Work Text:
Dazai yawned, utterly bored with himself as he leaned against the wall upon which he was chained up. Going through his predictions and plans over and over again as if he were imagining some sort of action anime instead of real life was just about the most he could do to keep himself entertained.
“It’s about time…” Dazai muttered before noticing the sound of footsteps.
“Plotting as usual, are we?”
“I know that voice…” Shit . Chuuya wasn’t supposed to back from his mission in the west for another couple of days. What the hell was he doing back in Yokohama so early?
“Well, this sure is a wonderful sight. Rivals a billion-dollar masterpiece. Right, Dazai?”
Chuuya flashes a wide grin, his bright blue eyes and orange hair making him stand out like a light in the dark dungeon. Dazai tried not to think about what that said about him as a person when he registered his own view as something ethereal, especially considering he himself was literally chained up. He’s taking this encounter with him to the grave, or else he’ll never hear the end of it. Thank goodness nobody could read his thoughts
“So creepy. Just frightening,” said wonderful-sight grimaced, more towards his own train of thought than the man before him.
“I like your reaction. It makes me wanna strangle you,” Chuuya said, amused as he sauntered down the steps towards the detective. Dazai gives him a deadpan look as he makes his way, as if to say keep that sorta talk in the bedroom.
“Still the same old Chuuya,” Dazai laments teasingly.
“Huh?! What’s that mean?!”
The two banter back and forth, simultaneously acting as if they had never seen each other over the past 4 years and as if no time had passed at all. During the usual banter of Dazai teasing Chuuya for his height and hat while Chuuya pointing out that Dazai would probably lose in any sort of physical fight, Dazai set into motion a new plan now that he had to add Chuuya into the equation.
At some point or another, their verbal arguments escalated into a brawl at Chuuya’s demand, which Dazai indulged. He had to get revenge for that unfairly pretty entrance of the executive, after all. If he wanted to show off to Chuuya that yes, he had in fact gotten stronger in physical combat since his mafia days, then that was neither here nor there.
Chuuya ended up pinning Dazai against the wall with his neck in one hand and a knife in the other. Dazai grins, though the reason, my dearest reader, will be left up to interpretation.
All that’s needed to know is that even as the two halves of Soukoku kept on their charade. Chuuya had probably forgotten to order the interrogation room’s cameras to be shut off, meaning that these two have to play up this charade of dancing around how close they actually are, generally bickering and making the other suffer minutely.
“Next time, you won’t be so lucky!” Chuuya said at the end of their exchange, pitching up his voice as he turned around on pigeon toes. Dazai doubled over, nearly losing balance, at the comical sight.
Red-faced, Chuuya rolled his eyes and flipped Dazai off as he left. Dazai waited for a few minutes after to leave, nursing his stomach where he was punched earlier, before deciding the coast was clear enough for Chuuya to no longer be totally liable for his escape.
“Oh hey, welcome home.”
Dazai groaned, hugging Chuuya from behind. He muffled something incoherent as he buried his face into his ginger hair. Chuuya hums, still focused on cooking an edible meal, prompting Dazai to repeat his words in slightly more understandable Japanese.
“How was Yamaguchi?”
“Oi, I never said I was going to Yamaguchi,” Chuuya chides, elbowing Dazai. Strictly speaking, the exact details of any of Chuuya’s mafia work are private and should definitely not just be something a regular civilian with no connections to the Port Mafia should know. Not that Dazai actually fit that description, but legally speaking he did.
“The anniversary of you joining the mafia was nearly a week ago,” the brunette explains. “Chuuya always goes to visit the graveyards before setting off for a week in Yamaguchi around this time. How come you cut your trip short this time?”
“The Boss just so happened to have something that needed to be taken care of at Yamaguchi at the same time I was visiting, so he had me take care of it,” Chuuya pauses before continuing stiffly. “He wanted me to report back on it as soon as possible.”
Dazai hums before leaning to the side slightly, arms still entwined around Chuuya’s torso. “What’s for dinner?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know, detective-san?”
