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The first thing Dazai exchanges with Nakahara Chuuya — a stranger, back then — is a kiss.
Not a greeting.
Not a name.
A kiss.
And it was the best kiss of his entire damn life.
Everybody in Yokohama has heard of the King of The Sheep.
Recounts of his many brawls are whispered like a secret in the city's alleys, as awed witnesses speak of long copper hair, short stature, and an even shorter fuse. His enemies damn his name. Those who know him either whisper of his boisterous friendliness or unmerciful knives.
Some say he’s the only man in the nation who can challenge the Port Mafia's monopoly over Yokohama.
They have known each other’s names since they were teens and could likely recognize the sound of each other’s voices, but have never been formally introduced.
As the heir of the Port Mafia — the yakuza organization lording over every criminal trade in the Kanto region, the most powerful syndicate since the glorious rise and disastrous fall of the Sumiyoshi-Kai — Dazai has happened to cross paths with Nakahara before.
They have exchanged glances in the corridors of the Mori Corp’s buildings occasionally, whenever the Sheep’s leader visited the First Head of the Port Mafia.
To be fair, the visits of a Sheep delegation are few and far between, with their shared trades usually being tended around the docks.
It’s not like Dazai cares about the Sheep, anyway. However, Chuuya doesn’t have the kind of face someone just forgets.
Annoyingly enough, tonight the man is also in Dazai’s same club in Shinjuku, looking jaw-dropping gorgeous and heading right to the VIP table Dazai and his entourage are occupying for the night. For whatever godforsaken reason, Dazai has no idea.
He presses himself against the back of the black leather sofa where he’s been sitting for the best part of the night, a whiff of stale air smelling of sweet smoke and alcohol flooding his lungs as he takes a sharp inhale. Kunikida and Atsushi tense at his sides.
He feels the two men straightening up with every step Chuuya takes, alert, like snakes coiling and ready to bite, but he just waits.
Mori is going to kill him if they pick a fight with the King of the Sheep in a public place. However, the way his heart jumps to his throat has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with the way Chuuya looks.
No one should be allowed to pull off combat boots, a crop top, and vinyl black pants like that.
What does he want from me, now? Flashes in Dazai’s mind, eyes wide and pinned on Chuuya. Then, why is he even heading here?
And, inevitably after: God, he’s beautiful.
His gaze flickers from the belt choker hugging Chuuya’s neck to the rune-like tattoo on the man’s cheek. The ink Dazai knows to be red looks almost black under the pumping lights of the club.
Chuuya’s irises light up with feline satisfaction as their eyes meet, a smirk spreading languidly across dark lips. He looks like a big cat that has locked its prey.
And Dazai expects the redhead to change route at any second, he really does, but Chuuya still heads to him with a few, self-assured strides. There must be a mistake. Chuuya closes the distance between them. He’s too close.
But Dazai is Port Mafia, and the Port Mafia doesn’t run when some cocky lamb challenges them head-on. So he sits his Whisky Sour on the low table in front of him and looks for Chuuya’s eyes, mustering a facade of self-control as he awaits his inevitable demise.
By his side, Kunikida pushes closer to him and Atsushi prepares to stand. They’re ready to attack when a twitch of Dazai’s hand orders them to stand back.
He is not sure what Chuuya is thinking as he curls over him, pushing into his personal space with effortless charm, but the enthralling confidence in the way the redhead catches his chin between a strong thumb and index finger, tilting his head up, mesmerizes him.
And Dazai must be crazy – or he might be more drunk than he realized, that's a very realistic possibility – but he doesn’t escape when the redhead’s mouth hovers over his own. He follows the silent invitation and tilts his chin up, if anything, a whiff of leather-and-mint cologne making his nostrils flare.
On the outside, Dazai forces his expression into nonchalant, above-it-all disinterest. Inwardly, though, he gasps.
Then, Chuuya plasters a kiss on his lips. He kisses him like things were always destined to end up this way, between them, and Dazai folds.
His lipstick feels velvety against Dazai’s lips, deliciously soft, with a sweet taste that reminds him of spring, but his tongue is rough and assertive as it slips past Dazai’s teeth. A split tongue. The new feeling of Chuuya’s mouth against his own — rough and voracious and intoxicating — sends a thrilled jolt down his limbs.
It makes him want to take his time playing with it, but Chuuya is already pulling away before he can make sense of what happened. Dazai has to stop himself from chasing after the kiss, scrambling for an ounce of dignity.
Why is he stopping?
(Ah, right. They were never meant to kiss at all.)
“Nice to see you here, Port Mafia Princeling-San,” Chuuya purrs into his ear, pulling away just enough for Dazai to realize that his heart has stopped beating. The featherlight grazing of Chuuya’s mouth against his own shoots shivers down his spine. “Send the Sheep’s regards to your Boss.”
Dazai hopes the flashing neons bathing the dancefloor with pulsating colors – blue, red, black, white, and repeat – will hide his wide eyes.
Of that first meeting, in hindsight, he will remember black-painted nails and smeared lipstick. Warm fingertips and even warmer lips, as gorgeous as they are generous.
That night Chuuya walked out of a club in Tokyo holding the surrendered heart of the Port Mafia’s heir in his hand, and Dazai didn’t have the time to call him back even though he wanted to. Oh, he desperately wants to.
He stares at the crowd, mouth half-open. By the time he can consider standing up and running after Chuuya, the man is long gone already.
“Ah,” he says.
“...What the hell did just happen?” Kunikida asks. When he turns to Atsushi, shifting square-rimmed glasses up his nose as if the scene punched him in the face, a deep wrinkle crosses the man’s forehead. “Atsushi?”
“I– I have no idea?”
