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This joint mission is not ideal.
Being stuck in a safe house in Kanagi, in the Aomori prefecture, with two Port Mafia members isn’t exactly on Kunikida’s bucket list — not with a gravity manipulator tasked to supervise the mafia’s side and Atsushi antagonizing Akutagawa’s presence.
Dazai— well.
Dazai invited himself.
Which is even worse, because this mission is one accident away from becoming either a circus or a bloodbath.
Dazai has already been punched three times, one from Kunikida and two from his former partner.
Atsushi hissed at Akutagawa. Like a cat.
Akutagawa ignored him, which led to more hissing and kicking and a plan for a new kitchen signed by Mori himself after Rashomon destroyed the last one.
Kunikida needs an aspirin.
He gave his fellow detectives three days before triggering a multi-ways war. Now, he’s beginning to suspect that prediction might have been optimistic.
However, he also has to admit that working with the mafia has its occasional perks: the shared workload, the increased budget and the Mafia-purchased cars and safe houses. They even get underlings to help with the case.
Chuuya even shares the reports with Akutagawa so they can help Atsushi with Dazai’s overdue work.
They submit paperwork on time.
The timetable is respected down to the second.
The President even thanks them for their efficiency, that’s how unusual that is.
Deep down, Kunikida would like to weep.
There are things, though, that don’t quite sit right with him.
He didn’t want to live long enough to witness Dazai - the Dazai - munching the tip of Chuuya’s ear while the executive files up his reports.
Regularly, Dazai is punched into the next room as his hands start to wander.
So the first question is: what is the nature of Double Black’s relationship?
“Why do you ask, Kunikida-kun? I hate him,” Dazai replies when asked.
He’s blinking owlishly, innocent as a child.
“Dazai.” Kunikida sighs, cleaning his glasses against his shirt. “We are partners. You can trust me.”
“Hm? I know.”
“And I’m not going to snitch to the President if you tell me. You two seem close.”
Dazai’s eyebrow twitches. “Close? Ugh.”
“Ugh?”
“There’s no way I would be close to a slimy Slug,” he says. It’s leveled, almost patient, as if Kunikida must understand. Frankly, the only thing he’s beginning to understand is that this job is doomed to fail. “Chuuya’s just a dog. I have twenty-six notebooks of grievances with him, actually. Do you want to read them? You like notebooks.”
“Isn’t that a little obsessive?” Kunikida asks, his voice rising as his patience gets drained.
“Having notebooks? Funny you’d think so, Kunikida-kun~“
Oh, God.
Kunikida takes a deep breath and reminds himself manslaughter is a felony. “I’m just saying, keeping notebooks on someone takes dedication.”
“And I’m saying I dedicatedly hate Chuuya.”
“Your hands were under his shirt ten minutes ago.”
Dazai looks at him as if he doesn’t make any sense, as if he has no idea what he’s talking about, and Kunikida inwardly wants to screech.
And then there is the second issue: Chuuya.
Damned Nakahara Chuuya.
It seems like a universal law of biology that one simply must fall in love with the Port Mafia executive.
The detective is sure that Atsushi is developing a crush on the man.
Maybe he is, too.
It’s as if Darwin, uncaring that everyone in the house is male, is pointing at Nakahara Chuuya and screaming: “See that? That’s a DNA you want to preserve.”
Kunikida hates it.
Besides, despite Dazai’s cryptic answers and frankly worrisome notebook game, it’s obvious to whom Chuuya belongs to.
Dazai’s name is written everywhere on his skin, carved in every bite mark on the executive’s neck and in the pink scratches down his back.
It’s etched in the way Dazai pulls the executive behind hidden corners when he thinks nobody is looking.
Too bad Kunikida is a math teacher. He was born a villain.
Nothing goes past him.
“Do they really think they are being subtle?” Kunikida asks, throwing a glance at the closed door to Chuuya’s bedroom as he grabs four plates to set the table.
Technically he and Dazai share a twin bedroom.
Practically, Dazai didn’t spend a single night there.
