Chapter Text
“I bet you won’t be able to beat me in that new game”
That’s how it always started—a bet.
Dazai Osamu and Nakahara Chuuya were trudging along the left rim of Suribachi City, next to what Dazai proudly declared to be his favourite part of town. This was also the sketchiest part of town. Chuuya would know, he lived here for the first part of his life that he could remember, spanning over several years. The stretch consisted of several run-down convenience stores, that somehow kept themselves from going out of business despite the seeming lack of traffic through the area. The real reason people came over here was at the corner turning an alleyway, the only arcade in the accessible part of the city and its surrounding area.
It was what you would expect from an arcade in the early 2000s, with the old-school linoleum that’s been worn rough from usage and the never-ending scent of molded fast food. That was what was immediately noticeable from your first step in, but if you were to look closer you would see the concave creases on the once bright-red control buttons from its repeated use through the years, or the large brown stain on the floor which came from something nobody wants to hypothesize about.
The cause for Dazai’s new inspiration regarding their shared bets was a brand new game that was stationed next to the front window to try and attract some popularity from their “new, modern, look”.
It was a pair of those racing games, where the player would position themselves on top of a faux, plastic bike that can rock back and forth and a maximum of 45 degrees to indicate where to turn. It was almost insulting to Chuuya, who had been taught by Albatross to ride his bike, even if he wasn’t truly allowed to go out on his own because of how protective his friend was over the vehicle. Still, the point stands that this game was not an accurate depiction of how riding a motorcycle, or any sort of two-wheeled bike worked.
Nonetheless, he was never one to turn down a challenge.
“Oh yeah? You’re gonna challenge the biker to a game based around bikes?”
“I know what I said, you stupid slug. It doesn’t matter what the game is, there is no way that someone as puny as you could beat someone as cool and strong as me.”
“’Cool and strong’ my ass, I might have never won many of the bets you set up I’ve still beaten your ass more times than I can count on my two hands.”
“Not now though, I want to get back to H.Q. as quickly as possible, so I can start pushing my work onto you as quickly as possible.”
Chuuya grumbled at that, but didn’t give a distinguishable reply, at least not one that could be translated to Japanese. He already had a plan and just hoped that he was given the means to go through with it.
“Great! So glad you agree. Now hurry up, you know how Boss gets when we’re late!”
And so it began.
-----
Luckily for Chuuya, the opportunity had presented itself right into his palm within the next few days.
After their return to the dim office to report back, bearing through the cringy sight of Mori with Elise-chan, Chuuya had been dismissed. Hopefully so that Dazai could be forced into actually upholding his office duties, though he doubted that even their Boss could convince him to actually sit down and do something.
Chuuya all but skipped his way back to his apartment, excited to have the next two days off as Mori-san had gifted him in reward for his promptness in completing the mission. It was brand new, or he should say brand new to him, as it was the first living space he actually owned on his own. With the Sheep he had been hopping between shelters they could find before they were evacuated, and then during his introduction to the Mafia he was living in a provided housing within one of the towers, likely to track his loyalty and actions but he appreciated it as a place he didn’t have to worry about the rent for.
Kicking his shoes off at the beginning of the genkan, he treaded through the rest of the entrance with his socked feet before it let out into his main room. Even though he preferred the western style of old houses, with the decorated wood ceilings and the intricate tiling of the walls and floor that you don’t typically get when staying in Japan. His apartment was in a tall building in the more historic district of Yokohama, but each of the rooms within the building itself were very modern. He had a raised wooded bed, as typical (it even came with the house), but he did invest in a new frame featuring carved feet holding the mattress up. It was a deep mahogany, heavily contrasting the light-cream-coloured bamboo of the tatami and wood under it and throughout the rest of the house.
With his newfound income he had been splurging on items he could only see in his dreams when sleeping under a porch with the Sheep, such as fancy boots and a nice kitchenette to make his own breakfasts in.
Dazai, on the other hand, was groaning as he trudged out of the Boss’s office. He had been assigned a stakeout in Tokyo, which he found annoying due to its sheer size and population. Not to mention that this ‘stakeout’ he had was more of a babysitting job, being there as essentially a scarecrow to keep the lower-class members in line at the fear of his reputation.
At least he had been given the dignity to have been assigned this with Chuuya out of the room, Boss giving him the small grace to not have been assigned an away-mission in front of his partner who had the entire time off.
He would have to look in a shop for the ugliest doll he can find, a gift for Chuuya because they would look so alike!
That would involve him spending his own money though. Despite his salary being even higher than Chuuya’s, he was never the one to buy anything, despite the circumstances. No matter how much Chuuya complains about it, now even more so since finding out about where he lives, it will always be funnier to spend Chuuya’s money as his own. Watching him scramble to cancel his card, not knowing who had stolen the information, was always the highlight of the funny aspects of their relationship. Even after all the times it had been stolen and used, Chuuya had only figured out it was him once. He still paid for the both of them at restaurants when they were together, but little did he know that he paid for Dazai even if they were separated.
Speaking of being separated, Chuuya had already changed into a more lax outfit of his. He donned a t-shirt with a pair of ripped jeans he found on the outside rack of a consignment store he passes on his way to work if he chooses to walk. He had forgone wearing his hat this time, even if his hair would be a giveaway to who he was if he were to run into any members of the sheep he was confident that he had built up enough of a backbone to deal with them himself, without fighting.
It would also be easier to straddle a certain fake motorcycle if he was wearing just his stretchy pants.
