Work Text:
There’s no escaping gravity. That’s a fact of life on this world. Atsushi perseveres nevertheless, turning on his heel the moment he spots the infamous gravity manipulator in the middle of supermarket.
Unfortunately, luck has never been one of Atsushi’s greatest allies. More importantly, Nakahara Chuuya’s prowess include supernatural speed and reaction time. In a split-second, the mafioso has seemingly teleported to appear in front of him.
Atsushi swallows down a reflexive scream, something that sounds like, “I’m definitely not star-struck and attracted by Chuuya-san’s sparkling eyes, please don’t torture me, Dazai-san!” This whole defense comes out a strangled gurgle of indecipherable syllables when a pair of gloved hands holds his wrist.
“Agency’s weretiger,” is the form of address that Chuuya goes with. “Which one do you think would be better?”
A nearly-overflowing shopping cart materializes beside the mafioso, who’s looking less like a man of the underworld and more like a deceptively domestic house-husband. There’s a certain air about him, like he’s about to don on an apron and bloom with flowers as he walks.
On top of the shopping cart, there are five different shampoos. They’re from brands that Atsushi barely knows, given that they also give off an imposing aura of costing at least thirty thousand yen.
“I’m sorry, I’m not an expert when it comes to bathing!” Not because he’s a heathen who doesn’t bathe, but rather because he expects that a filthy-rich mafioso’s definition of a bathroom would probably designate the space in the dorms as not even the same level as a trash bin.
“It’s okay.” The consolation comes with the refreshingness of a breeze, even as it contains rude words in it. “I don’t think my new dog is that used to bathing either.”
Atsushi balks. “…You have a new dog.”
“I normally wouldn’t keep one, given my lifestyle.” Chuuya shakes his head, looking immeasurably fond. “But he barged into my life, and I couldn’t bear chasing him out.”
Atsushi… thinks he’s going to puke rainbows, and also his lunch over the past few days. He would never consider himself as a genius, but he does consider himself to have a healthy memory capability. Thus, he could certainly remember the past week of his mentor waxing poetic about his plans to barge into ‘a certain slug’s place’ and plant bombs inside ‘a chibi’s private spot’.
He knows that luck has never been his strongest suit, but can he at least not be surrounded by men with strange tastes for nicknames for their… enemies-slash-partners-slash-boyfriends?!
“Um,” he manages to say past the despair welling on his throat.
Because there is no right move in this scenario. If he manages to pick something that could make Chuuya satisfied, Atsushi is certain that he would be haunted by a set of unfortunate events orchestrated by his mentor. However, if he dares to do anything that might end up disappointing Chuuya, he might not even make it past today alive.
Thankfully, Chuuya seems distracted enough by the new… relationship to notice that Atsushi’s not really contributing anything to the conversation. More importantly, Chuuya seems to have decided to use his other superpower—the might of his salary—to solve the issue of not knowing which one to buy, opting to just buy them all.
But because Chuuya is a powerful man who could defeat others easily, he still manages to nonchalantly bomb Atsushi’s mind when he mutters, “He’d probably be okay with anything as long as we use the same shampoo.”
Atsushi really doesn’t want to know this!
“His hair is so fluffy, but I think he’s the type to shed everywhere… I’d get his brown hair on my coat for sure…”
The thing is, Atsushi’s sure that Chuuya’s popular enough to have a long queue of people willing to lay down their life for him. So there should be plenty of others who could instead be subjected to psychological injuries! Atsushi’s tiger may have the powers of regeneration, but it doesn’t extend to healing his soul! How could he ever recover from the experience of seeing Chuuya fondly talking about his new relationship!
“…uhh….”
“Sorry about that.” Chuuya has the gall to sound apologetic, even rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment. “I’ve long wanted to have a pet dog, so I’m just very excited to talk about him.”
Atsushi thinks that he’s going to perish and nothing could ever revive him again. Dully, “Since you guys were fifteen right.”
Chuuya blinks at him, surprised. He looks a lot younger and more innocent as he asks this, which is a blatant misrepresentation of just how evil he could be. “How did you know?”
“Dazai-san talks about it constantly.” No sigh could be deep enough to express all of his misgivings.
With how constantly Dazai-san drops lines insulting dogs and slugs, one would think that the Agency is a pet store. Unfortunately, Atsushi has grown too used to his mentor’s unbelievable method of broadcasting information about his relationship without actually saying the actual words.
For a brief moment, Atsushi gains a wave of fondness for Akutagawa and his propensity to not mince words. Sure, Akutagawa’s vocabulary is very much made of death threats, but at least they’re honest and straightforward, and doesn’t involve taking the term ‘pet name’ too literally.
“That shitty Dazai?!” The pitch of Chuuya’s voice could very well shatter all of the glass windows in this supermarket, and they wouldn’t be enough to convey the level of destruction he’s capable of with just a few casual words. “Why does he keep on talking about it! Does he talk about how I have books about it?!”
Atsushi wants to simultaneously cry, run away, and applaud the mafioso in front of him. Consulting books on how to manage relationships is admirable, but ultimately useless, since it’s pretty obvious that Dazai would accept and enjoy whatever Chuuya does. It’s also very useless, since Atsushi’s sure that whatever’s in those books don’t involve ‘obliviously bragging about your relationship to innocent weretiger passersby’.
“No… Dazai-san just talked about all the… meat… he would get to eat.”
Atsushi hopes that Dazai is being 1000000% literal when he talks about that meat. He really doesn’t want to think of other implications.
Chuuya pales considerably. “That shitty fish—! He plans to steal my meat when I’m not paying attention!”
Atsushi almost collapses to his knees, about to beg that their conversation come to an abrupt stop, because he’s not about to discuss this any further!
Thankfully, Chuuya decides to thank him for his time, before dashing out of the supermarket, tossing a great handful of bills so he could skip the line and rush home… presumably to deal with meat issues.
Atsushi decides to treat himself to a nice meal, because he deserves to have something nice after all that terrible experience.
And because Atsushi’s luck has never been good, the following day has him come to the Agency, only to be greeted by the apocalyptic sight of his mentor being earlier than him.
He doesn’t get the chance to process his shock, when his mentor—surrounded by a gloomy, despondent aura—trudges over to him.
“Atsushi-kun, we need to investigate something of dire importance.” Dazai looks like he’s about to gnaw on the words entirely. “I suspect that the little slug has actually done the impossible, and gotten himself an actual disgusting dog as a pet. He hasn’t been answering my calls, and he’s been hiding steak in his fridge…”
And Atsushi could only say in catatonic shock—
“…So Dazai-san isn’t the actual dog?”
-
end