“Hard to say,” Akutagawa says, shaking his head. He’s cutting daikon. “Maybe they don’t care.”
“It’s nice to see Dazai-san so light-spirited,” Atsushi offers. Kunikida supposes it’s true, although unhelpful.
"Are they always like that?"
“Oh, they can be much worse.”
“Wait… this is them behaving?”
Akutagawa keeps cutting the daikon, unfazed. The knife thuds on the chopping board. It sounds vaguely menacing.
“Yes, this is not too bad.” His eyes narrow. “No one wanted to go on a mission with them, back then.”
Well, Kunikida didn’t want it either but here he is, suffering and maybe bi-panicking.
(“See? The proof that evolution is perfect,” Darwin insists. Kunikida hates biology, now.)
Apart from books on evolution, though, there is a — neatly reported, of course — list of things Kunikida Doppo will never see in the same way again after working with Double Black.
- Showers
Baths are one thing Kunikida never thought he’d come to dread, yet here we are.
Due to the executive’s reputation, he expected Nakahara to be a little more discreet than Dazai — and he is.
For the first twenty-four hours, that is.
Fast forward to the third day of their joint mission, modesty is thrown out of the window and Chuuya is going around the house in Dazai’s shirt and little else. He works out shirtless in the garden.
He throws on a crimson silk kimono and grabs himself a bottle of wine after they get back from scouting missions, and closes himself in the bathroom.
For hours.
With Dazai.
The moans and sighs coming from behind that door will haunt him in his dreams, but the silences are even scarier.
Therefore Kunikida finds himself at the dinner table, notebook opened in front of him, in dire need of establishing house rules. As in, grade school level of house rules. During a mission.
It feels like an extra-bodily experience.
“...Tell me again, Megane.” Chuuya has pinned one knee against the border of the table, his arms crossed over his chest. “You want me to do what?”
Kunikida clears his voice.
“I want you and Dazai to stop occupying the bathroom for two hours.”
Dazai has the nerve to rest a hand over his heart. “Objection. We don’t stay in the bathroom for two hours.”
“You do. I have timestamps.”
“Oi, don't say it like I'm not doing you a favor. I was trying to drown the bastard.”
“And once again you failed, Chuuya~”
Carelessly, Chuuya waves away Dazai’s comment. “Why do you even care, anyway?”
Kunikida clicks his tongue, his pen hovering over his notebook.
“Showers that last over an hour are mindless of other people.”
“So what?” The two reply, voices soaring at the same time and with the same, puzzled expression painted on their faces.
“I don’t expect a criminal to care about manners. I don’t. But you, Bandages," Kunikida calls, adjusting his glasses on the tip of his nose and pointing an accusatory finger at Dazai. "You should be a little more considerate. Try not to embarrass the Agency and strive to set a good example for your mentee.”
“Megane has a point,” Chuuya says. Dazai elbows him in the ribs.
“He’s scolding you too, Slug.”
“I’m not Jinko’s mentor.”
“Chuuya~ I can’t believe you’re still in denial about being a mother~”
“Say that again, you fucker?!"
When Kunikida pushes his glasses up his nose, his hand is trembling.
The temptation to summon a gun to end this agony makes him grimace.
But he is an Armed Detective Agency member. He is one of the good guys, and he is stronger than that.
He clears his throat. “What I mean is, from now on there will only be separate showers that fit our team’s schedule.”
Chuuya’s eyebrows rise. “And how long would that be?”
“Five minutes.”
Now, he knows that Chuuya’s hair routine is about twenty minutes on its own.
He memorized everybody’s habits prior to the mission, and the sneer coming from the executive doesn’t come as a surprise.
But that doesn’t mean he cares.
“Are you shitting me?”
“You heard me,” Kunikida repeats, sternly.
“You know what I do with your schedule? I wipe my assho—"
“Now, Chuuya, that’s unnecessary.” Dazai flashes them both a grin, and Kunikida just knows he’s going to regret being alive. “We’ll just have to move our play time to the kitchen counters.”
Kunikida’s eyebrow jumps up. He has a feeling they might be almost touching his hairline.
