Chapter Text
──── PART 1 ────
Ever since Dazai had been a little boy, it had felt like he had been carrying a deep grief in his heart. He had never found a reason to justify that emptiness, and nothing he ever did managed to fill it. He wasn’t sure if he would ever learn to live with it or if the weight of it would one day bury him alive.
Was there a way for him to get rid of the gaping hole on his chest? Would he ever find what he was missing? It didn’t seem possible; not after twenty six years of roaming around the earth desperately searching for something unknown.
Waking up in an empty apartment, Dazai tried to push the thoughts to the back of his mind. He had a job to do, and there was no room for existential dread while he was out there playing the hero.
In the fire house, he was the young reckless firefighter who didn’t think before he acted. He was the one making jokes to lighten the mood and overshared about his sex life at the least appropriate moments. He had a role to play, he couldn’t ruin the only stable thing he had in his life by revealing more of himself than anyone could handle.
“Look at this,” Dazai practically shouted as he entered the station, fashionably late. He shoved his phone in Fukuzawa’s and Kunikids’s faces, uncaring about the conversation he had most likely interrupted. “Don’t these look good?”
Their captain only nodded with his usual polite smile while Kunikida openly cringed as Dazai kept swiping through the photos.
“What am I looking at and why would you force me to look at this first thing in the morning?”
“You’re causing trouble already, kid?” Kouyou asked as she made her way towards them, taking a peak at his screen and joining Kunikida in cringing.
“Ha, you may not appreciate my good looks but we’re about a week away from submissions for the Hot Days, Smoldering Nights: Men of the LAFD wall calendar and these” —he pointed to the collection of photos on his phone— “are getting me a place in it.”
“Do you really need to use that whole title? You could just say that idiotic, reductive, sexist calendar that insults the dignity of this organization,” Kunikida pointed out, impressively, in one breath.
“Yeah, that’s not any less words.” He gave him the cheeky smile that always made the other man look like he was about to smack him.
“Kunikida, come on, it’s for charity.” Fukuzawa’s voice surprised them all.
“No, captain, you too?” Kunikida turned to him with a mix of exasperation and betrayal.
“Well, why not? Just because I’m fifty it doesn’t mean I can’t participate in things like that.”
“The second divorce is really hitting you, huh?” Kouyou questioned, never one to be hesitant about teasing their captain. “Either way, you’re both wrong. I think sorority houses all across the nation are ready for a new female sex symbol. 2019 is gonna be the year of the gays.”
“I think it’s great. You know? I like that you’re both going for it,” Dazai said with a faux sweet smile, earning a light smack on the arm from Kouyou.
“Oh, because you don’t think that we stand a chance?”
Dazai protectively cradled his arm in front of his chest. “I didn’t say that! I mean, sure, let’s be real. They are only picking one candidate from each station and I am the—”
“Okay, that is a beautiful man,” Kunikida interrupted the conversation, pointing towards the locker room (that for some reason whoever had built it had decided it had to have glass walls).
Kouyou’s eyes followed Kunikida’s hand, visibly widening when they found what he was pointing at. “Where’s the lie? And I like girls.”
That was enough to make Dazai turn around to see what they were staring at. There, behind the glass walls of their locker room, was the most gorgeous man Dazai had ever seen. Longish ginger locks tied in a low ponytail, a side profile envied by the Gods and —why was Dazai still looking?— a chest and abs that definitely put his to shame.
By the time Dazai had finished staring at him, the guy had (thankfully) finished changing into his uniform and started making his way towards them.
“Who is that brat?” Dazai asked loudly, forcing his gaze away from him.
“Who are you calling a brat?” The voice that came out of the arguably petit man was deep and husky. Dazai’s eyes flew back at him.
“Chuuya Nakahara, new recruit,” Fukuzawa started talking, completely ignoring the sudden tension in the room. “He graduated top of his class just this week. Several stations were fighting to have him but I convinced him to join us.”
“What do we need him for?”
Before Chuuya got the chance to finish gaping at Dazai in disbelief and reply, Kouyou rushed ahead with introductions. “I’m Kouyou, this is Kunikida, and the actual brat of the house is Dazai.”
The three of them laughed as they exchanged handshakes, Dazai pointendly keeping his arms tightly by his side. He felt their captain’s gaze burn the side of his face when Chuuya stood in front of him with his arm outstretched and he begrudgingly reached forward to shake his hand. Chuuya smiled as he gripped his hand unnecessarily tightly.
