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Chuuya shook his head. “Everything’s so complicated with you,” he said. “You could have just sent him a card, or you could call him today, or you could have asked him out for coffee or something. Why do we have to pretend to casually bump into them, and why do I have to be a part of this?”
He strode next to Dazai along the sidewalk, hands in the pockets of his jeans, the hood of his blue sweatshirt raised to cover his fiery curls.
Dazai, also wearing jeans and a charcoal-grey hoodie in deference to their ultimate destination, smiled wryly. “Well, first of all, Atsushi thought it would be nice if I wished him a happy birthday in person, and Atsushi is surprisingly adept at puppy-eyes, for a cat. So that rules out the card and the phone call. And as far as taking him out for coffee goes, the whole point is that Higuchi and Atsushi are already taking him out to lunch for his birthday. And I’m guessing Gin’s going to want to celebrate with him as well this evening.” His brows drew together. “Unless Higuchi asked her, too, and just didn’t mention it to Atsushi.” He shook his head, dismissing the distinction as inconsequential. “I don’t want to tie him up and take him away from a celebration he might actually enjoy.”
Glancing down at Chuuya, he said, “And the reason you have to be a part of this is so that if anybody feels obligated to invite me to join them, I can truthfully say that we already have plans. You do like our plans, right?” Dazai’s lip curled in amusement.
Chuuya removed one hand from his pocket and punched Dazai on the arm, eliciting an overly theatrical ‘Ouch’. “Duh, dipshit,” he said, and twined his arm around Dazai’s. “So, where does Atsushi want us to ‘accidentally’ bump into them?”
“There’s a restaurant. We’ll take the next right, and then it’s a few blocks up.” Dazai leaned over and bumped his head against Chuuya’s.
As they turned the corner, Chuuya said, “Oh, yeah, I know this area. We do a lot of-”
He was cut off by a commotion a block up the street. A man sprinted through the crowds with a bag in his hand, heading away from them, and another man lurched out the door of a jewelry store shouting, “Stop! Help! Thief!”
Chuuya dropped Dazai’s arm. “I’m on the clock,” he said, hurtling forward with a feral grin.
“So am I,” Dazai replied, his long legs stretching into a deceptively fast lope.
Ahead of them, Dazai saw Atsushi, Akutagawa, and Higuchi in front of the restaurant. Atsushi launched himself at the approaching thief, just as Chuuya began glowing red. Dazai skidded to a stop, and then ran swiftly in the opposite direction, back around the corner they had just rounded.
Halfway between the restaurant and the jewelry shop, the thief glowed red just as Atsushi tackled him. Chuuya arrived a moment later.
“Chuuya!” Atsushi exclaimed.
“Good job, kid, I mean Atsushi,” Chuuya said. “Hold him for me, will you? I’m just going to take the stuff back to the shop owner.”
“Sure thing!” Atsushi said, and tightened his grip on the prone man’s wrists behind his back.
Chuuya took the bag and headed back to the jewelry store. Atsushi craned his head, watching through the crowds, as Chuuya spoke to the victim, and the man bowed repeatedly to him.
Chuuya finally turned and began stalking back to where Atsushi knelt over the thief. “All right, Atsushi, you can let him up and head out. I’ll take it from here.” His tone was menacing.
“Are you sure?” Atsushi asked. “I can-”
“There he is, officer,” Dazai’s voice carried over the murmurs of the crowd.
Chuuya looked back over his shoulder and scowled. “Tch,” he said, and then knelt next to the thief. He whispered in the man’s ear, “Count yourself fucking lucky you’re getting the cops and not me.” He rose and melted into the crowds so quickly that Atsushi was startled, until he realized that a known criminal probably wouldn’t want to interact with the police, even when he was on the correct side of the law.
As there were plenty of witnesses, it only took a couple of minutes for the policeman to take down witness information, and then he cuffed the prisoner and nodded his thanks to Dazai and Atsushi.
The two detectives turned and headed back to the restaurant. After they were out of hearing range of the policeman, Chuuya rejoined them.