Can’t they just keep it in the bedroom like everyone else?!
“Yeah, that's actually not a bad idea," Chuuya says, frowning. "Or the living room.”
With a low hmm, Dazai skims a finger over the table. “Or here…”
“Huh, again? I thought your pillow princess ass didn’t like hard surfaces.”
Horrified, Kunikida lifts his notebook from the table.
“What do you mean, again?!”
“Oh! What about Kunikida-kun’s bed—”
“I always wanted to try the garden.”
“Enough,” Kunikida cries. A vein pulsates on his right temple, and he's not sure if it's an aneurysm waiting to happen or a call for mass murder. “Do whatever the hell you want, just keep it under thirty minutes.”
A man has to pick his battles.
—
“We are going to get caught, and Kunikida-kun will scold us again.”
Chuuya smirks against his mouth. He’s infuriatingly handsome — with his hair wet and his eyes electric blue, freckles exposed and skin flushed under the shower. Naked, both middle fingers metaphorically raised against house rules.
His voice rubs against Dazai’s senses, husky and deep.
“Not if you keep your voice down, princess.”
Ah. This is where he loses it.
Chuuya calling him pet names during sex is something he shouldn’t enjoy quite so much.
And yet.
Dazai’s tensed nerves thaw under the warm water and scorching touches.
He turns docile under his lover’s lips.
His entire body arches, desperate to feel skin on skin, and Chuuya rewards him with a bright smile.
“Chuuya…”
“Slow,” Chuuya shushes him, and part of Dazai wants to scream instead. “Let’s make these thirty minutes count.”
- Pets
Pets are perfectly fine, right? They are cute and innocent and in no way could they hurt Kunikida’s sanity, right? Wrong.
It happens one evening.
Kunikida is bent over an old newspaper they gathered from the local library. The article covers a serial killer cold case, and it might just be about their evasive Ability user.
Chuuya is sitting at the table — maps, documents and photographs of the criminal they are targeting covering every spare inch. He fumbled through pieces of paper and scraps and maps. Past clues. Pens. A bottle of wine.
Chuuya is wearing a pair of reading glasses, and Kunikida is not sure they should look quite so enticing.
“So you call me Megane but use glasses yourself?” he can’t help but throw into the silence.
Unexpectedly, Chuuya titters. “Touché.”
“It’s past midnight,” Kunikida hums. He doesn’t know why he wants to engage in polite conversation with a mafioso. Maybe because Kenji likes him, or because Dazai has whatever liaison that is going on with him.
Maybe, the mafia is just not as terrible as he thought.
“Yeah. Good job today,” Chuuya says. His smile is subtle, midday-bright.
“You too.”
“Let’s wrap up here and go to sleep.” Chuuya glances at the sofa. “We also should get those two to bed. I can do it.”
“Suit yourself,” Kunikida agrees. “You can levitate them, can’t you?”
“I’m sure as fuck not going to carry them bridal style, if that’s what you were thinking.”
Atsushi and Akutagawa collapsed on the couch after a bone-crushing afternoon of training. They fell asleep one on top of the other, snoring softly, their expressions peaceful as they forget to hate each other. Atsushi kicked away the blanket Kunikida used to cover them, while Akutagawa is fisting his so-called nemesis’ shirt.
Kunikida can only appreciate the sight. It makes him hope; a little. Somewhat. If he forgets to hate the mafia for threatening his colleagues’ lives, Atsushi among them.
But, on a level… it’s peaceful.
Even more so because Chuuya sent Dazai to bed after the third night in a row the man was spending awake working on the case.
They might not care about each other, but they all care about the mission. There is no need for unfriendliness.
What he didn’t expect was to see Dazai emerge from the darkness of Chuuya’s bedroom, yawning, with tousled bed hair and a burrito of blankets that extends behind him like a trail. He pads all the way to Chuuya’s chair.
“Come to bed, Chuuya?” he murmurs, resting his nose in the crook of the executive’s neck.
He nuzzles there, and Chuuya’s gloved hand finds his hair.
