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"—and then I had to bribe Michiko-san with sake and yaki fugu so that she would stop letting foreigners trade in our area. It's strange. The old lady was more impressed by food than the threat of violence."
"Why is it that you always get the most exciting missions, Odasaku?" Dazai rests his chin in his hand as he watches his friend take a sip of his scotch. "Do you need me to lend you some money then?"
Oda's brows lift as he turns to him. "Why would I need that?"
"Well, yaki fuga isn't exactly economical for handymen like —" Dazai's words get cuff by the tedious buzzing of a phone. His phone, to be precise. With a sigh, Dazai fishes the thing out of his pocket and considers letting it ring to enjoy a few more peaceful minutes with both Odasaku and Ango, but the punishment for being neglectful on the job is always more bothersome than the work itself, so he eventually just answers. "Yes?"
"D-dazai-san, it's I-Iwasaki. A subordinate of your partner. I'm calling because there's t-this problem with Nakahara-san—"
"What problem? Is he dead?"
"N-no! He's just — uh," the grunt's voice drops several volumes until he's nearly whispering, "Nakahara-san seems to be very, um, inebriated and making a scene and—"
Easy.
"Just take away the wine, and he'll leave by himself."
"The thing is, he, uh — he keeps using his ability? And he won't let anyone touch him, so I-I don't know..."
Dazai taps his finger against the crystalline-surface of his glass before bringing it up to his mouth and downing it in one go. Then he says, "I'll be there in ten minutes" and hangs up, tired of the annoying and dreadfully inept whining on the other end of the line. He gives each of his two friends a look. "I have to go."
Odasaku tilts his head. "Everything alright?"
"Oh, yes. It's just my partner."
"For the sake of everyone here," Ango grumbles, touching the bridge of his nose, "just get him home instead of involving all of the mafia in the spectacle, will you?"
Shrugging on his coat, Dazai smiles. "And where would be the fun in that?"
—
The picture when he enters the bar that Chuuya always hangs around at is worth more than a million yen painting. Chuuya's face-planting the disgusting bar counter, even drooling a little while a bottle of wine floats in the air above him just in time with the rhythm of his fingers that are tapping against the counter. The other mafiosi in the bar are either gawking in comical horror or awkwardly pretending like there's nothing wrong. It's actually very funny how much you can get away with when there's an executive title around your neck.
"This is pathetic," Dazai greets his partner, sliding to his side and poking his tacky hat, "even for you."
Chuuya lifts his face only to glare at him, though it loses its zest when he hiccups loudly. "That idiot Iwa-Iwasaggi called you?!"
"Of course. Who else would bother taking care of this—" He flicks Chuuya's strawberry-flushed, freckled nose. "— drunken mess?"
Sloppily, Chuuya slaps his hands away. "A lot of people! Imma have you know I could have gone home with one, two, three—" His feeble attempt at counting gets cut off by the shrill sound of a bottle crashing to the floor. For once, the red liquid bleeding into a puddle among the shards is not blood. Chuuya blinks at the mess he's made, long lashes fluttering. "Oops."
"Come on, princess," Dazai grabs his collar, tugging him to his feet, "time to go home."
"You're such a—" Hiccup. "— party popper," Chuuya grumbles.
"And you're a walking tragedy."
"Who me?!" Chuuya glowers at him with the force of a thousand furious suns, stumbling into his side in the process. "I'm not the one who's an emo here!"
"Only the stupid drunk who can't handle his booze."
"I told you it's my metabolism!"
Dazai doesn't bother telling anyone goodbye or apologizing for the broken bottle or Chuuya's embarrassing behavior — the owners of the bar know who they are. Everyone inside does. They might as well have trashed all of the liquor inside and still not get a peep of protest. It's as amusing as it is boring, which is why Dazai chooses to spend his free time in bars that do not belong to the port mafia. After all, it's best not to mix pleasure with business, right?
By the time they reach Dazai's Bugatti, Chuuya's a bit worn out and a tad more submissive, sliding into the passenger seat without any complaints before letting his head rest against the seat, closing his eyes and sighing with his full chest.