Kunikida curses under his breath. “Shit. We need to call Oda-san. Is this a joke?! A threat?”
Dazai doesn’t chime in. He doesn’t even turn to face his supposed right-hand man and mentee, raking a hand through his hair in disbelief.
His gaze scans the crowd, hoping against hope that Chuuya will come back for an encore.
”—is this a threat?” Kunikida echoes, again, his pitch even higher.
Atsushi shakes his head, eyes so wide Dazai fears they might roll out of his skull. “I have no idea,” he repeats.
“Oi, Dazai, say something! Way the hell was that?”
Even though his jaw unclenches, grounded into his body by the familiar sound of Kunikida calling his name, Dazai can’t find the words to explain.
What the hell indeed. He lifts a hand to his lips.
”…I don’t know,” he admits, after a moment.
All he knows is that he doesn’t mind, to be honest, if a king steals one or a hundred kisses from him.
He’s drunk on the sweet phantom of Chuuya’s lips, on the memory of delicate fingertips tracing his jawbone as if Chuuya is deciding to destroy him or keep him.
He barely hears his friends asking him to explain 'what the fuck is his business with the King of the Sheep,' too stunned to process it.
One more, he thinks.
One more; that’s all he asks.
—
All his life, Dazai never bothered to remember anything or anyone, too caught up in his own tribulations to worry about the world around him.
Most of the time, he simply doesn’t care.
But the way Chuuya looked at him that night? That kiss?
He has a feeling they will haunt him for the rest of his life.
—
From: Atsushi
> What did you do to annoy Nakahara-san?
The allegation that Dazai – the picture-perfect example of the perfect heir to a yakuza family, mind you – might have done anything to annoy Nakahara Chuuya is preposterous. That is, at least, what Kunikida would say.
The simple truth is that Dazai doesn’t know what to make of Chuuya’s behavior, or how to explain the kiss.
He supposed Sheep people made out to greet each other, but Kunikida dismissed the option with a scoff and a long list of examples Dazai didn’t care to listen. Seven days have passed since that night. Now that he’s sober, more or less, he must admit that having the notorious leader of a rival organization kissing him without motive was slightly concerning.
Lannister-always-pay-their-debts, Hail-hydra kind of concerning.
Part of his brain is still trying to register exactly what happened the week before with Chuuya, and the implications of it. If there are any implications at all, that is.
Meanwhile, his colleagues and friends decided to blow up his phone, doubting Dazai and his good faith and the fact that he had nothing to do with the infamous King of the Sheep. They called him horny in several different languages, while at it.
Which is fair.
Dazai admits that he’s thirsty for Chuuya.
But – even though there’s nothing right about this insistent daydreaming, his mind running to the feral glint in those gorgeous mismatched eyes, remembering a tattooed hand grasping his chin so rudely it made him moan – the feeling of it isn’t wrong, either. It’s a wet dream, nothing more. It’s not like he’s going to betray his syndicate and be stripped of his role of future head of the Port Mafia because he spends his lonely nights lusting after Chuuya.
And if he’d face utter destruction any day in exchange for another taste of an enemy’s lips, that’s only for Dazai to know.
To: Atsushi
> Nothing! I swear. I don’t want to be murdered painfully, and that’s exactly what the Sheep does.
> I am *positive* it was a Judas’ kiss!
> Atsushi-kun, I’ll die :’(
And if he’s lucky, he’ll die before today and before those stupid needles can touch his skin. That wouldn’t be too bad.
From: Atsushi
> You can’t die yet!
> Aren’t you excited, Dazai-San?
Yeah, he thinks, thumb hovering over the screen. Excited is certainly a way to put it.
He smiles to himself, eyes flickering to his own face reflected in the rearview mirror. It's such a marvelous day to die, yet he looks terrible: he's hardly the most hydrated person he knows, but he finds himself wondering if the purple eyebags and slightly blue shade of his lips have always been there.
The edges of his lips might be pinched up, but there's no trace of that smile in his eyes.
To: Atsushi
> Chill out, Atsushi. It’s just a tattoo.
Glancing outside of the car’s window, staring at the street rolling by, Dazai sighs.
“Yo, driver-san~” he chirps, leaning forward in between the seats and gently grazing the side of the driver’s seat. His lean fingers look paler than snow against the dark leather, painted a lightless black like everything in the Port Mafia. Even the subordinate driving his car is entirely dressed in mafia black. Ink black. “You reckon we can turn around and disappear?”
“Young master, I beg you. The Boss gave me an order.” The man sighs, gripping the steering wheel with gloved fingers. “You already tried to bribe me five times.”
Dazai grins. “And I can try a sixth, don’t you think?”
The way the black-dressed subordinate almost sighs, pulling over at a traffic light, is nothing short of exhausted. “I suppose you can, young master,” he admits, voice thin.
“Did your answer change?”
The man swallows. “No.”
Ah, figures. Dazai pouts, boyishly crossing his arms over his black shirt as he settles back into the back of the car. His eyes look for the subordinate’s reflection in the rearview mirror, hazelnut irises meeting dark sunglasses. “I don’t understand why you won’t listen and just take me away already.”
“I can’t, young master.“
“Come on. Just tell the tattoo parlor I never showed up? I told you, I’ll pay for your trouble! I’ll be nice and generous~”
“Boss would kill me,” the driver says, a slight tremor in his voice betraying who the man truly fears. Dazai can be quite intimidating, but Mori's scalpel can make a man regret the day he was born.
That ‘would kill me’ is hardly a figure of speech - that is, if the poor bastard is lucky enough. There are much worse fates than death, if one gets creative enough. Yet Dazai can’t muster enough selflessness to empathize with the driver’s struggles when he’s trying to find a way out of his own.