“Chuuya served multiple tours in Afghanistan as an Army medic, earning himself a Silver Star,” Fukuzawa continued, putting his hand on Dazai’s shoulder once Chuuya had stepped back, almost like he was afraid he would rush forward to attack him. “I think he’ll be a great addition to our team.”
Dazai wasn’t sure why they needed an addition . It had taken him a while to adjust to the whole working as a team thing, but things had been good in the past few months. Even if there were still members of their crew that didn’t take him seriously, for the most part, he had started feeling like he finally belonged somewhere. He wasn’t into the idea of some new guy upsetting the fragile balance he had fought tooth and nail to create.
Kouyou and Kunikida certainly didn’t share the same sentiment, rushing ahead to invite the guy upstairs to the loft where the kitchen and what they called their ‘hanging out area’ were located. Dazai’s initial urge to run away and hide in the bunk room to sulk was defeated by his even stronger urge to learn as much information as he could about this new guy. There had to be something wrong with him, and Dazai was going to discover it sooner or later.
Considering that the bell rang not even five minutes after he settled down on the couch with his book, the perfect distance from their dining table where he could pretend to be indifferent about the new guy but still eavesdrop on the conversation, it seemed like it would have to be later.
“9-1-1 what’s your emergency?”
“Yeah. You gotta send someone to Hector’s rim and tire shop. My boss fell on the nozzle of the compressor and he’s blowing up.”
“So, silver star, huh?” Kunikida turned to Chuuya once they were in the engine.
“Yeah.”
Dazai didn’t miss the strained smile on his face and the way the man tried to keep his gaze to the window. It would have actually been quite hard for him to miss it considering that Kouyou had pushed him to sit crumpled right across their new member when they were entering the engine with a conspiratorial smile on her face.
“Did you save a platoon or something?”
“No, no, nothing like that.” Chuuya seemed to be forcing himself to make eye contact with him. “Uh, just a convoy.”
Kouyou, much better at picking up social cues than Kunikida, jumped in to save the situation, “Chuuya, have you heard about the hot firefighter calendar?”
Dazai sent a glare at her for that, gaining a grin from the woman.
“Sorry, the what ?” Chuuya seemed genuinely confused.
“It’s for charity,” she informed him, which didn’t really seem to clear up things for him but made everyone laugh. “If they’re going to go for a guy they could at least go with an actual good looking one and not a scrawny kid.”
Although she accompanied the comment with a teasing wink, Dazai couldn’t help but get uncharacteristically annoyed at the situation. (What was wrong with him?) While he had certainly been a scrawny kid once upon a time, training to become a firefighter had quickly changed that. And if anything—
“I’m surprised they let you become a firefighter. What are you, 4’11?” Dazai said a bit more aggressively than he meant, breaking the pleasant atmosphere. He could feel Fukuzawa turning to glance at him from the front of the engine.
“5'3, and you should know there aren’t height requirements to join the LAFD.” It didn’t sound like it was the first time Chuuya had to answer that. Dazai only felt bad about it for a second before opening his big mouth once again.
“Do people ever call you ‘Nakahara’?”
“Not if they want me to respond.”
“Well, we usually go by last names here, we can’t call you by your first name.”
Chuuya turned to Kouyou, who had certainly not introduced herself by a last name. “I can’t tell if he’s being serious or not.”
“I like to always operate under the assumption that nothing he says is serious.” That gained a laugh out of Chuuya. Dazai kept his mouth shut for the rest of the ride to the scene.
“The air nozzle is embedded in his ass cheek,” the employee leading them to their patient informed them. “I shut it off, but I was afraid to move him”
“Hector, can you hear me?” Fukuzawa crunched down next to the blown up man who gave him a slight nod. “Alright, hang in there, sir.” Their captain then turned to address Dazai, Chuuya and Kouyou. “Let’s get him on his side. Maintain pressure on the wound.”
The four of them moved the distressed man and Kunikida rushed in to take a look at him.
Dazai read the label of the machine and informed them, “It’s a hundred pounds per square inch of air pumped through his entire body.”
“Breathing’s shallow, heart’s racing.” Kunikida started his assessment. “Air has filled his stomach, his chest, even behind his eyelids. I’m more concerned about the space around his heart and lungs.”