“In a second. Weren’t you sleeping?”
“Can’t.”
Instead of pushing him away or sneering, Chuuya’s expression turns gentler. His lips curl, and his eyes gleam behind the glasses. He even allows Dazai to wrap him in the blanket while he keeps scribbling on a report with the hand that is not playing with Dazai’s hair.
“Have you tried, at least?”
“I did, but I keep waking up. I can’t sleep when I don’t have you close.”
“We’re almost finished, right?” Chuuya looks at him, and Kunikida can’t but nod. “See? Go back to sleep, Osamu.”
“Promise it won’t take long?”
Although his partner sounds bratty, drowsy with sleep, it’s a different shade of brattiness than what Kunikida is used to. It’s weak.
“I promise. Go to sleep, pet.”
Kunikida freezes.
Osamu.
Pet.
Dazai might as well be a scorpion puppy. He’s not a pet. He’s a menace and a clown. He’s a former criminal and a full-time safety hazard.
He’s a genius.
And yet, scratching a tender spot behind Dazai’s ear, Chuuya is looking at the man as if he’s a kitten.
Kunikida doesn’t even react when, later, Chuuya nods at him in an amused apology, promises they’ll discuss the plan in the morning and disappears into the bedroom where Dazai is waiting.
Yet, somehow, as he recalls the exchange with his hands in his hair, the detective can’t decide if he’s witnessing picture-perfect domestic bliss or a nightmare.
—
“So you really are a villain, Chuuya.”
“Huh?”
“You’re cruel.”
“Good fucking morning, it’s kinda in my job description,” Chuuya scoffs, sitting his reading glasses on the nightstand. Dazai missed the years when Chuuya started using them, but he appreciates the change.
With a hmm, Dazai rolls on the bed and sinks deeper into the blankets.
“Sadist,” he says.
“Look, it’s not that I don’t appreciate the recognition, but what is this about?”
“You never call me pet names, and you sure never call me anything nice in front of others.” Dazai grins as he says that, curling around the other and sinking his nose in the crook of Chuuya’s neck the moment the executive lies next to him.
Guided by years of intimacy, Chuuya’s hands find his hair again — raking through it, gentle fingertips rubbing his scalp. He holds him like a prayer, and Dazai allows his weaknesses to lie bare under Chuuya’s hands. He will cuddle Dazai to sleep and will fall asleep first, waiting for the brunet to kiss him good morning with the first timid rays of morning. They will kiss, and they will act as if the last four years never happened.
“Oh, that. I gotta have my fun too.”
“Then Chuuya is cruel and evil.”
“That I may be, but have you seen Megane’s face?”
Melting into the patterns drawn by the other’s fingers, Dazai can almost taste Chuuya’s grin on his lips.He purrs under the caresses.
“But, really, I could get used to being called pet.”
“Yeah.” Chuuya barks out a laugh that says never again. “Don’t you dare.”
- Honey
“Chuuya-san, why does this box smell like honey?”
Bless Atsushi’s sweet, innocent heart.
It’s true that the tiny yellow bar in the executive’s hands smells good, but Kunikida does not wish to discover what Nakahara has bought on Port Mafia expenses. He’s not even sure they should have deliveries at a safe house, but he decided that’s not his problem - not yet.
“Huh, that?” Chuuya looks up, handing the object to Atsushi. “It’s an oil bar.”
“It smells nice.”
“I fucking bet it does. It’s chocolate and honey, I believe? Dazai picked it.”
“Dazai-san?”
“Well, yeah. I decide on the brand, he deals with the flavor he wants. It’s all-natural, produced in Europe and imported,” Chuuya comments, with a little skip in his voice — because of course, the oil bar has to be natural and bio and expensive. It’s posh like everything in the mafioso, and it smells like food. “This, Atsushi, is the best shit money can buy.”
“No way,” Atsushi echoes.
Shaking his head, Kunikida scribbles in his notebook: 'ideal way to avoid spending company money - not squander on sustainable skincare.'