If only that bastard killed me, once and for all, he thinks. Maybe he wouldn’t be forced to sit through months of work for a stupid inking down his back.
“Meanie,” he hums, mostly to himself
When nothing answers him, Dazai leans his elbow against the car’s door. He pushes his forehead against the cold window pane, refusing to acknowledge the driver — or his phone. He wants to roll down the window, but the driver would throw a fit. No doubt, he’d accuse him of trying to escape.
Which leaves him with nothing to do but look at the streets of Yokohama, wondering how the day will go.
When the rain starts tapping against the window an appalled scoff escapes his lips, wondering if this is some deity mocking his miserable mood. What a perfectly awful day. It will take months to outline this stupid tattoo.
And so his ultimate offering to the Port Mafia will be cloaked in blood. Ink and pain will etch the mafia’s future on his flesh, huh.That sounds so cringe Dazai could die.
No one asked him if he wanted to enter God’s green earth as the heir of one of the biggest yakuza syndicates in the nation. No one asked him if he wanted Him to see his so-called loyalty painted on his skin.
Ah, what a bother.
He wishes the Port Mafia could just burn already.
—
“Welcome to Chameleon Tattoos," a voice welcomes him the second he crosses into the tattoo studio, the door chiming cheerfully as he pushes it open. "Please take a seat, I’ll be with you in a second.”
“Holy shit,” Dazai answers, in a croaked wheeze.
Now, this is the moment Dazai Osamu — heir of the Port Mafia and the most unlucky person on the planet — realizes life hates him because the man behind the black lacquered desk of the Chameleon is not a stranger at all.
Matte black lipstick, long eyelashes. Perfectly arched lips crumpled up in a pout. Mismatched eyes: a blue right, almost teal, and a brown left. One of them is a contact lens, even though Dazai can’t quite remember which one, but he swears that the tattooed sclera of the right eye turns darker as Chuuya glances at him from above the register.
His blood rushes in his eardrums, and he licks his dry lips, counting his blessings and his miseries. Funny how they seem to converge, right now. What did he do in his previous life, kick puppies? Just how many Gods hate him? He must be paying for his ancestors’ sins.
Behind the vinyl-black counter of the tattoo parlor, the King of the Sheep looks happy. Younger, less sharp-edged.
His petit figure comes alive under the white lights, an electric creature of a young man with glossy russet hair and bulging muscles peeking out from under Chuuya’s black t-shirt (that’s a solid martial arts training regime and loads of cardio, right there).
On his lips, he wears the same ‘you, me. In the back. Now.’ grin that has haunted Dazai since the club.
Yamasaki-sensei had been talking about taking in a new employee, someone who would look after the smaller designs and piercing requests while Yamasaki worried about the elaborate designs of the Yakuza clientele.
Dazai knew they were hiring. He just didn’t know they were hiring the enemy. But he supposes that, if he’s free to kiss Chuuya, then a Port Mafia-affiliated business is free to hire him too. Isn’t democracy a wonderful invention?
Scowling, Chuuya throws him a glance before returning with his head lowered to the register.
“Take a seat,” he orders, “I’ll be there in a sec.”
Instead, Dazai walks to the counter, drumming his fingers on the smooth surface. “I’d rather wait here,” he hums.
The other doesn’t even look at him.
“Help yourself, I guess.”
And so Dazai does. Subtly, his gaze travels to the leather belt choker wrapped around a thin, sinewy neck that seems to ask for fingers to be pressed into the soft windpipe. He’d choke him well.
He’d steal just enough breath to feel the man arch under his hands, eyelashes closing over the mismatched irises and scleras. Because he heard that the King of the Sheep likes his men handsome and his orgasms rough and, God, Dazai would love to see it for himself.
One day, Nakahara Chuuya is going to die and enter hell as he deserves: head-high and in triumph, kicking Satan in the balls. The little shit is going to dethrone the Devil himself.
Not for the first time, Dazai finds himself thinking that the King of the Sheep is badass. Which is something he is… still working towards, not going to lie.
“Oi, are you okay? Ya have a problem?”
Dazai gawks, a little dumbstruck and a little awed by the way the redhead can be tiny and well-built at the same time. He certainly has a thing for showing skin, too. Not that Dazai minds. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve been staring at me for ages. Do I know you?”
Dazai’s jaw slacks. Chuuya has kissed him, for heaven’s sake! Is he a monster? Is that the skill of a professional torturer?
Because, with those tempting lips and rattlesnake attitude, like he could either make love to his enemy or stab them in the back, Chuuya certainly looks like he could make grown men drop to their knees and beg.
“Chuuya?! You know me.”
“...Do I?”
“And you have my name in the booking in front of you?”
“Hm’m. Let’s see. Dazai, I suppose?” He echoes, making a show of reading down the names listed on the screen. “Dazai Osamu?”
If a man could die of frustration, Dazai would have been murdered several times. But, god, he might get used to how Chuuya says his name; it makes him want to learn if the redhead can moan it, too. “Yes. That’s correct.”
“Hm, nope, doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Chuuya~!”
Throwing his head back, Chuuya explodes in a chuckle. It’s harsh, and it sounds like sand. Scorching-hot, velvet-smooth sand running through his fingers. “I’m joking, I’m joking.” He motions to the back, throwing his thumb over his shoulder. “Come on in, Port Mafia-Prince- san. Boss’s not in today, but I was getting ready for ya.”
There is something about Chuuya getting ready for him that makes Dazai’s brain take flight, but he’s not going to admit it.
He’d die before admitting his mouth is drying out, and that his eye fell on Chuuya’s hips — his tailbone, his ass. Instinctively he stretches his fingers, wondering what it would feel like to touch the tender expanse of skin, so cruelly constricted in the cage of Chuuya’s leather pants.