Their captain nodded and turned to them with new instructions. “Chuuya, start a nasal cannula. Kouyou, get him some morphine.”
“It’s like trying to inject a needle into stone,” Kouyou said, quickly followed by Chuuya adding, “The pressure is pushing everything out. I can’t even get air through the nostril.”
“Jugular venous distention, tachycardia, hypotension, diminished breath, we’re looking at tension pneumothorax.” Kunikida sent a concerned look at Fukuzawa.
“The air pressure is collapsing his organs. We need to get in there and drain the fluid. Dazai, I need you to get a 14-gauge angiocath. We need to start decompressing the pleural cavity.”
“Alright, alright.” Dazai quickly grabbed the angiocath and kneeled by Hector’s side.
“Want me to help?” Chuuya, who was still hovering over the patient's head, asked.
“I got it.”
“Hang in there, Hector,” Fukuzawa encouraged him as Dazai prepared for the insertion.
“I’d go lower,” Chuuya stopped him.
“What? No. Second intercostal space. Midclavicular line.” Dazai pointed where he knew he had to make the insertion.
“The chest wall is thinner at the fifth intercostal at the anterior axillary line. There’s a decreased chance of injuring any vital organs.” Chuuya turned to their captain. “I’ve treated guys with collapsed lungs in combat.”
“Go ahead,” Fukuzawa seemed to agree with him.
Chuuya turned back to Dazai, gesturing to the angiocath. “Let me?”
Despite Chuuya’s professional attitude during the entire conversation, Dazai couldn’t help but get pissed off at being disregarded like that. Nonetheless, it wasn’t the time for him to be petty. He handed it over without even glaring at him.
“Thank you.”
See? Dazai could be mature and professional.
“Can you help me out with the shirt?”
Okay, scratch that. Dazai might have been professional —he did proceed to unbutton Hector’s shirt— but he wasn’t that mature, some glaring might have happened as he watched Chuuya quickly and efficiently save the guy and then get congratulated by everyone. The only thing Dazai had been allowed to do on his first day as a probationary firefighter had been breaking a door and climbing a tree to get a cat down.
The rest of the shift continued like that. Chuuya kept being unfailingly impressive and competent and Dazai got stuck helping him around like he was the probie.
By the time his shift ended and he made it back to the apartment, Dazai felt drained, worse than he did after a gruesome shift even though nothing big had happened that day. He threw his bag on the floor and turned to make his way to the bathroom to wash his hands when he heard it.
There was noise coming from the kitchen.
Well, whoever had decided to rob him clearly didn’t have an eye for it because there was nothing left in this apartment worth stealing besides the TV. Dazai momentarily considered whether he should just give up and accept becoming a statistic in home burglaries turned homicides when his eyes landed on a purple suitcase by the couch.
How many burglars brought a purple suitcase decorated with butterflies with them when breaking and entering? Well, apparently at least one, unless…
“Osamu, you’re home!” His sister casually greeted him as she exited the kitchen, like it had only been a day since they had seen each other and not seven whole years.
“Akiko? What are you doing here?”
“Well, I was in town and I wanted to see my little brother.” Despite the easygoingness in her tone, Dazai could recognize the hesitance in her body language, like she wasn't quite sure if she was welcomed there or not. Before either of them could overthink it more, he rushed ahead and tightly embraced his sister.
“You’re really here.” The voice that came out of him sounded more like the 19 year old boy he had been during their last face to face conversation than the 26 year old man he was.
After several long moments, Akiko pulled back but kept her hands on his arms. There was genuine wonder in her voice when she said, “You’re so big now.”
Dazai’s first instinct was to make a jab about how she wouldn’t have been surprised about it if she had ever bothered to come see him earlier, but something about the weariness surrounding her made him shallow back the ugly words fighting to come out.
“How did you even get in here?” He asked instead.
Akiko let go of him and turned to walk back into the kitchen with an amused smile. “I told the building manager I was your sister.”
“And he just believed you?” He asked, slightly alarmed about the security of the building as he followed her.
“Well, having boobs doesn’t hurt.”
Dazai chose to ignore that comment and instead set on making his sister breakfast. “How did you know where I live?”
“Well, first I went to the address the Christmas cards keep coming from, and the guy said you were here.”
“Wait, so you did get those Christmas cards?”