“Sorry,” Atsushi said to Akutagawa and Higuchi when he reached them.
“Do not fret,” Akutagawa said, eyeing the young man with a bemused expression on his face. He turned to Dazai and Chuuya, and said, “This is a coincidence.”
Chuuya shrugged, and Dazai lilted, “Yes, but such a convenient one! Today is your birthday, isn’t it? Happy birthday, Akutagawa.”
Akutagawa’s eyes widened, and he replied tremulously, “Thank you, Dazai.”
Chuuya was proud of him for overcoming the urge to say ‘Dazai-san’. “Yeah, happy birthday,” he seconded.
Akutagawa calmed slightly, and thanked Chuuya graciously.
Dazai noted, without appearing to, Higuchi’s look of worry, and hurried to assuage it. “Well, I’m glad we ran into you today and got a chance to wish you a happy birthday. I hope you enjoy your outing. We have to be on our way now.” He reached out and gripped Akutagawa’s shoulder encouragingly, and then transitioned it to a pat. “Have fun!”
Chuuya waved at the group as he and Dazai headed off.
Atsushi frowned in worry as he joined the two mafiosos, heading into the restaurant. As Higuchi spoke to the hostess about their reservation, he spoke to Akutagawa in an undertone.
“Chuuya won’t get in trouble with the mafia for helping that shop owner, will he?” he asked. He admired Chuuya a great deal, and was pleased to have had another opportunity to see him doing good, and didn’t want him punished for it.
Akutagawa looked at him as if he’d grown a second head. “Why would he?” he asked.
“Well,” Atsushi said, a little taken aback, “I just didn’t know whether the mafia would be upset about him helping the police.”
Akutagawa said in disbelief, “Are you truly that naive? That shop owner pays the Port Mafia for protection. Chuuya wasn’t helping the police. You were helping the Port Mafia.”
Atsushi’s jaw dropped, and after a moment he closed his mouth and followed Higuchi, Akutagawa, and the hostess to their table.
Oops, he thought.
Chuuya said, “Fine, you won.” Had Dazai not shown up with a policeman when he had, Chuuya would have whisked the thief into the nearest alley to teach him a lesson about committing crimes in areas protected by the Port Mafia; namely that a few jewels aren’t worth one’s kneecaps.
Dazai said placatingly, “I think we came out even. You got to return the jewels to the shop owner less than a minute after the theft, and that makes the Port Mafia’s protection look good. That’s the important part, from a customer satisfaction perspective.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Chuuya sighed. “And Atsushi probably would have tried to stop me, and you’re right about the puppy eyes.”
Dazai laughed and bumped Chuuya’s shoulder with his own. Chuuya took his arm again, and grinned.
“We still going to make it in time for our reservation?” he asked.
Dazai rolled his eyes. “Yes, of course,” he said. “We were delayed less than ten minutes, and that includes the birthday wishes which we had planned for, and someone always insists on allowing an extra twenty minutes to get anywhere because he can’t stand to be late.”
“It’s fucking rude to be late,” Chuuya insisted. He colored. “And considering who we’re meeting…”
“Aww,” Dazai said, extricating his arm from Chuuya’s and wrapping it around the smaller man’s waist. “So sweet,” he cooed, and planted a kiss on top of Chuuya’s head.
“Asshole,” Chuuya grumbled. He peeked up out of the corner of his eye. “And -” he looked down.
“And?” Dazai prompted, sympathetic and no longer teasing.
Chuuya was silent for a few moments as they walked. “I was gonna say, maybe we could do the other one some other time, but-” He went silent again.
“Of course we can,” Dazai said. “What is the ‘but’ for? If you dislike cats that much, we could come back to the dog cafe again instead of going to a cat cafe next time.”
“No,” Chuuya said quickly. “It’s not that I don’t like cats. I do like them. It’s-”
He heaved a sigh, and then spoke resolutely, eyes forward. “I like dogs. And at this point in our lives, we can’t have one. Dogs require a lot of attention, and time, and you have to take them for walks and stuff, and with our jobs, we can’t count on being able to take care of them properly. We might both have to work late, or one of us might be in the hospital, or sent out on a multi-day mission or something. So it’s safe, us going to the dog cafe and playing with the dogs.”