Damn, he thinks.
Look at him; checking out an enemy of his organization in broad daylight. Fantasizing about things that are not his to want and that, surely, Chuuya will never hand him willingly.
But that ass, so mercilessly exposed in front of him as Chuuya guides him to the back of the tattoo parlor, swaying his hips as if he knows he’s tempting the hell out of Dazai—
Ah.
Maybe he really should drop dead.
Before Chuuya kills him, that is.
—
“The ol’ man is not in, as I already told you, so no inking done. Today is about prepping — and for your information, we’re gonna start from the sleeve. Then the ol’ man will move to the chest until we work our way down your back. But for today we will just go over the design, and see if there are any changes needed and how to divide the sessions in the future. But I might need you to take off your shirt, at some point, so we can check the sketches against your skin and see how it all will look.”
Although Dazai lets out a low humming sound, he is not listening to Chuuya.
In fact, he’d rather ignore the redhead as much as possible, focusing instead on a spiderweb spreading across the northern corner of the room.
The second Chuuya throws in the hypothesis of getting rid of clothes, Dazai’s mind automatically runs for all the possible emergency exits — and the less conventional ways to dip, too. The window might do.
There’s not a chance in heaven that he’s going to be shirtless around this man.
For now, though, he’s leaning against the purple walls of what is said to be room #15 (that, at least, according to the brass number glued on the door. What kind of shop has over fifteen rooms?!), arms crossed over his chest, following Chuuya’s movements as the other spreads a printed sheet on the table.
He knows the specs already. Mori talked him through some of them: a kirin, a carp, and a demon mask.
“Shit,” Chuuya hums, under his breath, as his fingers quickly skid over the paper. “Is this what you’re gonna get done? It’s massive. This stuff is going to take months.”
Fantastic. “I suppose so.”
Chuuya’s chuckle sounds more like a growl. A feral sound. “Oi, now,” he calls, throwing him a glance. “Don’t sound too enthusiastic, or I might think you’re actually having fun.”
“I have nothing to be enthusiastic about.”
“Did you contribute to the design at all?”
Dazai’s head dips to the side. “Huh? What do you mean?”
Chuuya scrunches his nose, hesitating for a moment. He seems taken aback by the question, the light in his eyes darkening.
“The tattoo,” he clarifies, eventually. He measures every word. “It’s going to be on your body. Ink is forever, or at least it hurts like a bitch to get rid of it. So that bears the question: is it something you want, or has someone else decided it for you?”
“Why do you ask?” Dazai volleys back, not daring to answer. Funny how all he wants to respond, with a certain bitter defiance, is: ‘ Do I look like someone who has control over their life at all?’ He doesn’t, because he’s an obedient little soldier.
“Did anybody else ask before?”
Ah, fuck his life.
Chuuya has no right to be handsome and sharp-witted.
“Answer my question and maybe I’ll answer yours,” Dazai replies.
Chuuya shrugs the comeback off as if he didn’t really care in the first place, and Dazai wonders how many fell for the careless act. How many people underestimated Chuuya? “There’s no particular reason, to be honest. Call it curiosity. But this design doesn’t seem like something you’d pick, considering what people say about you.” He gestures at the sketches before Dazai can point out that no one is saying anything about him. He’s forgettable. “Look, a demon is cool. I’m all for demons and No theatre masks and whatnot. But a fish— a koi carp? Fuckin’ hell. That looks like a Mackerel to me.”
“It’s a beautiful piece of art,” Dazai replies, half-heartedly.
“I never said it was ugly. I’m just saying it’s dumb.”
And there are certainly a lot, lot of dumb things going on, Dazai thinks.
Like how Chuuya’s mere proximity makes him feel, for example, stealing his breath and blurring his senses. He wants to taste those lips again.
Every inch of the King of the Sheep’s inked, exposed skin makes him want to scream ‘fuck the rules and fuck me’.
Even as he makes a joke out of the tradition that keeps the Port Mafia at the very apex of the chain of command, the rogue king is unfairly tempting.
He walks over to Chuuya, taking his chin in between two fingers. His touch is more delicate than how Chuuya’s rough fingers felt as the redhead gripped his jaw and stole a kiss from him.
He feels the boy tremble under his grip, and it’s a nice change of pacing from the conversation so far. Chuuya is not the only one who can play the power game, as it seems — and the so-called King of the Sheep is not the only one who can make a man’s head go blank.
As he breathes in, taking his sweet time with Chuuya’s chin trapped between his thumb and index, Dazai’s lips twitch up.
“You certainly have a lot of opinions, don’t you, King of the Sheep?” His eyes gleam as Chuuya’s pupils widen. “What makes you think you can speak so freely?”
It takes Chuuya a heartbeat to take in the question, blinking slowly as Dazai's voice sinks in. Then, he smirks. It's fire and fury and burning, a charming kind of arrogance setting the man's eyes aflame, and its beauty almost brands Dazai like a bruise.
“The fact that you like it.”
“Oh, do I?”
“I think you do, yes, just like you agree that the design over there is a presumptuous piece of shit, just like your organization. But you—” He leans forward, relaxing in Dazai’s grip. “You hate this circus as much as I do. You would run away if you could. You just get cold feet every fuckin’ time, am I right?”
Ah, shit.
There are a lot of things Dazai hates about the Port Mafia, and he has a feeling Chuuya could pry each and every one of them out of his limp, fucked-out-of-his-brains hands. Because Chuuya doesn’t know him, yet he can flip through the pages of Dazai’s soul like a book.
“You’re getting it all wrong, Chibi,” he still lies. “I do not hate my life or my organization. And I don’t appreciate people trying to read my intentions and making assumptions.”
“Bullshit.”