Akiko flinched, looking away for a moment before turning her eyes back on him. “I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch much lately.”
“Three years, Akiko.” Dazai tried to keep the anger out of his voice but all he managed was sounding hurt, which only made his sister look more guilty. “I haven’t heard from you in three years.”
“Yeah, I know. And it’s not what I wanted.”
“Where is Tekkan?” Just saying his name made him feel sick.
She gave him a forced smile. “Our divorce just got finalized.”
“You left him?”
“Finally.”
Dazai sighed in relief. “What took you so long?” He hadn’t even been a teenager when she had started dating him but even as a ten year old child he could tell he hated the guy.
“What can I say? Mom was right.” Akiko laughed bitterly. Dazai held back from commenting that their mother’s opinion was irrelevant.
“Do they know?”
“No one knows,” She shook her head.” And please don’t tell them if they call. I don’t want to deal with them too right now.”
“I won’t. Has Tekkan left you alone or is he bothering you?”
“More or less.”
He raised an eyebrow, ready to call her out on her bullshit, but Akiko spoke again before he had a chance. “So what happened to you ? Because this place is nice, and clean, and you just cooked me food” —she pointed to the plate he placed in front of her— “actual food. Is there a shallot in here?”
Dazai rolled his eyes playfully. “Yeah, my boss could honestly become a chef if being a fire captain doesn’t work out. He’s been teaching me how to cook, though we haven’t made it past breakfast.” He pointed around the room. “And this is my ex girlfriend's place. I’m looking after it while she’s out of town for a couple months.”
Akiko blinked at him. “You’re looking after your ex girlfriend’s place?”
“Technically she hasn’t broken up with me yet.”
There was silence for a moment. Dazai took a big bite of his meal as he let his sister process the information.
“Was that supposed to help me understand the situation?” She asked eventually.
“Well, we were together for a few months. I thought it was going serious so I had started slowly moving myself in. You saw the place I was living before, five roommates and all. Amy’s mother had Alzheimer's, and she had been taking care of her for the last couple of years so she felt pretty lost when she passed away. She said she wanted to” —he raised his hands in air quotes— “travel around the world to find herself again.”
“So she broke up with you but let you stay here rent free?”
“No, as I said, she didn’t break up with me. She said she would come back.”
“Osamu, are you trying to confuse me on purpose, I swear—”
“She said she would come back and then stopped responding to me after a month,” He clarified. “It’s been about four months since I told her I would wait for her to come back at the airport, three since I got any update about her that wasn’t from an instagram post. Apparently she’s in Italy now.”
The most pathetic thing about the situation was that Dazai had actually believed her. She had been the first woman that he had felt he had a real connection with. He had let himself dive headfirst into this relationship and invest in it in a way he had never done before, and what did that get him besides saving up on paying rent?
Amy —a seasoned 9-1-1 dispatcher at age 42— had been going through a hard time taking care of her sick mother while working such a demanding job and Dazai had been the young firefighter she could have fun with and use to forget about her struggles for a while. Dazai wouldn’t have even blamed her for it if she hadn’t let him believe that it was something more.
But was it really a surprise that another person in his life had left him behind?
“Oh ‘Samu…” Akiko reached forward to gently hold his hand.
“It’s fine,” Dazai dismissed her concern, easily falling back to his joking tone, even if he didn’t try to take his hand away from her comforting grip. “As you said, I do currently live in this very nice apartment rent free.”
“And you think that’s good for you? Still living in her place?”
“Akiko, if you see the rent prices in L.A you’ll understand.” His sister still looked like she had more to say about the matter, so Dazai rushed ahead to change the topic. “Speaking of, this is your first time here. Are you going to see the sights? Hang around for a bit?”
Akiko shook her head. “I’m just passing through.”
“Ah.” Was that all he was going to get after seven years? His sister making a brief appearance in his life before disappearing again? Maybe he could try to convince her to stay and find out more about why she had appeared so suddenly, though it didn’t feel like that moment was the right one. “Okay, even if you are just here for a few days, welcome to L.A. It was getting pretty lonely around here.”
His sister opened her mouth, looking like she had something serious to say, but at the last moment, she cleared her throat, and what came out instead was, “So how was work? You came back from a shift, didn’t you? According to your last postcard you’re still a firefighter.”