Not wanting to walk to the arcade was a decision he made in just half a second, both because it was quite the distance from his residence, him being on the complete opposite side of the city than the crater in favour of a bay view, but also to minimize the chances of being seen.
Calling a normal taxi wouldn’t be an issue, he doesn’t want to use any sort of Mafia-affiliated transportation for something as childish and unimportant as getting to an arcade. He figured that he passed well enough as a teenager with his simple graphic tee (featuring a square design with the silhouette of a ferret centered in it) and jeans. His gloves and choker stayed on his figure as always, but they could be chalked up to a simple fashion statement or some sort of band reference.
It didn’t take long for a marked car to pull up and roll its window down, looking for confirmation that the boy he was looking at was indeed the one who ordered for him through the app (one he just downloaded, and will delete as soon as the ride was over.)
The ride was quick, the driver knowing the city almost as well as Chuuya himself does, and was dropped off a block away from the side entrance he typically entered through. It was to avoid exposure, but he guessed it didn’t do much if the ride he intended to binge-grind on for the next two days was right in front of the window, but he was counting on the giant screen in front of him to block his hair and face from view.
As he approached the machine he instantly marveled at the cleanliness of it. The plastic still had its shine, not rubbed matte like the rest of the boxes there. The buttons were fully out, lacking any sort of resistance when he experimentally pressed it. The coin slot was labeled for 300 yen.
That’s a bit much for an arcade game, he thought to himself, working off of the comparison of the rest of the games needing just a 50 yen coin. It didn’t matter to him though, he was going to win this bet it cost him the amount of the genuine leather boots beneath his feet. Dazai constantly rubbed into his face the fact that Chuuya had never won a bet between them (he had, Dazai was just on a horse so high it made Chuuya seem as small as says in his taunts and refused to admit it.)
Swinging his leg over the padded seat of the bike further from the main entrance, he leaned down to slide the three coins into the glowing slot before pulling himself back up and pressing the largest button he could see.
As the rules and directions skimmed across the screen in front of him, he saw that it consisted of four levels; easy, medium, hard, and expert, and he planned on covering all of them. The game ran to infinity, only stopping when a single player or both in a duel crashed. There’s the option to add more money, but Chuuya had learned to always play next to the other boy and keep track of both of his hands as best as possible to prevent him from cheating and saying he unlocked a ‘health boost’. If you started on ‘easy’ and made it a certain distance, the difficulty would automatically change to ‘medium’ and so forth. Expert was the highest level you could start on but Chuuya knew that it probably went higher on a prewritten system than the speed on that one.
Starting with the medium level, he selected the orange button and geared up the rev. The break and speed mounts had been switched on this mockery of a bike, but after training himself out of the switch he was able to get a fair distance before crashing into a tree. It appeared right in front of him! The game is rigged! He cursed out, sliding another three 100 yen coins into the change pocket before pressing the button again.
The improvement wasn’t linear, actually, he felt like he was getting less and less further into the landscape than he had on his first try. It was a grainy mock-up of what he assumed to be some sort of desert or dusty world, where you had to drive a curvy road alongside other slow cars before you were forced to branch off the road and drive through a less-obvious path, this time dodging trees and various puddles of some brown liquid. It reminded him of all the Nintendo games he played when he got the money to buy the newest console as it came out, the racing ones always being his favourite, until he missed a turn and didn’t play it until a week later.
Playing round after round until he had successfully reached the ‘hard’ difficulty while starting from the medium, he checked the small satchel he brought with him to see the status of the money he brought with him, frowning when he realized he would probably need to go up to the kiosk and exchange more coins from his card.
He stood up from his position, cringing at how sore his whole body felt from being in such a hunched-over position for… One? Two? Hours. Even stretching up his arms and cracking his back didn’t do much, but he did his best to move normally as he stood in front of the screen and exchanged more money. Getting 5000 yen in coins must’ve seemed excessive for anyone watching his transaction but as he let them spill out into his opened bag he couldn’t find it within himself to care. He had just begun to predict the spawning pattern of the obstacles and wanted to continue his theory on the timing and seeing how to dodge each one.
Before he knew it, a tired employee came over to him in a stained uniform, stripes barely visible anymore after so much wear, and told him that the arcade was closing. As Chuuya hopped off, forcing himself to not stretch in front of this man and show just how cramped he was, he looked around. There wasn’t a single person in the room, and he suspected that there hadn’t been anyone else for a while based on the play statuses of the games.
Chuuya walked out in shame after being watched for the whole day as he played the same game over and over, and as he checked to make sure he had everything on him that he brought in, he felt the weight of his bag and grinned as he realized that he didn’t use nearly as much of his cash as he had the first time around. He must’ve survived longer and had to revive less and less. He had enough for tomorrow, and then when he would kick Dazai’s ass the next time they went out together.
Tomorrow was much of the same for the both of them, Dazai had arrived in Tokyo the night before via a very long and miserable car ride, in which he passed out several times, being woken up by bumps in the road and then proceeding to complain about it in depth to the poor driver.
Chuuya was having much better of a time, he got up an hour before the arcade opened, spending what most would consider way too much time in the shower for someone who would be pretending to be a ‘normal teen’ for the rest of the day. He arrived right as the lights went on and the sole employee unlocked the door with a set of dangling keys, Chuuya rushed past to the game cubicle just a tad too fast to see that it was the same worker as yesterday, who was giving him the same questioning stare that he was last night.
