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Chuuya's first paycheck as a mafia executive is a hefty one.
His eyes grow as big as the zeroes lining his check as he examines the number, double-checking that it really is his name on the line.
Dazai leans over his shoulder, pouting when he sees the numbers.
“How come Chuuya’s getting paid more than me?”
Chuuya bristles. “Because I’m an executive, damn it! You’re still a sub-executive, meaning you earn less than me.”
“Still, little hatracks deserve little paychecks. It’s only fair.”
After the Dragon's Head incident, Chuuya was chosen to be an executive, just ahead of Dazai. For now, he’s the youngest executive in Port Mafia history, but with the way Dazai was working his ass off, he wouldn’t hold that title for long.
Still, it was nice to gloat when he had the chance, given how mean Dazai could get when he won a bet.
“What’re you going to spend it on?” Dazai asks, trying sneakily to snatch the check from Chuuya’s fingers.
“I dunno.” Chuuya smacks Dazai’s hand away idly, imagining all the possibilities.
He could buy another motorcycle, or purchase that expensive French wine he’s had his eye on for a while. He’s basically holding a wish-granter in his hand right now, with almost infinite possibilities.
Then, he gets an idea.
“Let’s go to the bank real quick.” Chuuya hops to his feet, knocking Dazai to the floor. “We’ll cash this, and then,” he grins at Dazai. “We’re going on an adventure.”
———
“This is boring.”
Dazai drags his feet as they walk down the main street, trying to decide where to start. There’s a furniture store, a liquor store, and…
A candy shop.
Chuuya’s grin almost splits his face as he opens the pink door, a wave of sweetness washing over him as a small bell signals their arrival.
Rainbow candies line the walls, and jars of chocolate are spread over wooden tables and counters. Kids weave in and out of the tables, filling their bags to the brim with pure sugar while their parents watch in belated regret.
“Welcome in!” The cashier chirps at them. She’s wearing a rainbow outfit, complete with a rainbow hat and star-shaped earrings.
“What’s your largest size bag?” Chuuya asks. The cashier raises an eyebrow and reaches down to pull a giant bucket from below the counter.
“This is our biggest at three kilograms.”
“Great. I’ll take two.”
He hands one bucket to Dazai—who stares at him in shock—and heads straight towards the gummy section.
The next hour is a blur, as Chuuya fills his bucket with every possible kind of candy in the store. From sour gummy worms to strange pickle-flavored jelly beans, all of it is heaped into the bucket. He only stops once, when he sees Dazai standing in front of the sour candy wall, looking a little lost.
“Too many choices for ya, Mackerel?” Dazai scowls at Chuuya, but he’s clearly overwhelmed by the colors and noise. So, Chuuya decides to do him a favor. “I heard the taffy is pretty good, and it comes individually wrapped, so you can try different flavors.”
“Hmph, taffy hurts my teeth,” Dazai complains, but a little while later, Chuuya sees him grab a couple of grape taffies from a bowl—the worst flavor, in Chuuya’s opinion, but at least Dazai picked something. In the end, they both haul their giant buckets of candy out of the store, and Chuuya already feels a little lightheaded from the sweetness.
“Where to next?” Dazai asks, chomping down on a giant stick of red licorice.
“First to my house to drop the candy off.” If he wanted, Chuuya could just float their buckets everywhere they went, but he doesn’t want anything to happen to his newly purchased stash of sweets. “Then,” he grins at Dazai. “It’s a surprise.”
“Aw, Chuuya! Just tell me! Is it the arcade? Or is it more shopping?” Dazai guesses all the way to Chuuya’s apartment, and even after they put the candy away, he continues to fire off questions until Chuuya’s had enough.
“Maybe a jewelry store? Chuuya does love his fancy accessories. Or maybe—”
“Agh, shut up!” Chuuya smacks Dazai on his blind side—a low blow, but the idiot was really pissing him off. “We’re almost there, so shut your trap, unless you wanna wait outside while I have all the fun.”
