Chapter Text
Once upon a time,
There was a boy who caught a falling star.
The room shook as a train roared past outside the window, rattling the windowpanes and jostling Chuuya on his perch. He ignored it, all too familiar with the disturbance after years of living right next to the train track, and shuffled about on the window seat to better illuminate his project with the shifting afternoon sunlight. It was his habit to practice magic while he worked, a trick to improve his ability to divide his focus, so while he sat and sewed a cloth rose onto the brim of a lavish hat, his supplies orbited through the air around him like a miniature galaxy. Scissors, spools of thread, a pincushion stuffed with needles, spare flowers ready to be tacked on, and ribbons, all kept handily within reach as he sewed, defying the pull of gravity at his command. It was a spell none of the rest of his family had got the hang of, so Chuuya would occasionally work on the hats out in the main shop and let the customers gawk at him. Today, however, he sat in his bedroom, tucked away behind the back facade of the shop. His door was cracked open just slightly, letting the chatter of the clientele filter through into his bubble of peace.
There were only two customers at the moment, both young ladies, and they seemed more interested in gossiping with Chuuya’s siblings than in purchasing anything. They were regulars, who Chuuya knew for a fact already owned far too many hats.
The gossip wasn’t even that interesting. All of Market Chipping had been single-mindedly obsessed with the same topic for weeks, ever since the distant, misty form of the castle appeared in the foothills around the town, lurking above them all. The moving detective agency, a mysterious organization run by a bunch of mismatched wizards and witches, had come to call upon their humble town, and no one would shut up about it ever since. People speculated about what case brought the detectives to them, why they had stayed such a long time, but more than anything else, they spewed countless embellished details of the detectives themselves. At this stage, the fanaticism seemed neverending to Chuuya’s critical ear.
There was the harsh, exacting poet; the deceptively slight farmboy, who could lift an entire cart by himself; the oblivious genius, who people swore got lost in seconds without a guide; the terrifying doctor, who had almost twisted a man’s arm straight off; the kind-hearted boy with purple and yellow eyes, frequently spotted helping little old ladies cross streets. And last but not least, the one who elicited the most gossip of all: Dazai Osamu, the heartless man who, if one believed the rumors, had enough charm to win over any woman in the world, but whose careless manner had shattered the hearts of any unfortunate enough to cross his path.
The man just sounded like an everyday sort of asshole, in Chuuya’s professional opinion. And he had to respectfully doubt the yarns that the customers were spinning out in the hat shop; they had clearly been listening to the most outrageous of rumor mills.
“I heard he devours young women’s hearts!” one of the young ladies exclaimed, dramatic and scandalized. “My ma said not to go out at night, just in case he’s on the prowl.”
“It’s a shock that they allow someone like that in the detective agency, really. Don’t you think, sir?” the other young lady simpered.
There was a pause, in which the two young women waited for a reaction with eager anticipation.
“...Only demons eat hearts,” Ryuunosuke said in a monotone. From years of practice, Chuuya could pick up the faint inflections that meant his brother was puzzled, but it must have sounded utterly noncommittal to their customers. “Humans don’t do that. Why would he eat their hearts?”
“Demons can be men,” Kyouka’s voice joined in, her intonation just as flat as her brother’s. “Perhaps they just meant he’s a male demon.”
“Hmm,” said Ryuunosuke.
“But I don’t think demons eat more than one heart,” Kyouka continued. “So he wouldn’t just keep on eating them.”
“I…I think he’s a human,” the first young lady said doubtfully. “I didn’t hear anything about him being a demon.”
“He can’t be eating hearts, then,” Kyouka said. “Stands to reason. The other detectives would arrest him if he were doing that.”
“Hold on. Maybe he’s very good at hiding his crimes,” Ryuunosuke suggested.
“If he were good at hiding the fact that he eats hearts, we wouldn’t be hearing about it at all,” Kyouka said. “And anyway, they’re detectives. If they couldn’t tell their colleague was eating human hearts, then what good would they be?”
“But he’s also a detective,” Ryuunosuke argued. “So he would know exactly how to fool them.”
“Still doesn’t make sense why random townspeople would hear about his exploits, then.”
“Er—” one of the young ladies tried to interject, rather weakly. She was summarily ignored by both brother and sister.
“Maybe because they move around in that castle all the time, the rumors never have a chance to catch up with them,” Ryuunosuke said.
“Okay, even if that were the case, how would you cover up a string of serial heart-eatings?” Kyouka asked, warming to her subject now.
Oh, the pair of them had slipped into their normal debate roles fast. Chuuya could almost feel sorry for the poor customers bearing witness to it. Driven by some sort of Cain instinct, Ryuunosuke loved to play devil’s advocate whenever Kyouka entered an argument. They could fight about anything, and keep it up for hours when they got going—all the while looking as stoic and unbothered as if they were chatting about the weather.