Atsushi, though, might disagree. He can practically hear the kid’s mouth starting to water. They probably didn’t have that kind of stuff at the orphanage, he muses. It doesn’t help that the executive’s warm chuckle is nothing short of approving.
“Yeah. You can borrow it.”
“Ah?! Can I?”
“Sure. Don’t be like that idiot Dazai and try to eat it, though.”
Something behind Atsushi’s eyes winks out. “It’s not food?”
“Definitely not.”
“I thought it was honey?”
“Well, yeah. And chocolate and butter. It’s skincare, I guess.”
With wide, perplexed eyes, Atsushi stares at the man. “What do you use it for, Chuuya-san? If it’s not food.”
Kunikida’s blood runs cold.
He’s gravitated enough days in the proximity of the former (and horny, he can add now) Double Black to know exactly where the conversation is leading.
Chuuya closes in his shoulders.
The beam curling his lips says he is satisfied with his purchase, so much so that he’s not paying attention.
It’s so painfully obvious that he’s replying absentmindedly that Kunikida has the time to brace himself for the incoming disaster.
“Well, massages, of course, ‘cause shitty Dazai never warms up before missions and always pulls some muscles. That shit is nice after a bath, too. And it’s mad good as lubrica—” Here. Right here. Kunikda can see Chuuya’s mind hitting the brakes as realization kicks in. His cheeks turn a cheerful poppy red, his jaw slams shut. “Actually, that’s none of your business, kid. Ask your shitty mentor.”
The morning after, a strong smell of honey and chocolate oozes from Dazai.
It’s recognizable even through the bandages.
Kunikida just hopes he won’t have to give explanations for the budget because he’s not going to add posh, edible lube into the company expenses.
Dazai can do that.
- Pancakes
When he decided that a stable, happy, probably long life wasn’t for him and signed for the Agency, Kunikida didn’t expect to work with the mafia.
He also didn’t think he’d wake up to the sight of a criminal making pancakes, with Dazai hugging him from behind.
Telling himself he won’t ever get used to the sight, Kunikida grabs a coffee and plops on a chair.
“‘Morning, Megane,” Chuuya says, eyes still set on the pan. Surprisingly, it’s not harsh. His voice is throaty after a full week of barking orders around, but not hostile.
“I have a name.”
“I know.”
“Kunikida-kun~ hello~” Dazai chirps.
“See? He remembers your name,” Chuuya says, throwing a smirk behind his shoulder.
“Of course! Kunikida-kun is my precious partner. Isn’t that right, Kuni-kiii-da-kuuun?”
Kunikida mumbles a “shameless” into his cup of coffee as Dazai wraps his arms around the executive’s slim waist and noses his neck. Damn, Kunikida thinks.
Two weeks into the mission, the two act like they are on some kind of honeymoon.
Domesticity is an awkward word next to Dazai’s name, but he inhabits it surprisingly well.
Chuuya hums, throwing his head back to rest it on Dazai’s chest as he keeps flipping the pancakes with curt movements of his wrist. He has nice wrists, Chuuya, and long pianist fingers.
It's almost a shame those same hands have killed so many people.
“Oi, Dazai. Go ask Ryu if he wants pancakes.”
“Do I have to, though?” Dazai whines, pursing his lips.
“Yeah? Be useful.”
“Why can’t Chuuya go?”
Chuuya pauses. For a moment, Kunikida is sure he considered kicking Dazai into the moon. “Because I’m clearly otherwise fucking preoccupied.”
“But Chuuya is Ryuunosuke’s mum now.”
“It doesn’t work like that!” Chuuya bellows, swinging the spatula dangerously close to Dazai’s face. “You don’t get to adopt another child and pass the old one to me.”
“I thought we split custody?”
“I don’t remember agreeing to such a shitty deal?”
“You did when we got married.”
…Wait.
The information sinks into Kunikida’s brain. It’s heavy, like a rock tossed in a lake. His ears ring.
It doesn’t make any sense.
Dazai’s records at the Agency state he’s unmarried, and he knows better than to believe anything that comes out of the man’s cursed, lying mouth.