Chuuya was delighted to find that he could last 10 minutes after starting on expert mode, before receiving a text from Dazai, shocking himself to the fact that he hadn’t kept up their usual procedure of sending stupid images and bickering over text when one or both were on elongated missions outside of the city.
TUESDAY: 11:38
MACKEREL:
< How’s your break going? Hopefully you’ve died, I haven’t heard from you in such a wonderfully long time I might just be missing your funeral! >
TUESDAY: 11:51
ME:
< Seems like you’ve been the one missing me, as you’re the one who texted me first. Did you get too bored on your so important mission without me? >
TUESDAY: 11:52
MACKEREL:
< Like hell I missed you. You must be so bored on your days off you couldn’t resist messaging me back. How did you even find out I was on a mission? You weren’t even in the room with us >
TUESDAY: 12:01
ME:
< Actually, I’ve been having the best time without having to look at your ugly face every day. It was quite easy to figure out where you were, the only reason you would have to not come over and annoy me is if you physically couldn’t. I’m enjoying lying down in my new, comfortable bed by the way. Not that you could ever relate. That futon you own within that metal tin of a house is probably less comfy than sleeping on the concrete outside of it. >
Chuuya only got an image response to that, one with a cat sticking out its tongue while facing the camera, and waited several more seconds to see if the three dots indicated typing from the other side. When seeing nothing, he placed his phone onto the ledge where the game’s screen was positioned and got back to his game.
By now he was fully confident that he could beat Dazai on any level, though he would try and weasel Dazai into starting on the expert level so he could laugh at how quickly he dies. After the last game he played, lasting 30 minutes in total after expert, he packed up his things before checking the clock. It was around 14:00, not bad for how long he spend in that cramped room yesterday. He didn’t even use all the money he had left from the day before, which he also considered a win.
He would have to figure out to do with all the coins though, other than to use them at the arcade. He never carried around cash if he could help it, and coins even less. He can’t even remember the last time he bought something under 100 yen, so he hoped an opportunity would arise eventually.
Dazai, on the other hand, was contemplating ways to kill himself from within the abandoned house he was stuck in.
All the ceiling beams were much too rotten to be able to hold his weight on a rope, and the house wasn’t high enough to jump. None of the houses in the area were, as they were all as small and decrepit as this one was. There wasn’t even a single weapon around that wasn’t on the belt of one of the subordinates in front of him. He really should start bringing a gun with him, under the excuse of “self-protection” if anyone would believe that. Not that they would deny him, it just seems to be such a pitiful death
He was snapped out of his daydream (if you would call it that) by one of the men he was watching bumping into the tower of crates he was sitting atop.
“I-I’m so sorry sir! It was an accident, it won't happen again!” He was told, clear panic in the man’s voice as he apologized.
Normally, Dazai would have fun with him, teaching a well-ingrained message into the rest of his workers’ minds, but was feeling especially pitiful today and waved him off with a brush of his hand. He blended right back into the group of men in black suits, scurrying around with the small crates of frozen organs they were to collect before they thawed to the point of uselessness. Dazai didn’t understand why such a job needed to take two days, much less have him be the supervisor. They just as easily could’ve had the job done under Akutagawa’s watch, as weak as the boy was he was more than capable to have the job of scaring people into submission. Or Dazai just wanted to get out of this post to the point of sending his direct subordinate straight into responsibility to protect what was also his.
Texting Chuuya was his reprieve from this boredom, except, to his dismay, the conversation hadn’t caught on as it usually did.
Did I not insult him enough? What else should I say?
He didn’t believe for a second Chuuya’s excuse of sleeping the day away, using the time to laze about and ignore Dazai, as he knew his partner's routine on his breaks and they were nothing of the sort. Chuuya was a very active person and sitting in one place for too or doing nothing for too long drove him mad. Hence why the time Boss had sent him and Dazai on a ‘stakeout’ as a poorly veiled mission to get the two to bond, was the first and last time he had been sent on any sort of mission with extensive downtime.
Usually, he would be caught hanging out with his friends in one place or another, either watching the one with the glasses tinker on some pointless metal box with wheels or smoking out on his new balcony with another, taller dude. He might not even be that tall, as everyone compared to Chuuya looked like a giant, Dazai giggled to himself. When the Chibi gets lung cancer Dazai won’t be showing up to the ceremonies he told himself. Smoking is the work of the stupid people who made getting fruit impossible without dropping a wad of cash. Who needs fruits anyway?
Dazai still hadn’t gotten any sort of update from Chuuya, and was about to text him again with a new, hopefully more annoying, message to taunt him again before he got a call notification through his cell phone.
Seeing the contact name, Dazai sighed heavily before selecting the green button and holding the speaker up to his ear.
“What do you want,” Dazai asked, though there was no tone of questioning in his voice. It sounded more like a demand, or even a threat, than a request for the updates.
“Ah, Dazai-kun! So nice to hear from you.”
Mori Ougai’s voice could be heard through the small circle on the top of the phone, right next to Dazai’s eardrum.
“I’m afraid I cannot say the same for you. I’ll repeat it again for you, what do you want.”
“Kids and their rebellious attitudes!” Mori joked into the receiver, though he received no humor in response, in fact, he got none at all, so he just sighed and went back to the regular tired voice he typically donned. “I’ve received word from a harvester in our medical department that we are apparently out of space for the second batch of organs, so you will need to leave them there in the basement. If luck works in our favor then we’ll have enough time to rearrange to pick up them before the ground heats up and they defrost.”
