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“Please, Chuuya!”
Dazai grabs Chuuya from behind, wrapping his arms around his waist. Chuuya growls at the intrusion into his personal space and elbows Dazai in the gut.
“I already said no! You can’t even take care of yourself, so why should I trust you with a cat?”
“Aw, please, Chuuya! I promise I’ll take care of it. You won’t have to lift a finger.”
Chuuya grits his teeth, clenching the knife in his hand. Before he can turn around and stab his husband in the stomach, he makes quick work of the onion on the cutting board, dicing it into little pieces.
“Listen,” He sighs, turning around to face Dazai. “It just wouldn’t work with our jobs. What if something happened to us, and the cat was left all alone?”
“I’d enlist Atsushi and Akutagawa to take care of it,” Dazai responds petulantly.
“But that still doesn’t help the fact that our lives are too busy for a pet.”
“Hmm,” Dazai leans in, placing a small kiss on Chuuya’s lip. “Does this make you want to get a pet?”
“No.”
Dazai widens his eyes, making them glisten with unshed tears. “Please? I’ll do all the chores for the next month, and I won’t make fun of your height during that time.”
Dazai must be desperate if he was willing to forgo his daily insults. Chuuya can feel himself wavering, and he finally snaps when Dazai lets a single tear fall down his face.
“Fine! But we’re not getting a cat right now. We’ll pick a smaller animal and do a test run to see if you can take care of it.”
It’s a compromise, and Dazai seems put out for a moment. But he seems to realize that this is the best offer he’s going to get right now, and grins down at Chuuya.
“Alright, to the pet store!”
————
“How about this one?”
Dazai points to a black salamander, hiding in a log in a little sanctuary.
“Absolutely not.” Chuuya wrinkles his nose. “Lizards are gross.”
“It’s not a lizard, Chuuya. It’s a salamander. Learn the difference.” Dazai spins around, eyes widening as he spots a wall of colorful fish.
“How about those?” Dazai tries to press his hands against the glass, but Chuuya grabs his shirt and gestures to the “Please, Do Not Touch the Glass” sign right next to the tank.
“They’re pretty,” Chuuya admits, “But taking care of a fish is nothing like taking care of a cat.”
“Hmm,” Dazai puts a finger to his chin thoughtfully. “How about…”
Chuuya can see a metaphorical lightbulb appear above his husband’s head, and Dazai practically sprints to the other side of the store, skidding to a stop in front of a wall of small, cubed habitats.
“Aww, Chuuya, look at their little noses!”
They’re hamsters, all running on wheels, drinking from tiny spouts, or burrowing in woodchips that line the bottom of their enclosures.
“Look at those two!” Dazai points to a pair of hamsters currently wrestling on the side of the cage. One is dirty white, with a stripe of black running down its back. The other is fully black, with little white paws that almost look like socks.
“Who do they remind you of?” Chuuya snorts, watching as the white hamster rolls onto the black one, making adorable squeaky noises.
Dazai turns to Chuuya, clapping his hands together. “I want these two!”
“Are you sure?” Chuuya frowns. “They don’t look like they like each other.”
They watch as the two hamsters separate with one last squeak, and Dazai nods his head seriously. “Yes. I think I’ll name them Weretiger and Diablo.”
—————
It’s been two days since Chuuya let those hamsters into his house, and he was already starting to regret it.
“Do those things ever stop fighting?”
Weretiger pounces on Diablo, and they roll around, knocking into their wheel and kicking up the paper shavings lining the bottom of their enclosure.
“I think I cursed them by naming them after our protégés.” Dazai lifts his hand and snatches Diablo from the cage, lifting him out into his hand. “Calm down, he’s not your mortal enemy.”
Chuuya rolls his eyes and flops on the bed. “Put ‘em down and come to bed. I gotta get up early tomorrow, and I don’t want you complaining I didn’t sleep with you long enough.”
Dazai sets the hamster down and washes his hands. Then, he snuggles up next to Chuuya, pulling his sleep mask over his eyes. “Goodnight, Chibi!”
They fall asleep quite quickly, and Chuuya sleeps deeply until his alarm goes off promptly at five.
He groans, staggering out of bed and rubbing his eyes blearily. The hamsters are blessedly quiet for once, and Chuuya washes his face and dresses in a haze. It’s only when it’s been close to thirty minutes without any hamster noises that Chuuya gets suspicious.
Walking back into the bedroom, Chuuya flicks on his phone flashlight and peers into the cage, only to be greeted by a horrifying sight.
“Holy shit.” Chuuya breathes out.
Diablo lies on his side, blood staining the paper beneath him. His eyes are glassy, and his fur is a matted mess. Chuuya can see a bite mark on his throat, and the culprit is sprawled on his side next to Diablo’s corpse.
Weretiger’s white fur is stained pink, and his teeth drip with the blood of his roommate. To Chuuya’s disgust, he realizes that parts of Diablo are missing—most likely consumed by Weretiger.
“Fuck, our hamster is a cannibal.”