He acts like he’s Atsushi’s parent, for heaven's sake.
“Stop saying weird shit in front of your colleagues,” Chuuya mumbles.
See?
Happily, Kunikida’s heartbeat steadies and his posture relaxes.
See, his brain says again, as if to smooth out any remaining doubt. Dazai’s just being Dazai.
And, in perfect Dazai fashion, as if to confirm they are nothing but puppets aligned for his entertainment, the brunet chuckles.
His hands remain splayed over the curve of Chuuya’s hips, circling them over the oversize red shirt the executive sleeps into.
“Fine, fine. Sorry.”
“And go get Atsushi, too.” Chuuya glances in Kunikida’s direction. “There’s some breakfast for you too, Megane. I made too much.”
Kunikida almost wants to find cute how Chuuya pretends it’s an accident. Instead, he bows his head.
“That’s very kind of you. Thanks.”
“I didn’t mean to, so don’t get ideas and shit. It just happened.” He throws an irritated glance at Dazai. “Dazai, go before I kick you out and feed your breakfast to the neighbors.”
“Akutagawa-kun probably woke up anyway with all this noise,” Kunikida says, not unkindly.
Chuuya stills for a second, letting out an unhappy click of his tongue before focusing back on his cooking.
Dazai turns, eyes turning a brighter shade of amber as he flashes a smile at Kunikida.
Oh, the detective thinks.
He’s never seen Dazai smiling with his eyes so early in the morning.
Maybe it’s not such a horrible mission, after all.
—
“Thanks for making breakfast,” Dazai says.
“It’s alright.”
“Kunikida likes you.”
“He’s growing on me, too,” Chuuya says. He’s grinning. “Don’t tell him that.”
Sinking his nose in Chuuya’s hair, holding the man close, Dazai smiles against the red strands.
He can smell gunpowder and smoke and vanilla.
He smells the lavender conditioner Chuuya uses, because it’s the only fragrance their cat doesn’t hate.
And he is happy, stupidly so.
One day, when it’s safe and when they’re ready, he dares to hope he’ll welcome others in this happiness that burns his defenses down and makes his heart bloom.
In the meantime, this mission feels like the honeymoon they never had.
And if a Double Black honeymoon must have secrets and violence and a body count, well… Dazai will take it.
He will take everything, as long as Chuuya is by his side.
“I love you, you know?” he murmurs.
It’s a little shy of a whisper, but he’d like to scream it.
"Ha? Did you eat something spoiled again?” Chuuya asks, lifting an eyebrow.
Dazai only laughs. He wraps the executive tighter in his arms and lands a kiss on the top of the other’s head. It looks like a field of maple leaves, Chuuya’s hair.
A sea of fire. The sun.
He’s beautiful.
- Guns
Kunikida expected things to go south.
He knew he couldn’t trust the Port Mafia.
Still, the moment he clocks with the situation, his knees jitter. A rose of blood bloomed on Dazai’s side, drenching his pale clothes. He has one arm thrown over Chuuya’s shoulder, and strands of sweaty hair remain glued to his pale forehead. His lips look blue, so dangerously blue.
He’s bleeding out fast, and Kunikida’s brain is running faster.
“Dazai-san!” Akutagawa screams. Kunikida barely registers it.
By his side Atsushi’s eyes are wide, his lips open.
“What happened?!”
Chuuya grimaces. “Your idiot of a mentor happened.”
“Chuuya shot me,” Dazai groans.
His timbre is serious, and it’s heavy and laced with pain. He’s speaking from his diaphragm, but his face twists in pain with every word.
Chuuya.
Chuuya shot him.
The accusation rolls between them.
Immediately, the air in the safe house tenses. Kunikida’s hand travels to the piece of paper he keeps in his front pocket, exchanging a glance with Atsushi.
His fingers hover over the paper. His mind visualizes a gun.
He squints, and—
“It was your plan, Osamu.”
—he freezes.
“But it hurts.”
Chuuya clicks his tongue. “You should have thought about it before asking me to shoot you, you whiny baby.”