It’s blessedly quiet for all of two minutes, until they reach Chuuya’s destination.
“Laser…tag?” Dazai reads the sign out front, which flashes the words Battle Arena in obnoxious yellow lights.
“Yup.”
“But isn’t that a little lame, considering the fact that we could just use real guns back in the mafia range?”
Chuuya rolls his eyes. “We can’t fire real bullets at one another, Boss would kill us. Plus,” he grins devilishly, “we can make a bet. Loser has to do the winner’s paperwork for a day.”
He can see the gears turning in Dazai’s head as he considers the bet. “Deal.” He says finally, “But make it a week. A day is barely anything.”
Chuuya sticks out his hand, and they shake on it. The inside of Battle Arena turns out to be all black, with neon stripes running down the floor and walls around them. The attendant places them in a group with other teenagers, then sits them down to explain the rules—which, by the look of the other teens, they will all be broken in no time.
They split into different teams—Chuuya on red, Dazai on blue—and suit up. Chuuya’s codename is Punisher, which he thinks is pretty damn cool. He laughs when Dazai’s name shows up as Red Panda, but he gets his comeuppance when he tries to tighten the vest around his shoulders and finds that it can’t shrink any smaller. The attendant has to pull out a kid's vest from the back, and Chuuya glowers at Dazai as the bastard laughs his ass off at his expense.
The arena itself is small, but it’s filled with obstacles and hiding places. It’s completely dark except for stripes of pulsing colors along the floor and ceiling. Chuuya's teammates all yell jeers into the darkness, and the enemy team responds in turn. He hears Dazai’s voice shout something about tiny Slugs in hats, but he doesn’t respond. Instead, he crouches low to the ground, preparing himself for the battle.
“Ready,” A voice crackles over the speakers. “Three, two, one, begin!”
Their vests light up dark red, and battle cries fill the arena. Chuuya darts forward, ducking behind obstacles as he makes his way to high ground. He skids to a stop near the top of a tower, and spots Dazai rounding a corner below him. He takes careful aim and shoots Dazai in the back, earning points and knocking Dazai out for a few seconds.
Dazai spins and spots him up top, his eye narrowing dangerously. Chuuya sticks his tongue out and runs off laughing, finding more targets throughout the area.
He’s able to get a couple more kills, dodging the enemy’s shots as he leaps over a small wall. A small whoop leaves his mouth as he snipes a girl crouched in the distance, and he pumps his fist in the air.
But his victory is short-lived, as his vest makes a sad noise and goes dark. Chuuya looks around, confused, and spots Dazai’s dark coat as it disappears around a corner ahead of him.
He’s not getting away that easily.
Chuuya crouches low and silences his footsteps, following after Dazai. He spots a couple of enemies, but ignores them in favor of revenge. He stops behind a wall, and when Dazai’s distracted with aiming at one of Chuuya’s teammates, he sprints at him and grabs Dazai’s middle, spinning him around to fire three shots into his stomach, executing him mafia-style
“Bang.” Chuuya laughs, but he’s instantly shot in the back by one of Dazai’s teammates, knocking him out.
The game goes on, and Chuuya’s feeling pretty good about his score when the arena flashes red, signalling the end of the game. He’s not breathing hard, but it felt good to blow off the energy from all that sugar earlier.
He exits the arena and lets his eyes adjust to the light, waiting for his score to pop up on the TV above them.
A big cheer rings out when it’s revealed that the red team won, and Chuuya’s elated to see he had the most kills on his team. His teammates high-five him, and one girl gives him a long hug. Dazai glares at them from across the room, staring daggers at the girl for some weird reason.
“Looks like I won.” Chuuya gloats as he saunters up to Dazai. But instead of getting defensive, Dazai smirks and points to the other TV behind Chuuya.
“I think you need your eyes checked, Slug.” Dazai jeers, “I clearly won.”