He must have had a tough day, Dazai muses idly as he gets behind the wheel and slides the key into the ignition. Chuuya drinks often, but he only lets himself get trashed like that when he's either upset or pissed off — or both — and his emotions mostly ever skyrocket when work is involved — that, or Dazai, but it's been dully civil for the last two days, so he's, for once, not to blame. A traitor probably, or the death of one of his poor subordinates. Nothing gets Chuuya cranky like the blood of his own people.
"Mine or yours?"
"Mine," Chuuya mumbles after a few moments of consideration. "Your fridge is always fucking empty, and I'm hungry as shit."
That's fair.
They drive over the streets in relative silence for a while, but soon enough, once they reach a specific part of the road, he feels Chuuya grow more energetic before he releases a quiet whine and kicks his feet up like a child. "C'mon mackerel," he huffs, "do the thing!"
Dazai would drag this out until Chuuya begs, but he's bored and as fond of this little ritual as his partner, so without another word said, he steps on the gas and watches the number on the cruise control rise exponentially. There are still quite a few civilian cars on the street, even at one in the morning, and Dazai revels in their submissions when they let him pass through even though it's both dangerous and illegal. But that is the fun in it.
Chuuya rolls down the window and nearly sticks half of his body through it, letting out a loud, animated whoop as they fly over Yokohama's streets. When Dazai swerves into the right lane, the one that will bring them to Chuuya's penthouse, he all but falls back inside with a flaming grin on his lips.
"Don't puke into my car."
"I won't," Chuuya says proudly," but if I do then Imma just make it float out of the window. Easy!"
"You're revolting."
"Says you. Now floor it, damn it!"
—
Dazai has to keep a hand on Chuuya's back the entire way up to his apartment because the little idiot insists on taking the stairs but doesn't take into account that he trips over his own feet with every step. Once they finally reach the door, Dazai lockpicks his way in, then guides Chuuya inside who has pretty much melted into him.
Dazai grips his hips. "Do you have any idea how much trouble you are?"
Chuuya slouches back against his chest. "No. Tell me..."
Leaning down to chibi's ear, Dazai murmurs, "So much."
"Cry me a fucking river," Chuuya replies, though the breathy pitch in his voice is more telling than his words.
Dazai's smile stretches. "I'll do you one better and bleed you an ocean."
"Stop waxing poetics Shitzai." With a soft huff, Chuuya pushes away from him and stumbles through the foyer to his kitchen. The walls of his penthouse flat are covered in morbid, colorful paintings that were each hand-picked by Chuuya himself, even if most of the reasonings for his choices were "that looks dope." For an eighteen-year-old, Chuuya's tastes are extravagant and filthily expensive. Dazai suspects Kouyou is partly to blame for that.
Chuuya opens his fridge. "Look at all these chickens."
From what Dazai can see, there are about five boxes of thai leftovers, and Chuuya eagerly grabs all of them before stuffing them into his fancy pink microwave. Dazai watches wordlessly, bracing his elbows on the kitchen island. He could go home, lie awake in bed all night, but Chuuya's trashed, entertaining for now, and Dazai could use a bit more blackmail material for the next few weeks.
Chuuya quickly grows bored of waiting for his food, as restless as ever, always needing something to do, so he takes a step, then another, and ultimately he ends up on the ceiling, grinning down at Dazai with a shit-eating expression because he knows precisely how much Dazai loathes it when he does that.
"Really, chibi?"
"What?" Chuuya asks and slaps a hand to his chest, faking his innocence. "The view is nicer up here. I don't have to see your stupid face the normal way."
"You'll end up tripping and falling again."
"That was because you idiot touched — don't you dare." Chuuya points a warning finger at him when he pushes off the counter towards him. "Do not touch me."
"You hardly leave me with any other choices."
Instead of answering, Chuua flips him off and runs off like a child. Except that he's on the ceiling, and it looks disturbingly strange even though Dazai should be used to it by now, given how often this situation happens these days. The microwave finally dings. There's a loud crash in the other room.