Chuuya bit his lip to keep a laugh from bubbling up his throat, unwilling to alert the customers to his presence. This was why he had decided to eavesdrop on the shop this afternoon—the shifts had aligned so that Ryuunosuke and Kyouka would be manning the counter at the same time, which was always a recipe for entertainment. Neither of them had what Kouyou called the spark for customer service, with their flat expressions and utter lack of appreciation for fashion. Kouyou held Chuuya up as the shining example of the ‘spark’, because he consistently charmed anyone and everyone who came in the door into leaving happy, having sold them a hat perfectly suited to their face.
Of course, having the ‘spark’ came with its own set of inconveniences. Although Ryuunosuke had his own set of devoted admirers in town, a decent crowd who found his death-glares endearing, it was Chuuya who had half the town dangling after him. Whenever he was absent from the storefront, there were always dozens of customers asking for him, inquiring when his next shift would be, and whenever he was manning the counter, the store filled to bursting with people clamoring for his attention. Sure, it was flattering, but it was equally exhausting. It was a relief to have days like this, when Chuuya could retreat to his room and focus on the other key part of the shop—the hats themselves.
The escalating debate out in the shop cut off abruptly with the bell-chime of the front door opening, gaily announcing a new arrival.
“Kouyou, welcome back,” Ryuunosuke said.
“I’m home,” the voice of Chuuya’s eldest sister sighed gustily. “Not a moment too soon, either. The streets are already quite crowded, and the parade hasn’t even started yet. Good afternoon, Miss Martha, Miss Nancy, it’s a pleasure to have your patronage as always—what brought you to our store on such a festive day as this?”
“Oh,” one of the young ladies said, flustered. “We—we just wanted to ask what Akutagawa thought about that heartless detective from the Agency—but, um, they said that he might be a demon, if he’s eating hearts...”
“Do you think we should be worried, Kouyou?” the other young lady asked, now sounding genuinely tremulous.
Kouyou clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “Ryuunosuke, Kyouka, for shame, scaring the young ladies like that. Don’t worry, my dears, from what I hear, this man Dazai is no more dangerous than any other arrogant, insincere flirt. His collection of hearts is merely figurative. A vile man, to be sure, but not a serial murderer, as my siblings seem to have convinced you.”
The girls sounded relieved, and Kouyou sent them on their way shortly after, encouraging them to go enjoy the revelries.
“Now, really, you two,” Kouyou scolded, once the customers were gone. “When young women are tittering about dangerous men loitering about the town, they are clearly fishing for you to say something along the lines of, ‘You don’t need to worry about anyone like that when I’m here.’ It’s very simple.”
Chuuya barked out a laugh, too caught by surprise to properly suppress it. Because that was the sort of thing that he himself would say to a customer, leaning across the counter and giving them an assured grin—but the mental image of Ryuunosuke trying to pull off something like that was enough to send Chuuya into hysterics.
“I heard that, Chuuya,” Kouyou called. “Lock up the shop, will you Kyouka dear? We’ll be leaving soon. I need to have a word with our spark.”
A set of precise, unhurried footsteps later, and Kouyou swung his bedroom door the rest of the way open and swept inside, a poised hurricane of skirts and bags. She had on one of their most ostentatious hats, one Chuuya was particularly proud of—a rich crimson affair, its brim broader than Kouyou’s shoulders, with a full bouquet of fabric flowers bursting forth from the crown.
Chuuya nodded at her, setting the hat he had been stitching aside on the window seat, and he began to snag his floating supplies out of the air one by one. “Welcome back. Successful trip?”
“Yes, I think we’ll have plenty of supplies for the next fortnight, at the very least,” Kouyou said, dumping several bags down on Chuuya’s narrow bed. “I bought several new sets of clothes for you, as well. Take a look. Are you still determined not to attend the parade?”
“Very,” Chuuya said, short and clipped. “I’ll be interested in celebrating the king’s coronation if, and only if, those royal bastards in Kingsbury get off their asses and find our father.”
“Chuuya,” Kouyou said gently, sinking down on the seat beside him. “You know they looked.”
“Not hard enough, obviously,” Chuuya said, looking away. “Look, it’s fine. You guys have fun, okay? I’ll be here when you get back later tonight.”
“You’re going to go harass Superintendent Ango again, aren’t you,” Kouyou said, raising one judgemental eyebrow at him.
Chuuya grinned at her. “Maybe.”
“Don’t give him too hard a time,” Kouyou sighed. “He’s a minor official, it’s not up to him which cases get prioritized.”
“I won’t give him a hard time,” Chuuya protested, and stood up to rifle through the bags on his bed, an easy excuse not to meet Kouyou’s gaze. “I never give him a hard time. I just want to talk to him.”
“One of your previous ‘talks’ almost got Gin in trouble with her superiors for letting you into the station,” Kouyou said, the admonishment clear in her tone. “Just…try to keep a handle on your temper. For her sake.”