Confused, Chuuya turns to look at the other TV, where a leaderboard details each individual’s kills.
1st - Red Panda - 59 K.O’s
2nd - Punisher - 41 K.O’s
3rd - Subzero - 29 K.O’s
No way.
Dazai got fifty-nine kills?! What were Chuuya’s teammates doing, just standing in the open, being massacred by Dazai?
“I’m the mafia’s best shot, remember, Chuuya?” Dazai taunts. Of course he remembered, but he had hoped that Dazai’s skill with a real firearm wouldn’t translate over to a game played with clunky plastic guns that fired light instead of bullets.
“But my team won,” Chuuya objects. “So I’d argue I beat you.”
“Stupid Chuuya, I beat all of you, so I won the bet.”
They argue the entire way out of the Battle Arena until they agree on the punishment. Chuuya will do Dazai’s paperwork for two weeks if Dazai agrees to wear a hat of Chuuya’s choosing during that time period. Secretly, Chuuya thinks he got the worse end of the deal, but at least he can take photos of Dazai wearing stupid hats and post them all over the mafia tower.
By this point, the sun’s almost set, so the duo heads back to Chuuya’s apartment. The remainder of the evening is spent on a gauntlet of video games. Mario Kart, Tekken, Street Fighter, and Super Smash Bros. are only a few of the games they play against each other, all while devouring loads of their candy from earlier. Chuuya’s pleased to see that Dazai eats all of his grape taffy, but is less than pleased when Dazai sticks his tongue out to show Chuuya it’s turned disgustingly purple.
But the fun can only last so long. Long after midnight, Chuuya shuts the TV off and cleans up his living room, throwing away candy wrappers and dumping out soda cans. Dazai sleeps peacefully on the couch, having passed out in the middle of Chuuya’s favorite Ghibli movie.
Pausing for a moment, Chuuya watches Dazai’s chest rise and fall, the only indication that his partner is still alive. Ever since the Dragon's Head incident, Chuuya’s noticed that Dazai started to fade a little. He didn’t go to the arcade as often, he rarely showed up to Chuuya’s office to tease him, and he hadn’t been pestering Chuuya to cook him crab every night.
To put it shortly, Chuuya was worried about Dazai’s mental health—but don’t get him wrong, making sure Dazai’s healthy definitely doesn’t mean he likes him. Today had been not so much about Chuuya’s first executive paycheck, but about giving Dazai a day to live as a normal teenager, not some freaky genius mafia sub-executive.
So with that in mind, Chuuya gently scoops Dazai off the couch, carrying him bridal-style to his bedroom, where he lays him delicately on the bed and pulls the covers over him.
He walks to the other side and flops down, too tired to even change into pajamas. He pulls the covers up and turns to face Dazai, almost jumping out of his skin when he sees Dazai’s eye open and staring straight into his soul.
“Shit!” He swears, “I thought you were asleep.”
“I was,” Dazai answers. “But Chuuya woke me when he picked me up.”
They stare at each other for a moment, both unsure of what to say next. Then, Dazai blurts something out.
“Thanks for today.” He rolls over quickly, avoiding Chuuya’s surprised gaze as he processes Dazai’s words.
His partner falls asleep quickly—or more likely, he’s faking it to avoid the consequences of being genuine for once—and Chuuya stares at the ceiling.
Dazai’s seventeenth birthday is next week, and their adventures today have given Chuuya a couple of ideas for what they should do. So, he slips out of bed and grabs Dazai’s phone, unlocking it with a password he definitely shouldn’t know. He easily finds the number he’s looking for—given that Dazai doesn’t have many contacts—and clicks call.
“Hello?” Comes the voice on the phone.
“Hey, Oda Sakunosuke. This is Chuuya, and I had a couple of ideas for Dazai’s birthday next week.”
“Oh?” Oda sounds vaguely surprised. “What did you have in mind?”
Chuuya smirks. “Laser tag, a crab dinner, and lots and lots of candy.”