“What kind of deranged mess of a plan involves you getting shot?” Kunikida asks, pinching his nose.
His voice quivers — stress and panic and anger seeping through.
Chuuya shoots him a glance that says ‘fuck if I know’.
“Operation Sleeping Beauty,” Dazai offers, as if that’s supposed to explain anything.
“Ha? I thought it was called Moonlight?”
“Chuuya said it could be called Moonlight,” Dazai says, waving it away. “I never agreed to such a lame name.”
“What?!”
“I said, lame.”
“I’m gonna let you bleed out.”
“Be my guest, Slug.”
“So, wait, hold on,” Kunikida says. “Chuuya shot you because you asked him?”
“It’s an old strategy—” they both start, although the perfect synch of their voices makes Dazai halt and wince. Chuuya stops too.
Dazai swallows, his eyes suddenly dark — that bottomless emptiness that runs a shiver down Kunikida’s back.
“Chibi,” he calls, under his breath. “It hurts. Do you mind?”
“Sure. Sorry.” Chuuya eyes Kunikida, head dropping in a subtle nod. “You alright with taking on the paperwork, Kunikida-san?”
“Do you need help?” Atsushi asks.
“I’ll call a doctor,” Akutagawa says.
“And I’ll get more gauze.”
“Leave it. I’m gonna take the idiot to the infirmary.”
“I can take him off your hands,” Kunikida offers, stepping forward.
It’s sheer politeness.
He doesn’t think Chuuya needs help, yet he’s not sure how to handle the crossover there. He’s not even sure how to deal with the sudden, violent flame in Chuuya’s blue eyes.
“I’ve got him,” Chuuya says. And that’s final.
—
I’ve got him.
Chuuya snarled that sentence out like a dog with a bone.
Dazai doesn’t know what his former partner is holding on to — if he’s clawing at him, at his god-bestowed right to be his partner, or at the memories. Memories of years together, of blood, of bullet holes and missions like this one.
Memories of carving holes in each other’s souls, and healing them with hidden touches. Burying them in dust, as if they don’t know that silence can’t erase the screams they don’t let out.
The thing is, as Chuuya helps him out of his shirt and unravels the blood-soaked bandages to expose the wound, Dazai is holding onto those memories just as strongly.
“Chuuya,” Dazai murmurs. “What’s wrong?”
The redhead quivers, although it’s subtle.
Dazai sees it anyway, though, because there’s very little he doesn’t see about Chuuya.
He’s on edge, his hands wandering over the bullet hole in Dazai’s hip. It’s a scratch. It won’t even leave a scar, but Chuuya’s blue gaze keeps wandering there. He’s worried.
And Dazai can’t stand it when Chuuya looks like this; like he’s eating words that taste bitter.
He talks as if he’s not trusting him.
“Does it hurt?”
Dazai grins, but it’s a shield. A shield against this burning feeling that is still in him and will never leave.
“Is Chuuya worried about me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“I trust you,” Chuuya says, though it’s half-hearted. His fingers kiss the skin, counting the ribs; a flickering, well-known touch over Dazai’s naked hip. “I trust your stupid brain and your crafty idiocy. But I know the risks you are willing to take, too.”
And I don’t want to lose you.
Not now. Not ever.
Dazai’s eyes soften.
“Come on, Slug, cut me some slack here. When are my plans wrong?”
“Something is wrong with your brain,” Chuuya growls. “Whatever. Do you want a proper get-well kiss or not?”
Despite himself, despite the pain blocking his lower body, Dazai finds himself smiling.
When he bends, lingering millimeters away from Chuuya’s lips, he inhales. His partner smells like gunpowder, like blood, like home.
An orphan all his life, Chuuya is the only place on earth where Dazai finds a sense of belonging.
“That’d be nice,” he says, and lets Chuuya kiss him first.
- Dazai, his partner
(Did Kunikida just classify Dazai as an object? Yeah, he did.
If Darwin can make him like Nakahara Chuuya, then he can call Dazai whatever he wants.)
Something in Dazai has changed during the mission.