Chuuya let out a huff. “Alright. I know, I will.”
Kouyou rose with the grace of a cat, stood next to him and squeezed his shoulder comfortingly. “We’ll see you after the parade. Do be careful when you’re out, won’t you? That incorrigible detective is still kicking up a fuss all over town. The amount of girls I’ve had to console this week alone, I tell you—! Tch. The man is a public menace. I consider it lucky that you’ve managed to avoid him so far.”
“Oh, come on,” Chuuya said, rolling his eyes. “By all accounts, he only goes after beautiful young women—I think I’m quite safe from his wiles.”
Kouyou gave him a meaningful look. “Yes, well, you are young and beautiful, you know.”
Chuuya just laughed, and shoved her out of his room. “Go take Ryuunosuke and Kyouka out on the town, they deserve the day off,” he said. “I’ll go directly to the station, and then come straight back. Stop worrying, it’ll be so quick that no sleazy detectives will have the slightest chance to break my heart. And if anyone does try anything, you can have whatever’s left of them to exact your vengeance, because I’ll have already ripped them a new one.”
Despite his confidence when talking to Kouyou, Chuuya did take some preemptive measures before he left the hat shop for the station. The whole town would be out on the streets today, celebrating the coronation of the new King Fukuzawa, and with the amount of admirers Chuuya had amassed, if he wasn’t careful his trip to the station would be bogged down by men and women alike who found themselves emboldened by the jubilant atmosphere of the parades.
Luckily, Chuuya had thought ahead and gone to the shop down the road owned by the Tanizaki siblings—neither of whom were interested in Chuuya, for reasons he didn’t want to think too hard about. However, that meant they could be trusted to make up the illusion charm he wanted.
Chuuya slung the little cloth pouch around his neck, and watched in the mirror as his appearance changed. It wasn’t anything dramatic, nothing that would hold up if someone was extremely familiar with him, but it turned his long red braid into a subtle brown, and muted his blue eyes to a dark, misty gray. Chuuya wasn’t oblivious enough to think it made him less attractive, per say—brown hair was perfectly attractive, as far as he was concerned—but it made it so that he wouldn’t be quite so immediately eye-catching. He had been told that his natural hair could turn people’s heads from half a mile away, and today that was the opposite of what he wanted.
Satisfied with the effect, Chuuya pulled on one of the new shirts Kouyou had bought for him, a loose and billowy thing in a blue that would bring out his eyes perfectly, were they not currently an illusory gray. Still, he liked it. It framed his collarbones nicely, he noted critically, and it went well enough with the choker that Kouyou was always telling him wasn’t fashionable. He tucked the shirt into his high waisted trousers, crammed his father’s hat over his curls, and gave the mirror his most threatening glare. Good. He looked like someone who could, and would punch a man’s lights out, even with the flowered hat. The hat stayed, no matter what. It was his armor.
Chuuya cracked his knuckles and turned away from the mirror. And now it was time to go do battle.
The street outside was a riot of color and sound after the quiet of the hat shop, and Chuuya sidled along the edges of the crowds with his hat angled down to avoid catching anyone’s eye. Even though the parade itself hadn’t begun yet, the cafes and bakeries of the town had opened up their storefronts to sprawl out their seating onto the cobblestones, and there was a general air of revelry that Chuuya couldn’t help but scoff at. Ordinarily he would be more than happy to join in on the festivities, but he couldn’t stomach celebrating the coronation of yet another king, one who would no doubt be just as useless at finding his father as the last had been.
So he ignored the laughter, the shouts of delight, and headed for one of the dark alleys that branched off of the main streets, intent on leaving the merriment behind him. For a brief moment he thought he heard someone exclaiming about a white tiger, calling for people to come see, and Chuuya half-wished to turn around to satisfy his pang of curiosity, but he shrugged it off. It was probably a paper mache replica of a tiger, not a real one. He wasn’t going to be sidetracked from his mission so easily.
He ducked into the alley and paused, letting out a breath of relief at escaping the crowds. He might be used to being around large groups, but that was within the context of the hat shop. This was a little much, the uncontrolled press of other people around him almost suffocating, most of them taller and unmindful of his presence. It felt better to be able to exert himself around other people, make them aware of him despite his comparatively small stature. However, he couldn’t do that today; the whole point was to be discreet.
Chuuya set off at a brisk pace, and took several turns down into darker backstreets as he mentally plotted out his route to the police precinct office. People rarely came back into these half-forgotten passageways, preferring to keep to the lighter paths through the town, but Chuuya had learned them well when he was still a teenager, back in his prickly years when his father and Kouyou had been the only people he could stand.