“Ugh, let me tell you about this new guy…”
Dazai chose to start his next shift with a workout, something he rarely did —Kunikida had looked like he wanted to take his temperature when he watched him enter the gym first thing in the morning— but the new guy was already there going at it at the punching bag and Dazai wasn’t going to let him win.
(Win what? He wasn’t sure.)
Alright, maybe he was stealing glances at him while doing the most half hearted bicep curls in human history, but the fact that Chuuya was wearing a very distracting black tank top that barely covered anything wasn’t his fault. Seriously, didn’t the guy know about professional attire? He might as well have been shirtless. Not that Dazai was interested in seeing him shirtless or anything, he just wanted to ensure that no one ruined the sanctuary of their gym.
Chuuya slowed down his workout to chat with Kouyou as she joined them, the two of them easily bonding about the right angles and lighting to take photos for the calendar, even as Kunikida made sure to remind them his opinion about the whole affair. Even the fact that he was judging them didn’t take away from the pleasant atmosphere surrounding them. What was Dazai doing there?
He switched to doing hammer curls, taking them more seriously as he dismissed Chuuya’s efforts to get him to join in their conversation. By the third time, he seemed to have given up on trying to be friendly. Instead, he approached Dazai with a full glare. “What’s your problem, man?”
“You. You’re my problem.” Dazai made sure to include all the venom that had been forming inside of him in his tone. “Your comfort level. You’re not supposed to just walk in here like you’ve been here for years. It’s meant to be a getting-to-know-you period. You’re meant to respect your elders.”
“You’re not his elder, Dazai,” Kunikida commented from the elliptical. Dazai kept his eyes on Chuuya, looking down at him as he waited for his resolve to break.
Despite his fiery gaze, Chuuya didn’t explode. He took a deep breath before replying, “Look, I in no way meant to be, uh, too familiar or step on anybody’s toes. I know you’re going through some personal stuff right now.”
“What personal stuff?” Dazai took a step forward, not against using his height for intimidation purposes. Chuuya only snorted at that, clearly not intimidated.
“I know your girlfriend recently broke up with you and you’re coming to terms with that.”
The sounds of the elliptical stopped. The culprit of spreading around gossip wouldn’t have been difficult to guess either way. (Though Kunikida claimed that knowing about his coworker’s personal lives was for practical reasons and not gossip.)
“No, I’m not. And she didn’t break up with me. Who told you that?”
Kunikida picked up the pace again as Dazai turned to glare at him.
“I’m just saying,” Chuuya continued. “I hear you’re a good guy, and I’m sorry you’re going through something difficult, but you don’t need to take it out on me or be threatened by me. We’re on the same team.”
Dazai sneered, taking one more step forward. “Why would I be threatened by you?”
Chuuya held his ground, glancing up at him steadily. The sweat running down his neck slowly made its way down the exposed hair of his chest. “Exactly. There’s no need to be. We do the same thing. I’ve just done it while people are shooting at me.”
“We’re not broken up,” was all Dazai managed to reply as Chuuya turned and walked away. Why was he getting so frustrated over this guy? It must have been his infuriating confidence. Who walked around so sure of themselves on their first week at work?
“9-1-1 what’s your emergency?”
“Help. It went off. I don’t know what happened.”
“What went off, sir?”
“Grenade.”
“Fire and Rescue. Hello?” Fukuzawa opened the door of the grenade guy’s house —Charlie, as dispatch had informed them— Dazai following behind him.
A muffled voice came from further into the house. “I’m back here, help me.”
As they followed the voice, Dazai couldn’t miss a certain theme in the decor. “Some kind of militia nut?” The vintage guns stored in glass cabinets were one thing, but the life sized dolls dressed in various military uniforms made Dazai very sure about his guess.
It took them a few moments to find the room that Charlie was in. Fukuzawa rushed to his side, introducing himself and asking him his name and what had happened.
“Damn grenade went off while I was taking it apart.”
Dazai kneeled down on his other side. “Why are you taking apart a grenade?” The answer wasn’t hard to guess, but asking easy questions to keep patients aware and talking was part of the job.
“I was cleaning it. I’m a collector,” Charlie replied coherently enough.
“You pulled the pin?” Dazai continued his questions as Fukuzawa inspected the wound.