“Oh? I could’ve sworn I was ‘youngest-executive-in-Port-Mafia-history-san earlier. What’s with the sudden switch-up? Is chibi short-circuiting his teeny tiny brain?”
Chuuya scoffs, elbowing Dazai again. “Go change. You still reek of the dungeon… and river. Dazai, why do you smell like the river?”
“Oh come on! That was like three days ago!” Dazai whined as he made his way to the bathroom.
“So, Dazai,” Chuuya said slowly as he set the table, “how was work today?”
Dazai’s eyes flick to meet Chuuya’s. The two share a look for one moment, two moments, three-
“PFFT!”
“HAHAHA!”
Laughter fills the house, and the two break their intense eye contact. They could never truly keep up their masks and acts behind closed doors, not after all the effort both put in to break down the other’s walls of bandages and black holes.
“I think-” Dazai wheezes out between laughs that were slowly dying down to giggles. “I think you would know the answer to that question.”
Chuuya, equally in giggles, responds with, “Geez, sorry I wanted to check in on how you were doing, jackass! Y’know, after you were chained up and beat up and shit!”
“What, was I supposed to fucking- what, safeword? I wasn’t aware that Kouyou turned the interrogation cell into a sex dungeon while I was gone,” Dazai teases, managing to hold down his giggling long enough to maintain a smug grin for approximately one moment.
“You’re making me regret making crab bisque tonight,” Chuuya snorted. “You know damn well what I meant! How was your detective work, Osamu? There, the specifics. You happy now?”
“I’m always happy when I’m with my little slimy slug!”
Chuuya rolls his eyes, resigning himself as he places a bowl in front of Dazai. It’d be too much work to pick out each and every bit of crab in the soup.
“Your coworkers don’t know you were in the Port Mafia, right?” Chuuya asks, closing his book and leaning back to look up at the man he lay against in bed.
“I mean, there’s this really smart guy that might have figured it out,” Dazai answers, looking down to meet blue eyes. “I also told my boss since he has connections to Mori, but that’s about it… Oh wait, I might have also told another lady at some point while we were drinking once or twice.”
“How long do you think the rest of them will take to learn that you used to be in the Mafia?”
A moment passes. “I guess it’s only inevitable that the detective agency and the mafia will cross paths one of these days,” he says, staying on topic yet avoiding the question. Ah, Chuuya notes, he must not want for that to happen, does he?
“I swear, if I have to see you again while I’m on duty,” Chuuya scoffs, indulging in the shift in conversation.
“Yeah, it’ll be the worst if I have to see your ugly face on a job,” Dazai whines. “Though, since you’re always wearing that awful hat of yours, you’d be too short for me to see your face properly!”
“You’re an ass,” Chuuya retorts, unimpressed.
Yes, they are still a tangle of limbs as they lay in their shared bed, insulting each other. Yes, it’s been four years since Dazai left the Port Mafia. Yes, the Port Mafia and the Armed Detective Agency are enemies. And yes, the two knew that the future would only bring more and more complications to the relationship that they’ve hidden away from the world atop the highest shelf they could reach.
But they weren’t called “Devastating Rivals” for no reason. They didn’t stay together even after Dazai’s betrayal by mere stroke of luck. Their bond was only seven years strong, but it would take a lot more than Dazai’s nosy coworkers to cleave them apart (even if one of those aforementioned nosy coworkers wielded a giant cleaver).
“They’ll probably find out next week,” Dazai answers belatedly, closing his eyes.
“Hm? What makes you say that?” Chuuya asks.
“Shh, Chuuya. I need my beauty after a couple of Port Mafia brutes slapped me around in a smelly dungeon today.”
Chuuya rolls his eyes, but puts away the book he was reading and turns to spoon Dazai. “No amount of sleep can fix your smelly mackerel face.”
“You married this smelly mackerel face,” Dazai teases. “You’ve also married this bandage-wasting machine space, this poor excuse for a mafia executive, this-”
“Dreamless sleep cannot come fast enough,” Chuuya groans.
“You love me.”
“And you love me , so let me sleep, Osamu.” he says, pressing a kiss to the brunette. “I no doubt have a long morning tomorrow now that the Port Mafia knows where you went.”