“Careful, lamb,” Dazai purrs, moving closer.
His grin twitches up. “Or what? Has anyone ever spoken to you as I do, Dazai?”
No.
They don’t and they wouldn’t dare. But Chuuya— Jesus Christ, Chuuya is either a reckless idiot or the bravest man Dazai has ever met. He genuinely doesn’t give a fuck.
And suddenly Dazai’s skin feels so raw and so naked under Chuuya’s scrutiny, and he loathes it. He hates the way the other man can peek at his vulnerability, buried deep under twenty-two years of play-pretend perfection.
Chuuya sees him. He sees his ugliness and he sees his weakness.
They are scum, both of them. Garbage.
And everyone knows that garbage burns exceptionally well.
Still grinning, a mad glint in his eyes and a crazy idea blooming in his head, Dazai pushes forward. “I changed my mind,” he drawls, voice thick, a breath away from Chuuya’s mouth. He can dream about kissing him again. “Forget the tattoo. Do something you like.”
Brand me like a bruise. Bite me and draw blood. I dare you.
“Oh?” Even though he smiles, the way Chuuya bats his eyelashes is everything but sweet. It’s sardonic, and it cuts deep. “Is the mafia princeling trusting a commoner?”
Slowly, Dazai’s gaze travels down Chuuya’s body. Then, his fingertips follow — oh so languid, a feathery touch down the redhead’s arms. He traces the ink, the designs, the art that is Chuuya’s body, and wishes it could belong to him. He leans forward, forcing the other to backtrack until he’s caging the redhead between his body and the black wall of the tattoo parlor.
“In a way. We can call it an experiment of sorts,” he agrees, head dipping to the side.
“Why? What are you scheming?”
“Nothing. I want to demonstrate something to myself, and something tells me you have good taste.”
“Just because for some ill-advised reason, you think I like you?”
“I think you do.”
On cue, Chuuya snorts with a little shake of his head. “Hah, sure.”
There’s nothing gracious in his rejection, yet the charming arrogance grips Dazai’s stomach with a delicious mix of want and desperation. It takes Dazai’s entire self-restraint not to step back and call it quits, surrendering to the admission that Chuuya has won the game. Hell, he’s won it the second their lips met for the first time.
Alas, begging was never his forte. So he pushes on. “Yet you haven’t pushed me away,” he claps back, hoping his bluff won’t be too obvious. “You bark a lot but you’re obviously not the kind of dog that bites — and you do like me, for the record.”
Quickly, Chuuya’s split tongue darts out to lick his lips. And oh, how Dazai wants that tongue on him. It’s a need. “That’s ridiculous. I despise shitty hypocrites like you.”
“Does Chuuya eye-fuck all the people he despises, then?”
“Oh, screw you,” Chuuya answers — he laughs harshly, a raucous sound that comes straight from his belly. Still, he doesn’t correct Dazai. “I kissed you once, and I did it because it was fun and I was drunk. What makes you think I would do anything like that again?”
Slowly, Dazai lets out a husky hmm from the back of his throat. “Call it a hunch,” he says.
This time, let it be known that it was Dazai to kiss Nakahara Chuuya; King of the Shrimp, Thief of Kisses.
Despite all the rational signs behind his gesture, half of his brain still dares to be surprised when the other doesn’t shove him away cursing his name.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
The feeling of Chuuya’s silk-soft skin under him sends warm, golden sparks from Dazai’s spine to his fingertips — one hand cradling Chuuya’s nape, open over the redhead’s back.
He’s not entirely prepared when Chuuya fists the collar of his shirt to close the non-existent distance, greedy for something he already owns. Dazai parts his mouth for him— welcoming his swollen, velvety lips and split tongue. The bifurcation makes him smile like a child against the redhead’s lips as he gently pushes the tip of his tongue against Chuuya’s split tips.
With a pleased growl, Chuuya nibbles at his bottom lip and twists the fabric around his knuckles.
The gesture yanks Dazai even closer, swallowing him in a kiss that is nothing but intertwined tongues and nicks and undiluted need.
“Ya know— I always hated your kin,” Chuuya eventually mumbles against his mouth, tugging at the fabric with pent-up frustration.
His voice sounds rough, gravely, each word lost between bites and tiny sighs. With a husky ‘h’m’ to signal that he’s listening, Dazai kisses the man’s cheek. And his jaw. Unexpectedly, the redhead’s sensitive body jolts when Dazai’s mouth brushes against the pale column of his neck, which is undoubtedly a reaction to remember.
“And I’ve always wanted to give you head,” Dazai hums, not untruly.
“I mean it,” Chuuya insists. “Even now, you’re just ordering me around.”
It sounds a lot like ‘but I can’t bring myself to hate this, or hate you,’ although Dazai won’t make assumptions.
He wants Chuuya to admit it out loud.
He wants Chuuya to moan it.
For now, he allows himself a victorious smirk.
“You sure look like you hate the thought of me ordering you around, yes,” he croons, lifting his head back to level his mouth with Chuuya’s. He locks their lips together again without waiting for an answer because, after all, the shivers running down the redhead’s body are telling him everything he needs to know. “So, Chuuya?” He pulls away again, and he swears Chuuya growls a ‘stay’. He kisses his nose. “Yes?” The corner of his lips. “Or no?”
Chuuya doesn’t comment, tugging him in and kissing back with raw need. His thumb brushes Dazai’s jaw, stroking it.
His fingers are always warm, while Dazai’s are always cold — and there is a beautiful symmetry in there, a sense of contrast that coaxes a smile out of him.
This man, he realizes, could be his soulmate or his very worst enemy.
Maybe he’s both.
And, if he thinks about it, Dazai supposes he has a right to be scared.