Dazai grumbled, holding his hand up to motion his workers to stop, Them all looking at his gesture before quickly looking down, not wanting to risk creating eye contact with the Demon Prodigy.
“Could’ve told me this before we spent a whole day clearing the rest of the house out. Now I’ll have to wait even longer to get home and be forced to sit on this uncomfortable box for the rest of the day!” Dazai’s voice turned into more of a whine by the end of his sentence, but the sentiment remained.
“The men could use the extra workout. Make sure nothing is missed and that the basement door is closed and locked, I’m counting on you, Dazai.”
With that final message, the static sound of the call ending rang through his ear. Pulling his phone down from his ear while resisting the urge to chuck it halfway across the room so he would never have to hear the voice of his stupid boss again, he refrained and instead issued the new orders out to the men that were still waiting patiently in front of him . If only Akutagawa behaved this well, he would be a much better warrior than he will ever become.
“Boss’s new orders; drop the transfer and return all the boxes to the shelves they were in. Or not, it’ll be funny if he has to deal with mismatched organs when he decides to dig this place up again.”
Even if the orders were coming from a sulking teen sitting atop a makeshift throne of steadily defrosting lungs, the men were quick to act without any visible signs of frustration.
Dazai didn’t comment when he noticed that his underlings were quicker to have everything put back than they had gotten it out, they must’ve been just as eager as Dazai was to get out of that house and back to their families or wherever they must’ve lived. If Dazai thought that their movement was comparable to how mice move when caught in a kitchen, now he would think that they’re more like if the animal was to be caught with the food actually in its mouth and had to run away as fast as possible in order to get the food they needed for that night.
Someone stopped in front of him, likely to grab the four boxes he had been hogging under him since they got there, but he didn’t budge. Dazai wanted to have some spoiled product when Mori came around, and he was sure the smell would make it twice as bad so he didn’t get up until he was sure that everyone had filtered out and that the door to their homemade basement cooler was locked and hidden behind a couch that was shoved in front of it.
He stood up and jumped off for extra effect, reveling in the way his coat floated behind him as the wind picked it up and dropped it down just as delicately as it was picked up. Dazai’s coat wasn’t pinned down to the button-down he typically wore as his one layer, but it still had a way of staying attached to his shoulders without any extra effort provided by him.
Dazai had his own private car to carry him back, not having to cramp in the back of a two-row van with a bunch of grunts who probably smelled of the preservative that was laced within the vacuum-sealed bags they were carrying all day. The driver he had was new, he noticed. Not many people stuck around him willingly after just a couple of rides with him and the endless string of complaints he had about their driving. It induced a sense of paranoia around some of the more run-down roads outside of the big cities. Even places like Yokohama and Tokyo had its fair share of miserable roads to travel on, and it was to the immense disappointment of Dazai that those were typically their go-to routes.
Not many cars were interested in taking the desolate alleyways in between the large buildings, their countless amount of stories heightening them to the point where their shadows completely covered most of the streets beyond midday, so you can only imagine how dark their path was. It worked in their favour with their fully black vehicles, however, so it was not a 100% loss.
Dazai was surprisingly quiet on the ride back to H.Q. however, something that was a new occurrence even if the mission had gone well.
He was pondering what to do when he got back from his predictably boring meeting where he recapped the events he had to dreadfully watch for the last thirty-six hours. Or more specifically, where Chuuya could have been so he could show up and annoy him and hopefully ruin his last day off.
It’s not like I enjoy hanging around that slug, I just like tormenting him and making sure he’s just as miserable as I am.
He was quiet all the way to when he hastily opened the door to the car before it even fully stopped and hopped out. Stumbling out of it, he didn’t even turn around and complain to the driver about not stopping sooner to accommodate his future actions and just sprinted through the cross separating the buildings before arriving at the center one and tapping the code in to unlock the hidden sliding door in its side.
The trip up to the top office where the head of the organization resided was miserable no matter how you chose to climb to it. There was a series of elevators that led to different floors and departments, most of them going down to the hidden maze of a basement that connected you to each of the buildings no matter where you were, and there was only one that led directly to the top.
The stairs were a complete no for anyone who appreciated the function of their legs. They ran up to each floor if you wanted to search the building to where the next flight was. Dazai had seen some people he dubbed ‘ crazy’ in his head take the stairs several stories each day to reach the specific offices they worked at, or to go down to the basement to meet with various dispatch groups.
While the stairs were miserable to take, the elevator wasn’t much better with how it made it its mission to go as slow as possible. The ride up that he had just embarked on would take five minutes he estimated, and that was if he was lucky and nobody stopped to enter along the way. That shouldn’t happen though, as he was one of the only people he knew who visited that man of his own accord and nobody has ever interrupted them on a private meeting without some sort of disaster that Dazai would have already known about.
Listening to the gradual ring of the elevator, indicating that they had passed another level was quickly making Dazai sneer due to the obnoxious sound that was really unnecessary for this elevator as it only went one place for those who rode it. The number flashed steadily in its consecutive counting until he saw it reach floor 28 and started to step out of the elevator before the doors were fully open, matching how he did with the car that drove him back here.
Passing the guards that blocked the large mahogany doors (matching his desk, everything in this horrid office was the same dark tones) that led to the office without a second glance, he opened the door and swiftly walked in. He didn’t care when the doors slammed shut behind them as he walked to the front of the desk before unceremoniously falling down into one of the plush chairs that were stationed there.
“I take it that you’ve finished your job?”
“You should know this, as you were the one who canceled it. Don’t bore me with pointless questions, I want to go home and lie down. Don’t deprive me of my beauty sleep old man!”