A moment later, Chuuya emerges, rubbing his elbow, and he shuts Dazai up before he even opens his mouth. "Not a word, Jerkzai. I..." He shakes his head vigorously and hiccups. "... miscalculated my landing."
"You miscalculated your alcohol tolerance as well."
Grabbing his food, Chuuya shoots him a glare. "Well you miscalculated... your, uh... presence here! I'm home now thanks to you. You can leave. Be on your fucking way."
"I'll leave when I'm positive you won't accidentally trip and die."
"I'm not the one falling into rivers in my free time!"
True, but... "Do you really want me to leave, Chuuya?"
His partner has several stages of inebriety. Right now, he's in the grumpy one—a lot of attitude, sass, snappy insults. But soon... soon he'll enter stage flirty before finally succumbing to his peak. Needy.
Chuuya tears his eyes from the curry chicken he's devouring to glance at Dazai, his glassy gaze narrowing before he makes a face and looks away again. "Yeah!" he exclaims, stabbing a piece of broccoli with his fork. "I'll be fine without you! Super fine. Totally fine! Incredibly 100% fine!"
Dazai shrugs. "I don't want to ride all the way home today only for you to end up calling me and begging me to come back again."
Chuuya's cheeks flush, flaming red. "Like I would!"
"It did happen before," he points out, "in case your memory needs a refreshment."
"That was — it was one time!" Chuuya stuffs rice into his mouth and chews angrily. "Probably the lowest point of my fucking life."
"I mean, you went low, but I wouldn't call it the lowest point—"
"God, shut up," Chuuya screeches before shoving a box of fried noodles towards him. "Here. Eat this and shut up. Thank you!"
For once, Dazai humors him, picking up a pair of chopsticks lying around on the table and digging in. By the time he's halfway through the dish, Chuuya's finished with this third box and leaning back on his hands with a content sigh. "That... made me really happy."
Dazai shoves his box away, feeling too full to be any happy about it.
"'m tired now.." Chuuya mumbles then and flops on his back like a dead slug with a yawn that dangerously tugs on Dazai's heartstrings. "I should just sleep here..."
Fighting an unintentional smile, Dazai gets up and wraps his fingers around his wrists before pulling him up. "You have a perfectly comfortable bed that costs too much to ignore it, hatrack."
Chuuya makes a sleepy, bedraggled noise as he lets Dazai pull him to his feet, half-lidded eyelids fluttering closed and open several times. "My floor is perfectly comfortable too, and so is everything... else here," he grumbles, half-slurring.
"Don't you want to cuddle your twenty pillows?" Dazai guides him to his bathroom with two firm hands on his sides. Don't get the wrong idea; in reality, he's just doing this for himself. If Chuuya slept on the floor, he'd wake up with back and neck pain and spend the next twenty-four hours complaining that Dazai would have to listen to. No, thank you.
In the bathroom, Chuuya bumps his hips into Dazai. "I'd like to cuddle something else."
"How about you brush your teeth first?"
"Okay mom." Grouchily, Chuuya grabs his toothbrush before squeezing out a generous amount of paste on it and... missing. He lets out a low curse and tries again.
"Need some help with that?"
"Nope!" After a second fruitless attempt, combined with a stumbling step to the side, Chuuya succeeds and shoves the toothbrush into his mouth with the passion of a burning sun. While Chuuya seems to be determined to brush away his gums, Dazai busies himself looking through the extensive collection of lotions, hair products, and oils on the shelf. There's a noise of protest behind him when he grabs an interesting-looking cannabis seed oil mask.
Dazai turns, raising a brow. "What? Don't be greedy."
"'m not —" Chuuya somehow gets out with his mouth half-closed and paste in it before spitting it out into the sink. "— greedy. Just don't want you trying to get high on it."
"One might hope that after three years, you'd have a little more trust in me."
"Three years with you are exactly why I don't trust you Shitzai." Chuuya half-hiccups, half-burps, and makes a grimace before continuing brushing his teeth, all while holding Dazai's gaze. Leaning against his sink, he lewdly flicks the brush with his tongue before shoving it down his throat, deep, to places that certainly go beyond his teeth. He does it flawlessly, too. His gag reflex was trained away somewhere between lessons with Kouyou's girls and long, sleepless nights with Dazai.