Fucking things up now terrifies him — and it’s a weirdly human fear, one that catches him off-guard. It’s not his first kiss, but god forbid an adult ever bothered to sit down with him and explain anything about healthy relationships. That’s not how the Port Mafia works.
But then Chuuya nibbles at his swollen lips, the tip of his cut tongue pale against his messy lipstick, and Dazai’s heart decides to leap to his throat. How delicious the King of the Sheep looks, with the cutest blush coloring his face. “So will you be a good boy and let me do anything I want?”
“That’s what I said,” Dazai breathes out, with Chuuya’s breath fanning over his skin and hands deep in auburn locks.
He tastes all kinds of sweets, Chuuya. He never knew what sunlight tasted like before he savored it on the redhead’s lips on a rainy day.
It tastes like fire, and it paints the world red. And Chuuya looks like a daydream, with his lips glossy and hair tousled just enough to make Dazai want to sink his fingers in the wavy strands and tug.
God, he’s gorgeous.
“Anything?”
“Anything.”
In hindsight, maybe Dazai shouldn’t have said that. Not because he doesn’t trust Chuuya — ah, he is dying to be a good boy for him — but because the other pushes him away with a sharp grin stretching his lips. Suddenly alert, his body turns rigid.
He’s about to amend that statement, but the smirk Chuuya flashes at him is alluring enough to silence his worries.
His lipstick is smudged at the corners of his mouth as he licks his lips, and his mismatched eyes shine with mirth.
“Take a seat, Mackerel,” he says, with a happy skip in his voice. “You’re getting pierced today.”
—
So… that’s indeed what Chuuya said.
The thing is, they got sidetracked.
An hour later, Chuuya has barely seen a needle, or a piercing, or anything but the depth of Dazai laughing, gorgeous golden irises.
With the mother of all storms raging outside and a thunderstorm of chaotic feelings inside, Dazai is not sure how that happened.
Chuuya might even get in trouble, if anyone sees him straddling a client’s lap, hands deep in hickory-brown curls and matte black lipstick smeared all over his cheek. They hide all the warm shades of brown, Dazai’s curls — caramel and coffee and cocoa. On his skin lingers the subtlest trace of cinnamon, but his kisses feel like syrup over Chuuya’s reeling senses. Thick, intoxicating. He might get addicted surprisingly fast.
And he forgot all about what he was going to do — Ah. Piercing. Right. — which is never a good sign.
Still sitting on Dazai’s lap, putting some distance between them in an exercise of useless self-control, he combs a handful of dark curls back and pushes them away from the man’s forehead. His gaze flickers to Dazai’s lips. Then, his eyes.
Fuck, Chuuya thinks. Fuck, this is not good. How dare Dazai Osamu look at him with those eyes, like Chuuya holds his beating heart in his hands? What in the hell is this man, going around like he has a right to rattle a man’s world, and put beauty to shame?
How can he part his lips just so, smiling as if it doesn’t dynamite the hell out of Chuuya’s self-control?
“Are you still sure about this, Mr. Mafia Boss?” Chuuya drawls, his voice hoarse from the kissing as he takes a long glance at Dazai’s face. With the tip of his finger, he traces the man’s jawbone. “You’ll get in trouble with your family.”
Dazai beams instead of a reply, hooking his hands around Chuuya’s waist and pressing him closer to his lap, clashing their lips back together.
Ah, fuck.
Chuuya might act cool, but his head is spinning.
Who would have thought? The cutesy Mafia princeling knows how to kiss. They are fierce, Dazai’s kisses, and fearless.
Chuuya chuckles against his lips. He yields under the contact, angling his head to let Dazai’s tongue in his mouth — to suck on Dazai’s bottom lip and nibble at it, dragging a low moan out of the brunette.
How sweet this mouth could taste.
“Seriously,” Chuuya says, pushing him away. Which is an exercise in futility, since he’s on Dazai’s lap. “ I’m not gonna do it if it’ll get you killed or something.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m always in trouble with my family, and I can handle them.”
“Are you? Good to know, then. I didn’t imagine you’d be such a reckless idiot,” Chuuya growls, hands sinking in Dazai’s tousled hair as he kisses him again. And again.
He already sucked a bruise at the base of Chuuya’s neck, savoring every inch of warm flesh. He bites like a rabid dog, Dazai, and tastes like strawberries, leather, and menthol cigarettes.
In passing, Chuuya considers that it’s about time he introduces the Mafia princeling to some real smokes. Shit for grown-ups, and all that.
“Hm. I suppose I don’t care if they get annoyed at me,” Dazai hums, against his mouth. “Not now.” With a scoff, Chuuya tries to laugh off the feeling that Dazai genuinely doesn’t care about life or death. “I must admit, it’s quite hard to think about anything but Chuuya kissing me.”
Ah, what a smooth talker. “Idiot.”
“Chibi,” Dazai breathes out, speaking against his lips.
The purring croon in his voice tells Chuuya that the bastard is enjoying the shiver that he stole from him.
He hates the nickname, he really does.
But the tone — as if Dazai could fuck the animosity out of him with just those long fingers and thick voice of his… that isn’t that bad. Roughly, he tugs at Dazai’s hair, thighs caging the other’s body with just enough strength to hurt.
“Don’t call me short,” he hisses, exposing Dazai’s throat to bite it. “Asshole.”
“Sure, Chibi.”
“Bastard.”
“ Ne, Chuuya,” Dazai hums, drowsy, and Chuuya can feel the vibration of his vocal cords as the man speaks. “Can I ask you something?”
A little flabbergasted, a tch rolls out of his lips. He pecks the soft skin under Dazai’s jaw. “You’re already halfway there, so knock yourself out.”