Chuckling at the comment on his age, as he wasn’t that old at all, he sighed and let his chin rest upon his folded hands.
“Ah, I suppose you’re right.”
“About the age comment, or about how the mission went?”
Mori sighs again, seeming to have a never-ending bucket of tiredness that he carries around with him. “I heard it wrapped up well, everything is secured but I have a feeling that with you something was planted to make it miserable for me to go back and retrieve that batch of organs and tissue. That stuff is valuable you know, a large chunk of your paycheck comes from the profits we receive from those. Since you’re back, however, I can assume you want the rest of the day off?”
“You already know the answer to that. I’m going to go now, and enjoy myself while I blow off your messages about whatever else you want me for.”
And with that, he turned back out of the room with just as much haste in his step that he had when entering. The elevator hadn’t closed since he had left it, much to his appreciation as it helped his ability to leave as fast as possible.
While on his way down he pulled out his phone, not even bothering to text beforehand, he pulled up Chuuya’s contact and pressed the voice call button.
TUESDAY: 11:38
MACKEREL: INCOMING CALL
Chuuya stared at the flashing screen in front of him. He hadn’t even made it back to his apartment building before being bothered by his dumbass partner, on his day off nonetheless. Wasn’t he supposed to be monitoring some sort of harvesting project anyway? He shouldn’t have been back but by this point Chuuya knew to never trust that idiot to carry anything out anyway.
Pressing the ‘receive’ button on the corner of his screen, he was the first to talk into the static emitting from his speaker.
“The fuck do you want. I was enjoying my day without you, you know.”
“Aww, you don’t have to lie to me Chibi! Everyone knows dogs miss their owners when they’re away, you were probably dying to receive this call.
“Cut the shit,” Chuuya growled into the receiver, already losing his patience with Dazai while not even being with him in person. “Why did you call me.”
“Well,” Dazai called, extending the L’s in the word for an obnoxious amount of time, “I happened to get off early from my mission and wanted to see Chuuya! I’m sure you forgot all about our bet and wanted to try and brush it off, but I wont let you! I’m coming over to your apartment, and if you don’t want your lock damaged again I advise you to leave your door open. It’s only polite to do so!”
Dazai hung up promptly after that, causing Chuuya to grumble while staring down at his, now blank, screen.
Little did Dazai know, he hadn’t forgotten about the bet. In fact, if anyone was thinking about it, it was him.
Not wanting to have another problem to fix within his home, he put a little more energy into getting there before him. Not that he really needed to take any drastic action to do so, he was already quite close, and judging by the sounds in the background of Dazai’s phone he was still in the office.
It wasn’t long before he was striding through the open glass doors of the tall, reflective building he resided in it. He nodded at the man welcoming the attendants in, not offering nearly as much communication as he typically does to the employee but he could do that later when he wasn’t trying to drain the sweat off of his body in order to not look as big of a mess as he surely did at that moment. He did not need to suffer any more taunts than necessary, especially those that could be avoided with a small amount of effort.
Taking the elevator up, he took the small time he had to himself to brush his hair out with his fingers and rearrange the way his shirt was tucked in. He didn’t have a floor to himself as most of the penthouses did at the very top, but there still weren’t many people living next to him. He was one of four doors, and as he approached his he was grateful to find that the lock didn’t seem to have been touched at all. The usual tell-tale sign that Dazai had been in there was for the lock to have two bobby pins sticking out of it, one bent over as the shift being completely lodged into it.
Not needing to use the key lock, his door having a metal keypad as well, he punched in the code that he chose and pushed the door open, walking directly into a soft wall in front of him.
“What a pleasure to see you here Chuuya!
“What the fuck are you doing here you ass? I was the only one I saw coming up here.”
“Ah, I knew the Chibi’s brain was shrinking. There's more than one entrance to this horrid apartment of yours!” Dazai said with a flare of his arms, finally stepping away from Chuuya.
“I knew that ever since I had to call for Ane-san’s help to fix that window you broke in my shower room,” Chuuya scoffed. “I’m asking how the fuck you got here before me. There's no way. I literally drove here?”
“Ah, but then I would be giving away my secrets! Not that my Chuuya’s chibi-sized brain would be able to fit all of my skills within it.”
Dazai brushed off the glare that Chuuya threw his way after that and walked over to Chuuya’s couch. It was black genuine leather, pre-owned, as he didn’t want to be the one to soften the leather himself.
“Plus, Chuuya’s apartment is so nice!”
Chuuya assumed that this might’ve been the case. Even if he were lying he still came over as much as he was able to and crashed on his couch. Or his rug. Or his bed that one time before Chuuya pulled the covers off and started punching him.
“Yours would be too if you didn’t live in a literal dump. It’s not like anything is keeping you there except for your own internal issues. With your paycheck, you could live anywhere! You make more than me and complain about the luxury I own.”
Chuuya threw his hands up in the air, knowing better than to keep arguing his point against someone who is the living persona of a brick wall. He turned around and headed behind his kitchen island to both get to the microwave and move away from his urge to keep talking. Not that Dazai could even listen at all, as when he turned back around to pull a bowl out of a drawer he found him passed out where he had fallen.
If Chuuya were not filled with rage against the boy at the moment, he would appreciate looking at the sight. When they first met, Dazai wouldn’t relax himself at all around him. In fact, he never even turned his back, which was not only weird but also super offputting to be followed by this demon of a boy every day. Now though. Dazai was resting on his side, back to Chuuya as he shut his eyes and gave a quick rest.