He looks quieter, less sharp. Happier.
Chuuya opens his arms for Dazai to find his way into a hug and, despite the height difference, despite the times they say they hate each other, it’s that kind of hug where Kunikida feels like he has to avert his gaze.
There’s something too intimate in the way they just seem to find each other. It might be the only thing in Dazai’s life Kunikida would venture to call “pure”.
And, at that moment, he can't help but think that they look so normal. With his cheek resting on the crown of Chuuya’s head and Chuuya’s face hidden in Dazai’s chest, they don’t look like two people who belong in the bloodiest chapters of the history books.
But, perhaps, Double Black doesn't even belong in history books at all.
They don’t belong to the Agency or the Mafia.
They’re too busy belonging to each other.
Now, don’t take him wrong: Kunikida is not renouncing his role as Dazai’s partner. Despite the daily attempt to his nerves, he’s proud of that partnership. He’s just acknowledging something else— something that goes beyond work or friendship or even mortal love.
It’s a love that comes in waves, in whispered words, in hugs.
It’s a love unspoken, a life barely missed.
It’s weird and inappropriate. It’s something to witness, the way the two appear in each other’s smile, even though Kunikida has a hunch he’ll never understand. That nobody will.
Because if Dazai Osamu hides many demons, it’s painfully obvious they are all in love with Chuuya.
“When we’re back home, I want to tie Chibi to the bed~”
“Tie yourself to the bed, pervert,” Chuuya growls. “Let me go. Akutagawa and the Jinko are waiting for training.”
“Hm, no.”
“Let me go, Dazai.”
“Make me~”
“Choke,” Chuuya says, but it’s weirdly affectionate.
Dazai smiles, too, and kisses the top of Chuuya’s head before he allows the other to detangle himself.
Only after Chuuya disappears behind the screen doors that lead to the garden, the brunet seems to be reminded of Kunikida's presence in the room. Kunikida crosses his gaze, and pouts. Dazai smiles instead.
His eyes gleam, and his lips curl into a soft expression he seldom wears in Yokohama. He looks free.
“I was born in Kanagi,” he says.
Kunikida flinches. “Were you?”
“Yes. I don’t miss it, but I grew to think that I would like a house here. A place where I can keep doing good. Start a family.”
His voice is serious and tender — a tenderness Kunikida has never seen before.
For some reason, he can’t bring himself to admit he can’t picture Dazai with a family.
“It’s a nice plan,” he offers instead, adjusting his glasses. His heart is drumming in his chest as if he's waiting for something big to happen. Something important. “I hope you fulfill it, Dazai. I truly do.”
“Would you visit? No matter who I live with.”
“Of course I would,” he says.
“Ah, right, you’d have to check on me like a mother hen~”
“I would do it to support my partner,” Kunikida growls, glancing away. Damn. “Idiot.”
Subtly, Dazai’s lips curl more. His eyes shine, and he slithers his hands in his trench coat’s pockets; his bolo tie seems to glitter under the sun, blue like the ocean. Teal blue, fierce and deep. Somehow, somewhere, Kunikida thinks he’s seen that blue before.
“Ne, Kunikida-kun. Can you keep a secret?”
And here it is, the important secret.
The kind of secret people share when they’re on the threshold between one moment of their life and the next one.
“Of course.”
Dazai smiles.
“…”
“Dazai?”
“Hm,” Dazai drawls, with a grin. “…Nevermind.”
“What!?”
—
“Can you keep a secret?” Dazai thinks to himself, his fingers finding a necklace nestled in between fresh bandages.
A necklace with a silver band, thin and warm.
The exact same copy of the ring rests hidden under Chuuya’s gloves, kissing the skin, hidden from the world.
Such a tiny secret so well guarded, so well hidden.
Something that is only theirs.
I have a family.
And, one day, Chuuya and I will buy a house, in Kanagi or Aomori or Tokyo or wherever we want, and we will be free.
Dazai smiles at the thought.
He relishes in the silence, sends Kunikida one last, grateful glance and follows after his husband.