“Your eyes. Are they…”
Chuuya’s interest darts to Dazai, his shoulders turning rigid as he moves away. “Are ya asking me if my eyes are contact lenses or if I’m a weirdo?”
He’s heard that same question a thousand times before. Mismatched eyes, red hair, freckles? If he were born in the Middle Ages, he would have been burned at the stake practically everywhere in the world for a thousand different reasons. Weirdo. Ugly.
One doesn’t end up leading the Sheep by staying on the right end of the tracks.
But Dazai seems surprised as he adjusts under him — chest against chest, his body solid under Chuuya’s weight.
“I was just wondering how I should imagine Chuuya in the morning.”
‘In the morning and in my bed’ goes unsaid, but Chuuya hears it loud enough. The implication steals a grin out of him.
The audacity of the shitty Mackerel.
He never promised the little Mafia prince they’d ever be anything more than a stolen kiss exchanged between the walls of a tattoo parlor. Dazai has no right to make assumptions, or to be smug about what he thinks Chuuya would do to him.
“Oh? Why would you ever get to see me when I’m just awake? Daydreaming much?”
Dazai’s eyes narrow. Pools of amber and gold, glossy with lust; and it angers Chuuya beyond reason, how the idiot acts as if he’s uncaring or unaware that he has treasures wedged in the masterpiece of his face. “I don’t have to spell out what’s going on here, do I?”
“Hm’m. So the big bad wolf would welcome a Sheep in his bed?”
“I’d hardly ever let you leave.”
Chuuya’s heart hiccups at the possessiveness in Dazai’s dragged-out cadence. “Why?”
“You know why.”
“Tell me anyway. Why I should let someone from your sordid organization take me to bed?”
“Last I checked, you liked it enough how someone from my—” His mouth hovers over Chuuya’s in an almost kiss that leaves him secretly begging for more. “— Sordid organization kissed you.”
Cornered, Chuuya sucks in a short breath.
He allows himself a moment to drown in the implications, in the enticing warmth of Dazai’s breath fanning over his face.
But that’s enough chit-chat.
God knows what he’ll end up doing if he allows Dazai to talk him into a place of what if’s and maybe’s. There’s nothing more dangerous than careless daydreaming.
So Chuuya pushes away from Dazai and trots to the table, his right hand reaching for the needle he’ll need to pierce. He can’t believe Dazai decided to pierce his cheeks, right above his dimples — ah, those damn adorable dimples.
‘Maybe it’ll encourage you to smile more, Mackerel,’ Chuuya teased him. ‘You’ve got a nice one. Smile, I mean.’
See? He’s an idiot and a rotten coward.
And, like the scaredy cat that he is, Chuuya quickly recoils and diverges the subject.
“To answer your question, Mackerel, my eyes are none of your business,” he says, with a sardonic skip in his voice, but there’s less bite than he planned. He returns to Dazai, curling over him and cupping his chin to take a better look at the man’s face. It should be an easy job. “Now, be a good boy for me and relax.” For what feels like an eternity, he’s left waiting for an answer that never comes. “Oi, Dazai. Everything ok? You look–” Chuuya’s eyes narrow, “—pale.”
“Please don’t be nonsensical.”
So he says; and yet, for a moment, as he side-glances at the needle, Dazai licks his lips. All the color has been sucked from his cheeks, and he seems on the verge of backing out, pupils shrinking only just as he assesses the needle that is going to pierce his skin.
Although Chuuya’s not going to call him out on it, he squirms. “That thing looks big.”
Chuuya snorts. “That’s usually my line.”
He hoped the joke would thaw some of Dazai’s sudden stillness, but the side-eye that the boy gives him is everything but relaxed. “I’m serious.”
“And I’m seriously not gonna do it if you start crying on me.”
“No, no. It’s just— will it hurt?”
“Who knows.” Chuuya flashes him a mirthful grin before leaning forward. His lips brush Dazai’s ear shell, teeth scraping the soft skin as he nibbles at the tip of his ear, and a ripple shoots down his back when Dazai’s hands rest on the small of his back. “It’ll bleed,” he breathes out, though, just for the sake of feeling Dazai flinch and melt under his hands and lips. “Stay still for me, Osamu. Behave like a brave little soldier, and I might kiss it better when we’re done.”
—
“Hi, I’m back. Please, tell me we have a truck of wine or I might kill someone.”
It is necessary to notice that, to say that, Chuuya didn’t breathe. He also almost ran right into his best friend’s chest because his feet suddenly forgot how to fucking brake.
Pressing himself against the door of the apartment they share, Albatross allows Chuuya to bullet his way inside and across the living room.
He forgot to take off his shoes, too, and all he needs is a leveling glance from Albatross (his mother. Seriously.) to turn a full 180 degrees and stomp back to the genkan to toe off his combat boots.
When he drops his bag next to the couch, boneless and exhausted, Chuuya can still feel his best friend’s gaze on him.
Moving in together right after high school seemed the right thing to do for two almost-broke best friends, and Chuuya likes everything about their life together – most days, that is.
With Chuuya growing into his role as leader of the Sheep and Albatross’ free trading across organizations, not minding who’s doing what business as long as cash flows in, there’s a decent overlap between their jobs.
As it turned out, it’s much nicer when they can just go over work issues in their living room and with a glass of wine.
However, having Albatross trying to read him like a magazine after the longest workday he’s ever had is something he would have gladly avoided.
He can still feel Dazai in his system.
His name has been etched like a cut on Chuuya’s lips — a knife wound, a sear.
“Huh, hello to you too? Long time no see.”
“Sorry.” He takes a hand through his hair, then covers his eyes. The light pressure grounds him. He exhales. “I’ve had a long damn shift at work.”