Gruffly, he continued, “But cats are more independent, and have litter boxes, and you can put food on timers, and you can give them those fresh-running fountain kind of water things. And you could just arrange for someone to come by once a day if you’re out of town unexpectedly to take care of them, instead of having to board them like a dog. So it’s less safe for us to go to the cat cafe, ‘cause we might end up actually getting a cat.”
Dazai’s face felt warm, and his eyes burned. How do you do this to me? he wondered, amazed, yet again. How do you make me feel so much?
After a moment, he spoke in a low voice. “Sweetheart,” he said. “Maybe we’ll get a pet soon. Maybe we won’t. But when we retire, we will get a cat and a dog, and they’ll get along just like us.”
He removed his arm from Chuuya’s waist and laced their fingers together. Chuuya squeezed his hand tightly. “When we retire,” the smaller man said in a tone of wonder.
Epilogue:
Monday, Atsushi wore an expression somewhere between sad and wistful.
Around mid-morning, enough of the detectives were out of the room that Dazai felt able to have a private conversation with him.
“What’s up?” he asked lightly, perching on the corner of Atsushi’s desk. “Did the birthday party not go well?”
“What?” Atsushi asked. “Oh, no, it was very nice. We had lunch and dessert and he liked the monogrammed handkerchief I got him.”
“That’s good,” Dazai said encouragingly. “Then what’s bothering you?”
Atsushi looked at him uncertainly. “Don’t be offended?”
“Promise,” Dazai assured him, crossing his heart with his index finger.
Atsushi said, “I thought Chuuya was doing a good deed, helping that store owner. But Akutagawa said that the shop pays the Port Mafia for protection, so it wasn’t that Chuuya was helping the police, it was me helping the Port Mafia.” He looked up earnestly at Dazai. “I don’t mind on my side, even if the Port Mafia had an interest in helping, I was helping the shop owner, not them. I just -” He paused again. “I really like and respect Chuuya,” he said. “I just think he’s a good person, and so I got really happy thinking he was being a good guy, and so I’m disappointed - maybe just in myself for being naive - knowing that he wasn’t.”
“Ah,” Dazai said. “Well,” he said bracingly, “just because he had an additional, Port Mafia motivation, doesn’t mean that he’s not a good guy. It doesn’t even mean that he wouldn’t have done the same if the shop owner hadn’t been paying protection money to the Port Mafia. He helped with the collapsed apartment building, after all, even though Mori would have disapproved. And there have been other instances. The day I proposed, in fact, do you remember Kunikida mentioning the terrorist the next day? The Port Mafia had no interest in that, but Chuuya jumped right in to help me without even thinking of it, and saved all those people on the sky bridge.”
“That’s right,” said Atsushi, perking up. “And he helped us all when we had that bad mission- I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have brought that up.”
“It’s fine, Atsushi,” Dazai reassured him. “The point is, trust your judgement. You’re very good at people, and if you think Chuuya’s a good man, and trustworthy, then you’re probably right.”
“Yeah, I know that,” Atsushi said surprisingly. “But, I just, I kind of want to save him. Let him be that guy all the time. You know? The Agency gave me a chance. I just wish he could have one, too.”
Dazai smiled fondly at the young man. He reached out and placed a hand on top of Atsushi’s head. “Chuuya may not get the exact same chances as you,” he said. “But he’ll have chances. I’ll make sure of that. And Chuuya is very good at making the best of any situation he’s handed.”
“Okay,” Atsushi said, his expression easing. He looked up at Dazai entreatingly. “You’ll let me know if I can help?” he asked.
Dazai laughed. “I’ve never hesitated to take advantage of your good nature before, have I?” he teased.
Atsushi looked put-upon. “No, you haven’t,” he agreed, and then smiled wryly back.