He had not gone far down his path when he was brought up short by a pitiful yowl coming from somewhere above him. Chuuya stopped and looked up, squinting his eyes in the darkness to try and make out the culprit. There was a paltry amount of light in the back alleys of Market Chipping, with how close the brick posteriors of the towering townhouses pressed together, but Chuuya managed to spot the crying creature; it was a calico cat, perched some ten feet above him on a rather narrow ledge. Perhaps it had walked along the building, reached the end and realized it couldn’t turn around. The cat yowled down at him again, even more plaintive this time.
“Oh, dear,” Chuuya sighed. So much for not getting side tracked. “Stay there, little one, I’ll get you down.”
The cat mewed encouragingly, shuddering on its ledge. Chuuya pulled at his magic, letting it shape into the levitation charms that were his specialty, and his shoes lifted off the ground. He let himself float up till he was level with the cat, and gingerly reached out his arms towards it. He was a little out of his depth—he knew how to win over humans, less so animals. He hadn’t ever had much experience with cats in particular. But surely if he approached it slowly and carefully, it would warm up to him.
No such luck. The cat shrunk away from his arms, bristling.
“Well now, that’s not very nice,” Chuuya reproached the creature. “What were you yelling at me for if you didn’t want me to rescue you, hmm?”
He reached out again, and it skittered sideways on the narrow ledge.
“No, no, don’t do that, you’ll fall!” Chuuya said, exasperated. “Look, nothing to be scared of, I’m moving so slowly! Come on, work with me here, cat. What, do you have some problem with me floating?”
“You have to admit, it’s a bit of an unusual sight,” a wry voice said below him. “Although personally, I find it more intriguing than alarming.”
Chuuya looked down. Below him stood a man, a festival attendee by the looks of it; he had a gaudy, oversized coat patterned with pink and blue diamonds draped over his shoulders. A brunette man, with deep russet brown eyes that danced up at Chuuya with amusement, and a shining sapphire dangling from one ear, his short curls tucked back to frame the earring tantalizingly.
Alright, so the man was pretty. However, his looks weren’t enough to offset Chuuya's instinctive irritation at the man’s mocking tone.
“Need a hand?” the man asked, infuriatingly casual.
Chuuya shot a deadpan look down at him. “Can you levitate?” he asked.
“Hmm. Nope,” the man hummed.
“Then how the fuck were you planning to help?” Chuuya snapped. He turned back to the cat, determined to ignore the man.
“Oh, I don’t know. Moral support? Encouragement? I’ve been told I have quite a way with words.”
“Good for you,” Chuuya said flatly. “But I don’t give a shit. I have this entirely under control. Go away.”
“Are you sure? Ah, you almost had it that time! Why are you trying to catch the poor creature, anyway? Surely the beast can get down on its own.”
“It was crying as I walked past,” Chuuya said, sending another glare at the persistent, talkative man. “So apparently no, it can’t get down. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“Perhaps it was merely overcome at the neverending darkness and turmoil of this existence, and felt no other recourse but to lament its fate out loud,” the man suggested, still not leaving. “An impulse I am overcome with frequently, so I have full sympathy with the little thing.”
“Dramatic bastard, aren’t you,” Chuuya said.
“Incurably so,” the man agreed cheerfully. “I say, you seem somewhat familiar. Have we met before, oh savior of cats?”
“I highly doubt it,” Chuuya muttered. He would have remembered someone this annoying, and anyway, he still had the illusory charm changing his appearance. Any casual acquaintance wouldn’t be able to recognize him like this, which meant the man’s words were likely an empty platitude. “Does that pickup line work for you often?”
“You’d be surprised,” the man said, but he sounded a little absent, like he was actually wracking his memory. “Hmm…are you sure—?”
“Look, I’m in a hurry, and your ‘words of encouragement’ are obviously not helping in the least, so could you just— OW!” Chuuya cut himself off with a shriek. The cat had reared back and raked its claws across his outstretched hand, and the pain broke his grip on the threads of his levitation spells, dropping Chuuya out of the air. Aware that he couldn’t pull them back together while in freefall, he squeezed his eyes shut and braced himself for the impact.
However, instead of the ground, he fell into the arms of the man below, who stumbled a bit under his weight but managed to stay upright. The man had one arm under Chuuya’s back and the other hooked under his knees—and wasn’t that just the cherry on top of an already horrendously embarrassing situation.
“Oof,” the man wheezed. “Quite heavy for your size, aren’t you?”
Chuuya caught his breath and immediately whacked the man in the shoulder. “It’s muscle, you—wait, where did the cat go?”
The man blinked up at the empty ledge that the cat had been trapped on, then looked around. “Ah. See, I told you it could get down on its own.”
He pivoted on his heel so Chuuya could see, and there was the cat, sitting safely on the ground at the mouth of the alleyway, tail flicking sedately as it stared back at them.
“That little menace!” Chuuya spluttered in fury. “All that fuss, and it could have gotten down at any time?”
“Did a number on your hand for your trouble, as well,” the man remarked, looking down at Chuuya’s bleeding hand which was resting on the stranger’s chest. Chuuya promptly snatched it back, flushing slightly.