Maybe Chuuya could convince him to sleep for real later. He didn’t know what had happened during the mission Dazai was sent on but it must’ve been rough if he passed out this quickly.
Maybe he would sleep better in Chuuya’s bed. He did sleep well in it before. But Chuuya shook the idea out of his head. He did not want the smell of his partner in his bed again and definitely didn’t want to sleep next to him because it was the only truly resting place in his apartment. Sure he had chairs and a couch, but even Chuuya and his body size couldn’t rest on it for long without starting to slide off.
He didn’t want to kick Dazai out, especially when him being here was a good distraction away from the arcade that Chuuya was hoping to capitalize upon. If he managed to keep the bandaged bastard bored, he might eventually snap and recommend the arcade as a spot to cure it. Or better yet, Chuuya could jump the idea on him and shock him into being even worse at the games than he was originally! It was a win-win for him, as long as he was able to execute his plan soon.
Today might be a bit too soon though. The worker he saw both that morning and the night before was likely to still be there, and if that was the case then Dazai would probably be able to tell that he had been practicing somehow. He couldn’t wait too long either. He could risk having Dazai start to pretend the bet was never placed, and there was no getting him out of an idea like that, or he could start practicing on the machine. Chuuya doubted he would, as even if his massive ego didn’t prevent him from practicing anything he would never even want to get out of his shitty box in the first place.
Still, better safe than sorry.
Pulling out two packets of ramen, the specific brand and flavour that Dazai was stupidly picky about, he put them down on his counter. He kept his cabinets stocked with them, along with other pieces of food he knew Dazai liked to the point where he would eat nothing else. When Kouyou asked him about it, he did an admittedly poor job of deflecting away from the subject of Dazai in his apartment. The only response he received to that was a raised eyebrow and pinched lips before the subject moved on to her criticizing the types of tea leaves he had in stock.
Dazai also demanded for the water to go into said bowls with the stale, crunchy noodles be an exact measurement with the powder added in exactly two minutes into the brewing process, on top of both the brand and flavour specifications. Chuuya couldn’t believe Dazai had the nerve to pick on his taste in wines, and that he never made fun of the other for this stupid production of a packet of noodles and mystery salt powder that cost less than 50 yen.
Once the water was poured into the bowls and the hard gluten bricks were being pushed down by two pairs of steel chopsticks, Chuuya let his attention direct back to the sleeping body on his couch.
At least, the once sleeping body that was on his couch.
When Chuuya looked back to where he could see the back of the stained white button-down his partner wore like it was a second skin, only to be met with nothing other than the leather of his couch back. His heart immediately jumped, because that fish could be anywhere by the time Chuuya found him, before letting himself relax again. Dazai would be lured back to the open room once the chicken dust packet had been opened. He was like a cat running at the first sound of a van opening.
Turns out he wasn’t that far away after all, as one sweep of the room proved that he had just made his way over to the door and was peering through the peephole.
“Hey, idiot. I made ramen. You’ll want to come eat it before it becomes cold and you’ll cry and whine until I make you a new one.”
“That’s wonderful to hear Slug, Unfortunately, I don’t feel like eating your ramen. I want to go out.”
“ Ehh ?”
This had not happened before, Dazai always ate his shitty ramen after he came over to Chuuyas and collapsed as if he was suddenly without bones. It was practically him requesting it without asking, if he was laying on Chuuya’s couch when Chuuya came home.
“The fuck do you mean you don’t want ramen. You always want ramen! Just like you always want whatever poor woman you are stalking on the street that day and how you always want the stupid ducks in that stupid poultry shop’s windows. This is the one time you can actually get what you want, so why in the world are you complaining?”
“Because I don’t feel like it,” Dazai said as he continued to peer through the glass in his door. “Last time I checked dogs had ears, so where are yours?”
Chuuya let his hands scrunch up to match the thick wrinkles that currently resided between his eyebrows. This was enough for one day. Of course Dazai had a way to ruin his good mood, with so little effort too. He was the only person Chuuya knew that could do that, he should expect it from him by now.
Not even trying to filter the frustration out of his voice, Chuuya snapped back. “Ok, so if you’re so against your ramen right now. I’m not your mommy, I’m not catering to whatever else you want right now.”
“I want Chuuya to come to the arcade with me.”
“Wha- What?” Chuuya stuttered, not expecting him to say that. He wanted to be the one to bring it up, damnit! Not that he could do much about it now, other than to go along with Dazai to kick his ass into the next planet.
“You heard me, unless you didn’t? It was you who is making us do this, you know. I am simply appeasing my pet in what it wants to do.”
“I am not your- Damnit! Fine! Whatever you want, jackass.”
Chuuya ditched his cooking job to fetch his boots out of the shoe rack in the genken, one of his best purchases in his opinion. It hadn’t been long at all since he took them off, and now they’re already back on. While it was frustrating, it just meant he could get this over with sooner and reap his reward quicker.
“Oh? So excited? This is what those books mean when they said that training grands obedience! Maybe I should force Chuuya to make me ramen more.”
“Get your shoes on asshole. And I am not your dog!”
They had only been walking for ten minutes and Dazai had already complained enough to cover at least four twenty-four hour car rides. Honestly, if Chuuya had known it was going to be this bad he would’ve just shoved the idiot onto the back of his bike and driven off before he could try to fight it. But no, Dazai had to whine and whimper until Chuuya agreed to not take his bike, and is now whining and whimpering at the only other option Chuuya would allow.