Chuuya stands in shock, unsure of how to continue. Does he wake Dazai and tell him that his hamster’s murdered each other? Does he have to hold a funeral for the poor guys? Making a split-second decision, Chuuya grabs an empty shoebox from the closet, lifts the two bodies into it, and puts it in the freezer. He can deal with that later, but now he has the problem of telling Dazai.
His husband was actually quite attached to the two gremlins, and he would be devastated to learn that they killed each other. What Chuuya needs is a distraction—something else Dazai can be happy about in the wake of this tragedy. And Chuuya can only think of one thing that would make Dazai happier than anything else.
————
Dazai wakes slowly, feeling the absence of a warm body next to him.
He peeks out from under his sleeping mask and checks the time: seven o’clock. That means Chuuya is about to leave for work. Maybe Dazai could catch him before he leaves and convince him to stay a little longer.
With that in mind, Dazai pulls himself out of bed. But he notices something’s off.
Weretiger and Diablo’s enclosure is missing, as well as the pets themselves.
What the hell?
Who could’ve possibly moved them? Chuuya? But why would he do that?
Confused, Dazai pads to the kitchen. “Chuuya? Where did the hamsters go?”
He rounds the corner and stops short at the sight.
On the floor sits Chuuya, and in front of him is a tiny black kitten, blinking up at him with luminous yellow eyes.
“A CAT!” Dazai squeals excitedly, and the kitten startles, darting behind Chuuya’s leg.
“Shut up, idiot.” Chuuya chides. “You’re scaring Charcoal.”
Chuuya already named it? But it’s a cute name, so Dazai forgives him. Crouching down, Dazai holds his hand out, and Charcoal sniffs the air curiously.
“C’mere…girl? Boy?” He tilts his head at Chuuya.
“Girl,” Chuuya confirms. And before Dazai can say anything, Charcoal walks to him warily, and then, to his delight, starts licking his fingers.
It’s maddeningly cute, and Dazai looks to his husband with shining eyes. “Why’d you finally decide to get one?”
Chuuya bites his lip. “Err, I guess I got tired of those hamsters, and decided at least a cat wouldn’t be as loud.”
“What happened to Weretiger and Diablo?”
“I returned them.”
Dazai frowns. It’s kinda weird Chuuya made that decision without him, but maybe he wanted the kitten to be a surprise? “As long as we visit them sometime in the future.”
Chuuya mumbles something that sounds like, “Good luck with that,” but Dazai’s too distracted by the kitten, who has decided that Dazai’s hand is a plaything, and is currently biting him with her tiny teeth.
The rest of the morning passes in a blur. Chuuya stays home from work, claiming that he had mostly paperwork today anyway. Charcoal gets comfortable in her new home and decides to nap in the sunlight streaming through Chuuya’s giant living room window.
Sometime in the afternoon, Dazai decides he wants a sweet treat, and he yells to his husband, “Hey Chibi! You want a popsicle?”
He pulls the freezer door open and is greeted with the sight of a shoebox.
“What’s this doing here?”
Dazai slowly opens the lid, and Chuuya suddenly slides into the kitchen, screaming.
“DAZAI! NOOO!”
Dazai flips the lid off and is greeted with the frozen bodies of his previous pets.
The married couple stands in silence. It would be almost comical, if not for the corpses sitting in a box in Dazai’s hand. Dazai slowly turns to face his husband, who just stands there in shock.
“Chuuya. Why the fuck are our hamsters in the freezer.”
Chuuya laughs nervously. “Well, it seems that Weretiger got a taste for hamster flesh and couldn’t help himself. I was going to bury them before you noticed, but I didn’t get the chance.”
“Is that why you got the cat?”
“Kinda.” Chuuya sighs. “I just didn’t want you to feel bad about their deaths, considering it wasn’t your fault for once.”
Stupid hamsters. They only had the little guys for three days, yet Dazai had already grown attached to them. It’s sad to see them like this—they deserved better lives.
“Let’s bury them,” Dazai announces. “Give them a proper funeral.”
They end up at the park down the street, underneath a giant cherry blossom tree. Chuuya uses his ability to pull up a bit of the ground, and Dazai places the shoebox down sadly.
“Goodbye, Weretiger, Diablo.” He sniffs. “I hope you two are wrestling together in Heaven.
Chuuya gently drops the piece of earth on top of the box, and Dazai brings out the makeshift gravestone. It’s actually a chopstick with a piece of paper reading “Weretiger and Diablo” taped to the top, but it works for now.
Chuuya wraps his arm around Dazai’s waist, staring down at the ground.
“Sorry I put their corpses in the freezer and tried to distract you by buying a cat.”
What a ridiculous apology. But Dazai accepts it, leaning down to press a kiss to his husband’s forehead.
“I forgive you. I got what I wanted in the end, anyway.”
Chuuya blinks, then a resigned smile forms on his face.
“Whatever. You’re lucky you’re cute, ya know.”
It’s a nice moment, and later Dazai tells the story to his mentee, who looks absolutely horrified to learn that a hamster named after him brutally cannibalized another hamster named after his rival, Akutagawa. He ends up fainting, and Dazai gets to go home early. He makes sure to take lots of photos of Charcoal, who sleeps softly on their bed, never knowing that two hamsters murdered each other in that very same room the night before.