Then the man glanced up to get his first proper look at Chuuya’s face, and he let out an audible gasp. His eyes went wide with a swirling tempest of emotions, the most prominent of which were disbelief, and wonder.
…Which wasn’t exactly an unfamiliar reaction for Chuuya to be faced with, but he was supposed to be in disguise.
Except that when Chuuya looked down at himself, his braid had turned back to its natural, bright red. Had the charm come off in his fall? But no, it was still hanging around his neck, he could feel the cord against his skin. That was odd, the Tanizaki siblings didn’t usually do such shoddy spellwork that their charms would break after less than an hour of use.
Damn it, there went his plan. He would just have to be extra careful on the way to the station so as to not get waylaid any more than he already had.
In the meantime, the annoying man was still holding Chuuya in his arms and staring at him in a daze.
Chuuya shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny. “What?” he demanded. Act natural, that was the ticket. He didn’t want to explain to a stranger why he was altering his appearance. “Something on my face?”
The man blinked and shook himself out of whatever strange state he had been in. “Nothing, it’s just…” he trailed off, then grinned in a way that filled Chuuya with an urgent need to punch him. “You’re far more beautiful than I was expecting. Especially for someone so tiny!”
“Especially for—what the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
“Well, I almost didn’t notice the rest of you, you know? I was so distracted by that hideous hat—”
“ Excuse me?! Are you trying to pick a fight, asshole?”
“Now, now, would you really fight your savior?” the man teased, still with that infuriating grin on his face. “Such ingratitude! Without me here to catch you, you might have been wounded! Maimed, even! Never to recover!”
“I’m not that fragile,” Chuuya said, refusing on principle to admit that yes, it would have hurt if the man hadn’t been there to catch him. The bastard was far too irritating to indulge. “Now put me down!”
“Hmm,” the man said, hefting Chuuya in his grip. “Maybe. If I do, will you tell me your name? Or shall I keep calling you the almighty savior of cats?”
Alright, that was enough of that. Chuuya wrenched one leg up and kicked it hard into the man’s arm, and simultaneously slammed his elbow into the man’s side. After a blurred moment, the man was doubled over, wheezing in pain while Chuuya stood over him with folded arms and a boiling glare.
“When I said to put me down, it wasn’t a request,” Chuuya said icily.
“Noted,” the man said, a little strangled. “My apologies, you are clearly far more rabid than I gave you credit for.”
“I’ll show you rabid, you little—” Chuuya began in a growl, then cut himself off, eyes catching on something behind the man’s back. “Hold on. What are those?”
The man turned around to look, and let out a sharp curse.
Chuuya hadn’t noticed them arrive, but there were now things in the alleyway with them, blocking the end that Chuuya had come from. They were hard to see, seeming to be partially made of shadows, but now they were emerging from the walls, peeling away into hunched, half-melted silhouettes with whiskers and long tails, but also with long humanoid limbs—
“ Rats?” Chuuya hissed, backing away from them. “Rat people? What the fuck—”
With a deep sigh, the man stepped between Chuuya and the growing horde of shadow-rats, cutting off Chuuya’s view. “Well, that’s unfortunate. He found me earlier than expected. Hey, mister savior of cats? Run. They may not have associated you with me yet.”
“What? What are you talking about, what are those things? They’re after you?”
Then one of the rat people slid out of the building wall closest to them both, grabbing at Chuuya’s arm, but quick as a flash, the man tugged Chuuya out of the way.
“Scratch that, they’ve associated you with me,” the man said, a cold look entering his eyes, all traces of light humor gone. He wrapped his hand around Chuuya’s and began to run, yanking Chuuya along with him. “Change of plan! We’ll have to escape together.”
Behind them, the creatures surged forward to give chase, and that’s when Chuuya decided to stop looking at them, because the way they moved was horrible, fluid in a way that no structure with bones would be able to pull off.
“I would very much like to know what we’re running from!” Chuuya yelled as they sprinted down the alleyway together, taking a sharp turn into another.
“They’re servants of the Rat of the Wastes,” the man called over his shoulder. “You’ve probably heard of him, at least.”
Chuuya’s blood ran cold. Fyodor Dostoevsky, the so-called Rat of the Wastes, was a malevolent sorcerer who had been on the run from the crown for years. Almost everyone had heard of him, the man’s reputation had turned him into a bogeyman used to terrify small children; he was a horrifyingly intelligent magic user rumored to have more than a thousand loyal servants. Chuuya ran faster, gripping his hand tighter around the man’s sweaty palm.
“I didn’t think his servants were actual rats,” Chuuya said between gasping breaths. For every two of the taller man’s paces, Chuuya had to run three just to make up for the bastard’s longer legs, and it was already beginning to wear on him. “Or whatever the hell those things are, ugh. I thought that was just a nickname for his followers. Anyway, why are they after you?”