“And was it so traumatizing? You look like you’ve seen a ghost, and not in a Look I’m in Ghostbusters kind of way,” Albatross volleys back, though he hardly sounds sympathetic.
Flipping him off out of sheer habit, Chuuya makes a beeline for the kitchen and the cabinet where they store the alcohol. He’s not exactly a fan of random drinking, but, God, he needs it today.
He hears Albatross chuckle as he follows in his tracks, trotting behind.
He seems delighted to hear that Chuuya is still feisty enough to tell him to get lost, and—
Ah.
‘Feisty Chibi’ sounds like something Dazai would call him.
Chuuya wills himself to ignore that wayfaring thought. When he opens his mouth nothing comes out; nothing but a strangled, pitiful sound as if his body is suggesting him to choke on his own spit.
Or on Dazai’s spit.
It should be disgusting, but they have exchanged so much of that that he’s not even sure who his bodily fluids belong to.
He panicked. He panicked because of a goddamn mackerel.
“…I kissed Dazai Osamu.”
Albatross snorts. “Hallelujah.”
“Don’t ’hallelujah’ me as if you expected it!”
“It was about damn time, and you have to admit it. I knew it. Everybody knew it. The damn walls knew it. The only ones who didn’t know it were you and the Port Mafia preppy boy, there.”
“It wasn’t that obvious—“
“It was exactly that obvious.”
“Ugh. If you’re gonna be like that I’d rather be left alone with my wine, thank you and fuck you.”
Smartass that he is, Albatross is still grinning as he shuts his mouth and presses his lips together. Then, he pretends to zip it close and toss away the invisible key.
That gesture would normally make Chuuya laugh, but today? He is too focused on his own mess to allow himself to be even remotely amused by Albatross’ antics.
With a quick gesture, barely glancing at the label at all, he plucks a bottle of cheap red wine from the pantry. Because he’s oh-so-magnanimous, he gets a glass for Albatross, too.
He is taking the bottle for himself because he fucking needs it.
Seeing Dazai to the door of the tattoo parlor (the bastard has an actual driver picking him up! Not a taxi, a driver!) gave him the proverbial butterflies. A whole universe of treacherous butterflies has taken over his stomach and lungs, flapping their tiny little wings; choking him with every breath.
Chuuya flops on a chair with a heavy sigh, bottle in hand.
He runs a hand through his hair, too, tugging at his scalp as hot waves of frustration lap at his stomach.
“This is bad,” he declares, halfway between a sigh and a growl.
“How did it happen? What did you do?” Albatross asks. His voice is quiet as he takes the chair next to Chuuya’s and crosses his legs — as if he’s bracing himself for a very long therapy session.
He doesn’t sound judgmental.
However, what his best friend sounds like matters little when Chuuya is already judging himself and his lack of control.
“He came to the ol man’s shop today,” he starts, grinding out every word with abysmal difficulty. “For his tattoo. Some tacky shit his family imposed on him.”
“Sounds like Port Mafia business, yeah.”
“He doesn’t want it.”
The tattoo. The Port Mafia. Dazai looks like he’d rather die than inherit any of it.
“H’m,” is all Albatross says, more like an acknowledgment than an actual comment.
Before he continues, Chuuya takes a swing of wine — and he makes it generous, the sweet drink sloshing down his throat. The sooner he gets drunk, the better.
“And he looked so worried when he saw the blood—“
Panic flashes over Albatross’s face. “Blood?! Chuuya, he’s the heir of the biggest underground organization in the region?!”
“To be fair, I had just stabbed him…”
“You what?!”
“I mean, with the needle. For the piercing. I didn’t actually hurt him or shit, though the dumbass complained forever,” he amends. Instantly, Albatross’s shoulders sag. The silent relief washing over his face is truly a reply in itself to the question: how dumb is Chuuya, from zero to one thousand? “To make a long story kind of short, he said he wanted something different from what his family asked — and so I pierced him. And kissed him. And we both know that shitty organization of his won’t be happy about either of those things.”
Looking up, his gaze meets Albatross’s narrowed eyes and scowling lips.
As he takes another sip, Chuuya tells himself that he can’t blame his best friend for being worried.
His heart drums in his chest as he looks up like a dog about to meet the heel of a boot. And he feels exactly like he is about to be kicked, too.
By Albatross.
By the Port Mafia.
No matter how hard he tries to do the right thing, it feels like his face just keeps colliding with a metaphorical shoe; no matter what, Chuuya can never predict or stop the hit.
“Say something,” he begs, croaked, looking for Albatross’s familiar face — letting his silver-bleached hair and straightforward advice calm him. “Tell me that I fucked up big time. That I risked my job, and the Sheep’s safety, for a pretty face — tell me that this guy is nothing but a sharp-tongued sack of bandages. Tell me that I’m an asshole. Anything.”
“Chuuya—“
“Tell me I fucked up.”
Albatross’s smirk drops. “Look. This is cute and all, but you wouldn’t seriously catch feelings for a Port Mafia member, right?”
Well. Right.
Thinking about it, he preferred it when Albatross was not asking anything at all.
Without an answer, choking on his pride and idiocy, Chuuya allows his fingers to skim down the bottle. He wants to kill all the butterflies in his stomach and drown them all in wine.
Still, how can he? To hell with that dimwit Dazai.
He certainly knew how to use his tongue, the bastard. Dazai’s long fingers and toothy kisses could make a man fall to his knees, as he took his time working his mouth against Chuuya’s, and he didn’t mean to like it that much, but he did.
Because Dazai looks like he’s a wanderer searching for the meaning of life, and Chuuya has always wanted to be someone’s reason.
And those eyes, like pools of liquid honey, so lost—
“Damn it,” Chuuya says. “Damn it. Damn it.”