Dazai just watches him, bemused. Chuuya's drunken attempts at seduction have always been very creative, ranging from accidentally spilling red wine all over Dazai's pants to wearing the blood of the hostages they've been working on like smeared lipstick around his lips to deepthroating a toothbrush, apparently. Sometimes Dazai's weak and succumbs to his partner's insatiable appetite. Other times, Chuuya's too mindlessly drunk and Dazai too sober.
"Chuuya," he says lowly, making it sound like a purr, "as much as I appreciate the sight of your talented mouth, I am not fucking you tonight."
It's silent save for Chuuya pulling the brush away with a wet pop. His innocent expression shutters into a passionate scowl. "I was just cleaning my tongue you pervert."
"Uh-uh."
Chuuya releases a wry huff and leans down to wash out his mouth. It's quiet as the chibi pulls his hair together into a loose ponytail and slaps some fancy cream on his face; then, with a look in Dazai's direction, he shrugs off his jacket and starts unbuttoning the vest underneath. After several fumbling attempts, a frustrated hiss escapes him, and he turns to Dazai like it's his fault that he's so drunk he can't even properly undress. "Can you—?"
"Now chibi needs my help, huh," Dazai chides but obediently invades his personal space, gently pushing his hands away and going to work.
"Don't let it get to your head bastard..."
"I wouldn't dare." Dazai finishes with a breath and tugs off Chuuya's vest. "Here. Need me to your shirt, too?"
"Yeah," Chuuya grumbles.
There's only the sound of their breathing and the occasional car horn blearing somewhere in the distance, but the silence is sticky-sweet and familiar it feels like poison sometimes. Dazai's never had this kind of intimacy with someone. It feels decisively odd, wrong, to be this comfortable with another person when his nerves burn with alarm every time it happens, and yet it's unavoidable given their circumstances, being thrust together by Mori every chance they get. Dazai has learned to accept this bond; sometimes, despite all odds, he even catches himself longing for it like an abandoned animal yearning for a home even though it knows how improbable the chances are. It's sick. Human, he figures.
When Chuuya's shirt is off, carelessly tossed on the floor — something Chuuya will blame Dazai for the next morning — he half-jumps to his room while getting out of his unfairly tight pants that look like his second skin rather than, you know, pants. He makes a show of waltzing to his bedroom, perking out his ass and twisting his hips this way and that. Admittedly, Dazai has a certain weakness to Chuuya's ass... it's only natural when it's this juicy. But right now, it makes his chest fill with fond warmth rather than heat.
"Whatever should I wear?" Chuuya muses aloud, standing in his walk-in-closet. "That red lingerie set you bought me for my birthday...?" It was a joke at the start, until, it, well, wasn't. "Or maybe the black one I ordered last week?"
Dazai chuckles. "How about the maid costume you wore for Halloween?"
"Don't be silly. That'd be too uncomfortable to sleep in!"
Obviously.
Chuuya disappears deeper into his closet and spends three excruciatingly long minutes in there before finally coming out. In a plain, oversized shirt.
Dazai's shirt.
He doesn't even remember losing it at Chuuya's, though maybe that was the little slug's plan, to begin with. Chuuya tilts his head, a smirk stretching on his face, as he ever so slowly comes closer to where Dazai's sitting on the bed until he can stand between his thighs.
"Aren't you going to say something Shitzai," Chuuya mumbles, sounding pouty, like a little brat. "Offer any wistful remarks?"
"Nice shirt," Dazai offers.
"It is." Chuuya places a hand on his shoulder, naturally gravitating closer without even realizing it. "Stole it from some stupid bastard a few months ago. You don't happen to know him... do you? He goes by demon prodigy?"
"That does ring a bell."
"You should ring my bell," Chuuya bluntly says.
"And you should sleep off your bender."
"That's boring," Chuuya argues and plants two of his hands on Dazai's chest before climbing in his lap, straddling his hips. "I know you want me. No need for lying Osamu."