“My colleagues and I have been trying to flush him out of this town for weeks,” the man said, taking another turn down an even narrower passageway.
Their pounding footsteps bounced up the walls around them and towards the sky, and Chuuya wondered if they should be trying to keep quieter. Did those rat things have working ears? Did boneless shadow creatures have eardrums?
“Today was supposed to be the culmination of our efforts,” the man continued, breathless. “But it would seem my calculations failed to account for a fashion disaster trying to wrangle a hell-spawn of a cat. Best laid plans and all that, I suppose.”
“You’re one to talk about fashion, jackass,” Chuuya growled. Then the rest of the sentence surrounding the insult sunk in. “Wait. You were actually trying to draw out the Rat? Who are you?”
The man glanced back at him with a strange expression. “Dazai,” he said. “Dazai Osamu.”
Chuuya’s common sense briefly fizzled and died, and his mouth opened without his permission. “The flirt?” he blurted out.
In his mind, of course, he was thinking of all the things he had heard about Dazai at once, and reeling. Dazai Osamu, the heartless detective? The man alleged to eat or break women’s hearts, depending on who you asked? This was the man? This was the asshole people found so charming? This was the man whom Kouyou warned him was an incorrigible flirt?
So of course the only thing to make its way out of his mouth was the most embarrassing accusation available to him. Because today was just not his day.
The man— Dazai —let out a choked noise that might have been a laugh, and tugged them down another alleyway, shoulders shaking. “Well, some aspect of my reputation precedes me, at least,” Dazai gasped, still stumbling along at a decent pace despite his mirth. “Although I’ll admit I was expecting to be a bit better known for being a wizard detective.”
“Oh, fuck off, of course I know you’re one of the detectives,” Chuuya snapped. “I haven’t been living under a rock. It’s not my fault I’ve been hearing more about your dalliances than about your work—from how you’ve been working your way through the young women in town these past two weeks, I’m rather surprised you have any time for detective work at all!”
“I’m surprised I have to tell this to someone with a face like yours, but flirtation can be a very effective form of interrogation,” Dazai shot back. “And as it happens, I am the only one in the agency who can manage it. I was gathering information, not that it’s any of your business .”
“I never said it was my business! Although I could rightfully say it is, now that you’ve dragged me into whatever the hell—oh, shit.”
They had run into a dead end. The alleyway came to an abrupt halt ahead of them, and there were no other side streets off of the lane. Chuuya whirled around, but the rat people must have been keeping pace with them the whole time they were running, because they were already spilling out of the walls behind them, lurching forward across the dirty cobblestones, stretching out uncanny, goopy fingers.
“Well, this is a conundrum,” Dazai said, running his free hand through his brown curls. “I had rather hoped Atsushi or Ranpo would have located us by now. Ah, well. You can levitate, right?”
“Yes,” Chuuya said, pulling Dazai to the end of the lane and giving the side of the building cutting them off a measuring look. “Hang on, I can launch us—”
But then Dazai dropped his hand, and stepped back. “No can do, I’m afraid,” he said, fluttering his now freed hand with a grin that didn’t reach his eyes. “You won’t be able to work your magic if you’re touching me. I’m a walking anti-charm, anti-jinx, anti-magic in general, really. You’re going to have to escape on your own, hatrack. I’ll distract them.”
Chuuya stared blankly at the detective. He had never heard of a wizard like that existing. He shook himself—that wasn’t important right now, the rats were circling them, creeping closer like they were testing the pair. “Yeah, no, not happening,” Chuuya said, giving Dazai his most caustic glare. “I’m not leaving you behind to get torn apart by shadow rats. Does your anti-jinx or whatever have a radius of effect?”
Dazai opened his mouth, closed it. “...It’s only effective through touch,” he said, looking bewildered. “But even if you were touching me through my clothes, it might still—”
“Put on your coat,” Chuuya said, walking over and wrangling Dazai’s arms through the sleeves when the man didn’t start moving immediately. “There. Now keep your arms down, and for god's sake don’t wriggle about. I need to focus.”
Then, just as one of the rats grew bold enough to lunge at them, Chuuya grasped the collar of the oversized coat, careful not to touch the back of Dazai’s neck or his hair, and launched himself up into the sky, dragging the detective along with him. They flew up out of the alleyway and over the rooftops, the rat-people growing tiny and distant beneath their feet. Chuuya’s breath hissed out between his teeth. That had been far too close.
“...You do realize how stupid this looks, don’t you?” Dazai asked, voice odd, like he was biting his lip to keep from laughing.
“Shut up! It’s working, isn’t it?” Chuuya said, arms shaking with effort. He was strong, but dangling the whole weight of Dazai by the single point of the collar wasn’t easy. He was lucky the fabric wasn’t tearing under the tension. He looked about for a place to land somewhere closer to the main streets, where those rats wouldn’t be able to chase them unnoticed. “Where are your colleagues? Should I take you to them?”