“I don’t understand why Chuuya wouldn’t let us get a cab! We could be there in seconds!”
Shrugging Dazai off was a challenge, due to their height difference and the way he clung on to him but he still managed to do it.
Throwing Dazais arm off of his shoulder, he gave the same response he had been giving since this type of question had started.
“You know damn well why we can’t get a cab. Or call for a mafia car. Just because they’d do it doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be any less embarrassing for me when I get back to work tomorrow, we don’t all have your amazing lack of shame you know.”
Dazai did know why he couldn’t take a cab, much less so with Chuuya. He was much more recognizable, even without the neon-coloured hair to help him with the task. The bandages were a dead giveaway, if not immediately followed by the aura of someone you do not want anywhere near you.
That, combined with Chuuya, would make it so that not only would they immediately get identified as Double Black, but they would also immediately get kicked out for roughhousing in the back of a taxi.
Their location, especially with where they are going, isn’t a big deal on its own, but there is no need to call attention to themselves.
Dazai’s next whine was cut off by Chuuya before he could even get it out.
“We’re almost there. Can your skinny ass walk for just five more minutes? It’s really not that far, you’re just weaker than one strip of your bandages.”
Dazai didn’t whine out any more intelligible words, but did whine before wrapping himself back around Chuuya and carrying out the rest of the walk.
Chuuya did not mind this, no not at all. It was just that the heat wrapping around him was quickly becoming suffocating and causing his body to heat up faster than normal. He just couldn’t wait until he could get inside and feel the AC units plugged into the walls hit his skin again, without a lanky beanpole of a boy hanging off of him like a swing.
Walking five minutes like that felt more like five hours, each step becoming more and more heavy as the weight atop him felt like it was increasing. It couldn’t have been, since it was Dazai and his ability was being nullified, but it felt like it. He swears he hasn’t felt as relieved in his whole life as when he saw that ‘OPEN’ flag outside the window.
“Ok, we’re here. Get your fucking ass off of me before I dump you in the sewer and make you swim your way out.”
“At least I can swim, Chuuya would just flail around and then drown like a slug.”
“Sounds more like a fish to me,” Chuuya muttered to himself. It was so quiet that it basically just resided within his head. It was no use arguing with Dazai, the boy wouldn’t let himself lose an argument if it meant cutting his arm off, but Chuuya did in fact know how to swim. It made sense to him, as he lived on a port city. It had been new to him the first time he decided to go out with his brand-new mafia purchased sleek black speedo but had caught on like he was an Olympic champion in a past life. It wasn’t truly a necessity for him, as his gravity powers could get him out of almost every situation, including those with water, but it didn’t hurt, and was also quite fun.
Dazai waited for Chuuya to walk in front of him so that he would be the one to push the greased door open, riddled with fingerprints of countless prior clients. Chuuya was wearing gloves anyway, so it didn’t matter to him, but to Dazai’s chewed-down fingers it was a big deal.
Chuuya didn’t understand why it was a big deal, but he didn’t argue it. He just assumed it could be lumped into the same ‘weird’ box within the Dazai file he has stored in his brain along with his strange ramen concoction.
They walked in as a pair, and the arcade was no more busy than it was when Chuuya left it earlier. Granted, it was a weekday outside of the yearly breaks students get, but was still surprisingly busy with that fact.
To Chuuyas immense thanks, the employee didn’t even look up from his phone when they walked in. Getting any sort of strange interaction would’ve been an immediate red flag to Dazai for what Chuuya was doing all weekend. The new machines were also empty, which was surprising but welcome. It meant that they had them all to themselves.
Dazai skipped over to the one furthest from where Chuuya was standing, the one he used to practice on earlier. Once he finished fishing six coins out of his jeans pocket he stalked over to the other one and straddled it before handing half of his change to Dazai.
Game on, Dazai.
“Put the coins in at the same time as me, then we just both need to press the center button and we can play together.”
“And how does the Chibi know this? Has he been practicing all this time, how wounding.”
Chuuya froze up for just a second, but apparently not enough for Dazai to take note of because when he responded, it was just laughed off before the other did as he was told.
“It’s on the loading screen, dolt. Learn to read and maybe you’ll know how to play these without asking me sometimes.”
“Mmm, and you are still worse at them than me. Now let’s get this going, it says you still need to press the button. You were the one all excited for this.”
Smacking the glowing blue button in front of him was all it took for bright Letters to pop up on the screen in front of them, and for Dazai to immediately go and select the ‘Expert’ mode.
“Feeling confident?” Chuuya smirked.
“Sounds like you’re the one struggling. Are you scared that it’ll be too hard for your little self?”
Grumbling, Chuuya glared at the numbers ticking down on the screen in front of him before cranking the plastic grip on the left handle and letting his fake-bike take off into the digital world.
He wasn’t even paying attention to what Dazai was doing, putting all of his effort into keeping his bike straight and protected from the obstacles being thrown at it. He didn’t hear all the beeping from next to him, but he did hear the exaggerated scream from a voice he knew too well.
Not looking up, Chuuya wasn’t willing to sacrifice how he was doing for whatever his idiot partner was trying to pull.
“What did Chuuya do to this horrible machine? It’s evil!”
“Shut up. I’m driving.”
“No you’re not! You’ve probably paid off the people who made the game to always let you win! There’s no way.”
“Shut. Up!”
Chuuya tuned Dazais whining out after that, not letting himself get distracted. His over-focusing might’ve been a double edged sword though, because he let out a similar scream to Dazai’s when a bright flashing notice blew up in front of him.