Dazai grabs his chin, holding it in place. "Look at you, being a needy little brat. Did nobody ever bother to teach you some manners?"
"The sheep probably don't even know what that word means," Chuuya breathes out, his fingers curling in the fabric of Dazai's button-up. He's too drunk right now, too worked up, but Dazai can't help but notice that he lacks the usual pitiful pitch in his voice he gets whenever talking about the merry band of misfits he was in. Good. "Whatever do you know about that anyway?"
Chuuya's also too distracted to notice Dazai tightening his grip and flipping them over so that he ends up towering above him. "More than you," Dazai murmurs. "So listen to me for once and go the fuck to sleep."
"Don't tell me what to do!"
"Why, you seem to like that otherwise—" Dazai catches the fist coming his way with a grin, tutting. "That's not very nice."
"And you're not very not annoying!" Chuuya hisses through his teeth. "I hate you. I hate your stupid face and your stupid brown hair. I hate everything about you."
"Keep telling yourself that, and maybe you'll believe it one day."
"I already do!"
For a moment, they just stare at each other. Then Chuuya's glower slowly melts into something softer and more delicate; he withdraws his hand, letting his head fall back against the cushions. "Am I not attractive anymore?" It's quiet, spoken like a secret that's never supposed to see the light of the day, and it leaves Dazai utterly baffled, devastated, for a single instant.
"What?"
Chuuya looks away. "You don't want me and," his chest rises and falls with his breaths, "the only reason this ever happened in the first place was because of the sex so you don't think I'm hot anymore right?"
Dazai's smart. He knows things. And even though most of the time people overestimate the extent of his knowledge, which ends up being more powerful than his brain itself, that little skill is hard to deny, especially put together with Chuuya, his partner, the person he's spent one way or another the last three years of his life with, Dazai should know him in and out.
Chuuya has never, not once in his shortened life, ever showed even the slightest amount of insecurity over his looks. Put bluntly, he doesn't have to. He has a lovely, gorgeous face, a flawless body he works on every day, and silky hair that gets more treatment than some people do in their entire life. Dazai's positive there is a fan club just for Chuuya somewhere in the port mafia. Chuuya's anything but not attractive.
Dazai didn't know this.
And the fact that Chuuya — so stubborn on insisting he's always fine and never showing the cracks — Nakahara is genuinely entrusting this little doubt to Dazai shows either how drunk he is how deep their partnership actually runs, deeper than the blood pumping through both their veins. It makes Dazai's head spin.
"Chuuya," he murmurs, and he cups his cheek to make him look at him — only because Chuuya's drunk, he tells himself, only because he won't remember any of this either way. "You are the most gorgeous thing I've ever laid my eyes on." Chuuya's half-lidded, glassy eyes flutter. "And I will strip the skin of your body inch by inch if you ever repeat that I said that."
"Then why...?"
"You're drunk."
"So?"
"You wouldn't get it up even if you tried, and I'm not in the mood to go to sleep with blue balls."
Chuuya's brows tug into a whimsical frown. "You're a jerk. Jerkzai. Shitzai. Idiotzai. I really despise you."
"But do you really?"
Groaning, the little chibi smacks him in the face, shoving away, and not having expected that, Dazai rolls to the side as Chuuya crawls under his silk sheets with a quaint pout on his lips. "Yes. Good night."
"Good night, chibi."
Dazai lets out a breath and gets up to grab a bottle of water from the fridge that he places on Chuuya's nightstand alongside with a couple of painkillers. The expression on Chuuya's face has softened into something peaceful, so he assumes he's already passed out, but when he moves to leave, a hand wraps around his wrist. Like everything about his partner, the grip is firm, but not insistent, a silent question uttered like the phantom of lips against skin.
Chuuya doesn't say anything because he doesn't need to. —
Dazai doesn't say anything as he slowly gets into bed beside his partner because Chuuya's drunk and Dazai's tired, and this is nothing, and there will less unwanted feelings and emotions if they pretend it never happened. In the silence of the room, Dazai wraps himself around Chuuya's body until all the cold places become tenderly warm and listens to his breathing slowly even out with time. Eventually, he sleeps, too.