“Honestly, I think this particular mousetrap might be a bust,” Dazai said with a despondent sigh. “I’ll have to make my way back to the extraction point, but first…where were you headed, hatrack? I’ll escort you there.”
“I don’t need an escort,” Chuuya said crossly, drifting them both down to land in one of the more bustling streets. He thought it was one that the parade was going to travel down, later. They drew a few odd glances, but by and large people were too engaged in the festivities, or too drunk with glee and liquor to notice a few people dropping down out of the sky, even if one had the other by the collar. Chuuya dropped Dazai the last meter or so, but of course the bastard landed on his feet, although he let out an indignant squawk at the rough treatment.
Dazai turned around, looked up at Chuuya narrowly, and reached out a finger to prod at Chuuya’s boot. In an instant, Chuuya felt his magic leave his body with a strange whooshing sensation before he dropped with a yelp, landing against Dazai’s chest for the second time that day.
“You little shit!” Chuuya raged, scrambling to get his feet under him and shoving Dazai back a step. “The fuck was that for?!”
“You dropped me,” Dazai said, folding his arms across his front like a child. “I could have twisted my ankle. After being such a dashing knight and saving me, too—you were so close to being a true prince charming, oh powerful savior of cats.”
“Oh my god, stop calling me that,” Chuuya groused, turning away. “My name is Chuuya, little good it’ll do you.”
“Chuuya,” Dazai repeated, so quiet and contemplative that Chuuya glanced back, frowning.
“Yeah?” he said.
Dazai shrugged, pulling another irritating smile onto his face. “Nothing, hatrack. But really, I would feel better if you allowed me to escort you wherever you’re going—after all, it is my fault that those rats saw you with me. As a member of the agency, it would be rather a poor example if I were to leave you alone, only for them to come after you again.”
Chuuya looked at him, trying in vain to get a read on the man’s features. The bastard seemed to have about a dozen different masks layered on top of each other, like a damn onion. “Just professionally, then?” he asked sharply.
Dazai tilted his head to the side. “Eh? As opposed to what?”
“You have a reputation in town, as I believe I’ve already mentioned,” Chuuya said. “I have no intention of indulging any of your flirtations.”
A light of mischief entered Dazai’s eyes, and he drew suddenly closer to Chuuya, tilting his head up with a finger beneath his chin. In an instant, his expression became something intent, heavy-lidded and sultry. “Chuuya,” Dazai said, drawing his name out in a low, deceptively careless drawl. “Trust me, you would know if I was flirting with you. Do you want me to show you the difference?”
Chuuya leveled him with a distinctly unimpressed glare. “Gross. People actually fall for that?”
The smolder froze on Dazai’s face, and the detective broke, devolving into a mess of laughter. “You know, they usually do,” Dazai giggled, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes. “Gods, Chuuya, you are quite the contrary little runt, aren’t you?”
“Shut up about my height, you fucking beanpole,” Chuuya growled. “And I’m not a contrarian, I just happen to know the game you’re playing very well.”
Dazai’s face lit up. “Why, could it be? Are you a con man? The hero who so valiantly rescued me from the Rat, a criminal!” he exclaimed. He looked absurdly delighted. “Is that why you’re in disguise? Are you on the run from the law?”
“What? No! And why do you look so happy about that, you’re a detective,” Chuuya hissed. Then he remembered his disguise charm, and looked down at himself in surprise. “Wait. My hair…”
It was back to brown. The illusion was working again, but…his hair had certainly been red earlier, when Dazai caught him, and when they were running through the alleys together…
Except, now that he thought of it, the charm must have been working when Chuuya was landing them amidst the crowded street, because no one had spared them a second glance. If he had been undisguised, one of his admirers would have recognized him, and they would have been swarmed. But he couldn’t understand why the illusion would keep switching on and off like that.
He looked up at Dazai then, a realization sparking. “You! Have you been disabling my charm every time you touch me?”
Dazai grinned wickedly. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s possible to disable your charm, hatrack—”
Chuuya groaned. “Stop. That was terrible.”
“—But if you’re talking about the pouch hanging around your neck, then yes, I have,” Dazai admitted. “I told you, I’m a walking anti-charm. I can’t control it, I’m afraid.”
“Well, all the more reason for you not to escort me to the police station,” Chuuya said, crossing his arms irritably. “I don’t need people to see my hair flashing brown to orange everytime we bump into each other.”
Dazai paused. “...The police station? Are you sure you aren’t a criminal, Chuuya?”
“Very sure,” Chuuya said, rolling his eyes. “Why the hell would I be delivering myself to the police? I just need to ask the superintendent about something. I’m well known around town, alright? The disguise was to avoid getting waylaid by anyone along the way.”