“Heh, Chuuya sounds like a girl.”
“I do not!” Chuuya yelled, but as the cheerful music played he turned back to his console screen to see ‘WINNER’ in big red block letters.
Chuuya watched it blink until it faded into the starting screen, asking for more money to play again. This screen had never popped up when he was playing by himself, so he figured it was for the two-player rounds only. He loved it, as it helped rub his victory into Dazai’s puny little face even more.
He heard the laughter before he felt it in his throat, and he was sure that it was making heads turn around him from the other patrons.
“Ha! I won! I won! Suck it, Mackerel!”
“I need a rematch.”
That brought Chuuya out of his glory moment, only to raise an eyebrow at him without letting the smirk off his face. Dazai looked irritated beyond belief, something that Chuuya had seen before but never in this context. Usually in one where the boss is demanding some sort of last-minute work to be done or if the girl sitting across from them in the restaurant spits in Dazai’s food after being asked for her hand in a co-suicide.
“You can't believe that I won? Fine!”
Chuuya passed another 300 yen to Dazai as they both resituated themselves on the machines, only for the same exact events of the first match to replay in front of them. Blue buttons, level select, countdown, race, winning screen.
Slumping over his machine, Dazai glared at the shiny red acrylic under his unbandaged eye. “What the fuck are you doing.”
“What, are you so afraid to admit that I might be better at something than you?”
“I am not afraid because you are not better than me at this! I just need to figure out what you’re doing so I can do it too.”
“Ok You-Are-Not-Better-Than-Me-At-This-san. Is that what you want me to call you?”
“Absolutely not,” Dazai responded with a smirk. I would much prefer ‘Best at Everything,’ thank you very much.”
“If you’re so great at everything, then how come you lost to me at this game twice. It really sounds like you aren’t good at it.”
Chuuya gestured to the machine in question, as if he wasn’t already sitting on the main playing component of it. The loading screen had begun playing again, the music changing from the one played at the winning screen to one that is being overshadowed by the obnoxious sound of tired rumbling on pavement and skid marks that verbally left black crescents in abandoned parking lots.
Dazai mumbled something that sounded a bit like ‘I am good at it-’ before going back to squint at the screen as if the four-colour panels of light would give him any of the information he needed against Chuuya. The information that, according to him, Chuuya preddy possessed and was using against him.
“One more rematch. Three for three.”
“You really can’t let this go, huh?” Chuuya laughed at him. It was funny watching Dazai run in circles trying to figure out how to beat Chuuya back in the one thing he wasn’t superior in, but he could feel that he would eventually get fed up with it. Maybe this was Dazai’s way of getting the last laugh? Letting Chuuya win but making him loose at the end by driving him insane? He wouldn’t put it against him.
“One more. And we’re switching bikes.”
That made Chuuya even more amused. Switching bikes? Really? Dazai was really going to try everything huh.
Fine. Hopping off the bike he all but shoved Dazai off of the other bike’s seat to get on it, he reached into his pocket again for more coins.
He didn’t bring that much, not having expected to have more than one round and being put off-guard by Dazai and being hurried to leave, not having time to properly count out his change.
He pulled out the amount he needed, and after shoving them into the vertical slot with his thumb went back for Dazai’s before a scuffed up hand waved in front of his face with the three hundred-yen coins pinched between his fingers.
“What- Whatever. Just put them in the fucking slot” Chuuya didn’t need to ask by now how Dazai had managed to pickpocket him, he figured it was probably during the exchange of bikes but it also could’ve been earlier. Maybe when they were walking? He didn’t know and didn’t care.
Everything happened in the same order as the last two, and if Chuuya weren’t sitting atop a new bike he would imagine himself to be having some strange form of déjà vu.
Something that did catch his attention from being out of the cycle though was the level selection. The last two times Dazai had selected level Expert, even if they technically both had a choice, Chuuya let him pick to further rub his failure in.
This time though, Dazai had selected ‘Hard’ before pressing play. Chuuya wasn’t concerned with losing to this, but he was amused by the choice.
“You know changing the level isn’t gonna do anything for you? Right? Maybe it’s you with the small brain, all your bandages must’ve absorbed all the smartness out of you.”
“Shut up.”
Dazai somehow died even sooner on the ‘Hard’ difficulty than on the ‘Expert’ on, and with it died any energy Dazai still had within him to keep playing this back-and-forth he and Chuuya were doing in the arcade.
The ‘winner’ music played until it abruptly stopped and cut back to a scene with the title logo flashing on it, this time coming from the machine Dazai was once using. The boy in question was slumped against the front of the machine and over the handlebars. It almost made for a nice picture, for anyone but Chuuya. Anyone who actually found him attractive and had the care to look at him with any filter on him that managed to hide even a slimmer of what lay underneath.
But that person wasn’t Chuuya, and this scene was not beautiful.
This scene currently held an angry Dazai and a triumphant Chuuya, who have yet to get off of their respective machines or even realize the scene that they were causing.
“So. What do you want?”
“Eh?” Chuuya was taken off guard again, which, he adds as a mental note to himself, he really needs to work on. “What do I want?”
“For the bet,” Dazai states, not elaborating.
Oh yes! The thing Chuuya has had in mind since before this bet even started, and now it was out of his mind and into his hands.
He didn’t even care about the shock that filled Dazai’s face, or the way it immediately wiped the resentment off and replaced it with surprise when he said it.
“I’m giving you a lip piercing.”