Chuuya wasn’t bothered enough to wait for another, so he decided to take the stairs. Almost instinctively, Chuuya hesitated for a second, as if he was waiting for someone. He stood there for a full 2 minutes trying to remember why it felt so wrong, yet so right to be standing in wait for someone he wasn’t even sure was there.
Then he realised.
Fuckin’ Dazai. He angrily thought to himself before furiously storming down the stairs, out the door and into the parking lot before realising that his car was still blown up and that he really needed to buy a new one.
With a sigh, Chuuya checked his phone. It was only around 10 PM, much earlier than he normally got off, so the trains would still be running. Regretfully, he turned in the direction of the nearest station and started on his way.
Chuuya sullenly crossed one ankle over the other as he got himself comfortable on the hard, plastic seat of the train. He had been lucky enough to grab one of the last ones before the car got too full, but luckily, he noticed, the train was slowly emptying at each stop, so it wouldn’t be much of a bother.
He let out an amused huff under his breath as he liked a video of a dog jumping onto his owner’s bed, and in the process, her laptop, immediately tipping it to one side, before his owner gently pushed him off.
Just then, the familiarly cloying scent of cheap, vanilla-scented perfume, poorly disguised with slightly less cheap cedar-scented cologne, wafted its way into Chuuya’s face. His hand subconsciously gripped his phone tighter as he slowly looked up. And there he was, once again.
Osamu goddamn Dazai. The Youngest Executive in Port Mafia history. Sitting on the train at the exact time Chuuya was, on the exact same train car, directly across from him. This was no coincidence. This was that Mackeral Bastard’s genius planning through and through.
Dazai didn’t even seem to be interested in Chuuya! He was calmly flipping through his little red book that he always carried around, The Complete Guide to Suicide, uncaring of the cautious looks thrown his way by the other passengers of the train (Complete guide, Chuuya’s ass! If it was so complete, then why the hell is he still alive?!) Hang on- was he wearing reading glasses of all things?!
Chuuya blinked a few times to make sure that his eyes weren’t failing him at almost 19 years of age. Okay, yeah, he’s definitely wearing reading glasses… he thought to himself, amusedly. The thing was, the glasses didn’t even look half bad on Dazai! They were black with rectangular rims and surprisingly elegant for someone like Dazai, and if he turned his head at just the right angle, Chuuya could faintly make out the outline of a small fish and a slug etched into the frame of the glasses.
Chuuya sighed softly. A completely mature Dazai was almost impossible, as was a quiet day in Yokohama or a fanfiction author not getting horribly cursed in some way. The now familiar cheerful electronic sound of the train and the feeling of it stopping brought him out of his misty-eyed contentedness. This was still a mafia traitor he was thinking about. He shook himself out as he stood up to leave the train like a dog trying to shake itself dry (Chuuya pretended to ignore the amused huff of laughter that he heard behind him, but the sound of leather gloves creaking as the fists inside them clenched in annoyance didn’t fall on deaf ears)
Dazai was just supposed to be a no-name, faceless mafia traitor by now! But of course, nothing was ever that simple for Double Black. It had been four months since Dazai deserted the mafia, and yet the feelings Chuuya had for him were still unchanged, if not poorly covered by the betrayal of defection and unshared confessions.
And for some stupidly human part of him, he couldn’t even bring himself to hate Dazai for doing it. He couldn’t bring himself to villainise Dazai for simply moving on with his life.
Yet he still foolishly tried to count down how many days it would take until Dazai was just another man on the subway. Another faceless commuter on their way to and from work every morning. Four months of counting down until feelings harboured for three years disappeared, and a face he knew better than the back of his gloved hand joined the rest of his forgotten memories.
Fuck this city, I’m moving to Saskatchewan.