“Ah. I see that didn’t go well,” Dazai mused. “Well then, I see no reason why you shouldn’t drop your disguise and walk with me instead. As you so bluntly remarked earlier, I’ve accumulated quite the reputation for myself about town—no one will try to approach you if you’re seen on my arm.”
Chuuya looked down at the detective’s proffered hand, and regarded the man through narrowed eyes. “Why are you so insistent?” he demanded.
Dazai sighed, retracting his hand slightly. “Look, you’re overthinking this. I simply don’t like to owe debts to people, and you rescued me from a sticky situation when you could have just saved yourself. Even if it was in an awfully undignified manner. The least I can do, for the sake of my own dignity, is make sure you don’t get jumped by a bunch of rats on your way to the station.”
That…made more sense than Chuuya was willing to admit. Sure, the detective still looked reticent, like he wasn’t sharing the whole truth of the matter, but maybe his face was just like that. And Chuuya wasn’t exactly thrilled about the idea of running across those things again, let alone by himself. So he pulled the cord of the disguise charm off and over his head, stuffed the pouch into his trouser pocket, then hooked his arm through Dazai’s with a resigned huff.
“Fine,” he muttered, taking the lead and towing Dazai along through the crowd. “It’s not far, anyhow.”
Dazai sighed again, this time with relief. “Wonderful, so the hatrack can be reasonable,” he said airily, keeping pace with Chuuya.
True to Dazai’s word, despite the confused stares they garnered with Chuuya walking undisguised next to him, the crowd parted around them without a single person trying to stop the pair to talk. Everyone seemed a little apprehensive of the detective. Dazai, for his part, kept a casual air about him, but on closer inspection Chuuya could see him scanning the street carefully, eyes flickering to the alleyways they approached and tugging Chuuya away to give any larger patches of shadow a wide berth. It would appear that the man wasn’t just a flirt, and was actually taking his role as a bodyguard seriously.
“You know, you’re not quite what I expected,” Chuuya said, considering the taller man as they walked.
“Oh? Falling for me already?” Dazai teased.
“Hardly,” Chuuya snorted. “But I was expecting an everyday sort of asshole, and I have to admit, you have your own unique brand of bullshit.”
“How cruel,” Dazai sniffed theatrically. “For my part, when I heard about the agreeable redheaded hatter who has half the town wrapped around his finger, I was expecting someone a little taller, and a lot less foulmouthed.”
Chuuya’s pace stumbled. “You knew who I was?!”
“I only just put it together, actually,” Dazai said, snickering at him. “I am a detective, you know. I realized that if you’re so well known that you would resort to a disguise just to walk around town, I had probably heard of you. The hat might have tipped me off earlier, but then again, we were rudely interrupted by the Rat.”
“Yeah, and I might have put two and two together about who you were as well, if I hadn’t been distracted by that damn cat,” Chuuya muttered. “Quite the horrid luck we both have.”
“Children of misfortune are we,” Dazai said, pressing the back of his hand to his forehead like he was about to swoon in sorrow. Then he dropped the pose and continued, more seriously: “Which is why you ought to be careful when you’re going home today. The Rat doesn’t often involve civilians in his games, but you don’t want to be the unlucky exception. Avoid the shadows.”
Chuuya shifted uncomfortably, resisting the urge to grip Dazai’s arm tighter. “I’ll be fine,” he said, with more confidence than he felt. “I’ll go over the rooftops on the way back, if you’re that worried. I usually avoid using my magic so much, because it feels showy, but I suppose it’s better to attract attention than get jumped in an alleyway.”
“Yes, I think that might be best,” Dazai said. “Ah. And this is your stop, I believe?”
Ahead, between the riotous displays of boutique stores and cafes of the main street of Market Chipping, the police station was tucked away, drab and solemn compared with its neighbors.
“Yes,” Chuuya said, dropping Dazai’s arm and stepping back. “...Should I tell the policemen about the shadow rats in the alley? Do they already know about Dostoevsky?”
Dazai shrugged, sending his dangling earring swinging, twinkling in the daylight. It really was a very dazzling blue. “Tell them if you want, but there’s not much a local precinct like this can do against a sorcerer like Dostoevsky,” he said. “They know about our operation, and have given us free reign to conduct our investigations. Other than that, they won’t get involved.”
“Right,” Chuuya said, hesitating. “...What about you, will you be alright until you find your colleagues?”
“Why Chuuya, could you be concerned?” Dazai gasped, eyes sparkling. “For my humble wellbeing? My hero!”
“You know what, never mind!” Chuuya snapped, turning his back on the laughing bastard and storming towards the door of the police station. He could feel his ears burning under the cover of his hat. “I don’t give a shit, have fun fighting your damn rats.”
Dazai’s laughs subsided into a few quiet giggles, then—
“Chuuya,” Dazai said, and his voice was softer. “Thank you for saving me. Really.”
When Chuuya glanced back, the detective was gone, already vanished into the crowd.