“Oh, it ain’t that kind of grenade. It’s a 40-mike-mike. A practice round for an M203 grenade launcher. I picked it up at a flea market in Brea, part of my ‘Nam collection. My screwdriver must have touched the propelling charge. I…”
“All right, I see metal. A lot of shrapnel,” Fukuzawa cut him off. “Femoral artery has been nicked. We gotta get him transported now.”
The process after that was routine. Another firefighter joined them with a gurney and after transporting Charlie on it, they carefully made their way outside as their captain used his radio to inform Dispatch about the situation. Dazai caught sight of Chuuya as they lifted the patient inside the ambulance.
He went to take a step back when Fukuzawa put a hand on his shoulder. “Dazai, I want you to travel with him to the hospital, keep him stable.”
In the least annoyed tone he could manage, Dazai replied, “Copy that, captain.”
He mustn’t have done a very good job because Fukuzawa gave him one of his famous stern but fatherly looks. “You got to learn to play nice. It’s one team, Dazai.”
“Hey, Fukuzawa, am I gonna be alright?” Charlie questioned, still surprisingly coherent, as Dazai climbed in, taking a seat next to Chuuya
“My boys have got you. But you might want to consider switching to collecting baseball cards after this.”
“I guess you’ve seen a lot of shrapnel wounds,” Dazai asked over the siren as the both of them worked on the patient.
“My share.”
“Have you ever seen someone with a length of rebar stuck through their skull?” The image of Kouyou during the car accident she had had the previous year with that rebar still haunted his dreams, but that didn’t deter him from using it in this… contest?
“What are we measuring here, Dazai?”
Charlie groaned underneath them. Chuuya’s full attention went back to him. “I need to change those dressings. They’re soaking through.”
Dazai only had to remind himself that he was a professional once to calm down his annoyance and follow the instructions the other man gave him. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut, though.
“I’m just saying, working the streets of L.A. is not exactly stress free. It may not be the same kind of pressure you have in a war zone, but—”
“Hold on.” Chuuya stopped his movements, his eyes glued on the wound on Charlie’s thigh. “I thought you said this was a practice round.”
“It is,” the man insisted.
“Uhm, what’s going on?” Dazai wisely kept his hands away.
“You see the cap?” Chuuya pointed to the open wound. “Practice rounds have blue caps. Gold caps are live.”
The cap was definitely not blue.
“Pull over!” Chuuya yelled at the driver.
The bomb squad met them at the hospital’s parking lot and confirmed Chuuya’s claim.
“I thought this thing already went off?” Dazai asked the member of the bomb squad that was talking to Fukuzawa. Grenades weren’t exactly his field of expertise.
Chuuya jumped into an explanation before the bomb squad guy (Jim? Dazai was pretty sure that that was the name he had given them) had a chance. “The launch grenade has two components, gunpowder which makes it travel and an explosive charge that makes it go boom.”
“Okay, so why didn’t this one go boom?”
“It’s fitted with a proximity fuse. It’s a little smart sensor that tells the cap it’s traveled a safe enough distance from the shooter to explode. From his hand to his leg probably wasn’t far enough.”
“Well, we can’t bring him inside a hospital full of people, not with that still stuck inside him,” Fukuzawa concluded.
Jim nodded. “We called the military for help.”
Dazai raised an eyebrow. “The military? Uh, you can’t do it? You’re the bomb squad.”
“You can’t diffuse a grenade. We need to find someone who knows how to pull that thing out of him without setting it off. They’re sending someone up from Pendleton. Should be here within the hour.”
“He doesn’t have an hour,” Dazai pointed out, turning to Fukuzawa. Before their captain could respond, Chuuya spoke with the same confidence that had tremendously infuriated Dazai during their last shift.
“I can do it. If he doesn’t go to surgery soon, he’ll die.”
“Have you done this before?” Fukuzawa asked.
“Well, none of the guys I served with were dumb enough to shoot a live round in themselves, but I’m familiar with the ordnance.”
“I’m in,” Dazai said before he could really think about it. Despite the intense irritation the new guy made him experience, there was some part inside of him that had him following him around, almost like he couldn’t keep himself away.
Neither Fukuzawa or Jim seemed thrilled about the idea, yet Chuuya’s annoyingly dependable attitude convinced them quickly enough. That still didn’t deter Fukuzawa from stopping Dazai right after he finished putting the vest that the bomb squad had handed him to say, “Listen, Dazai, you don’t have to do this.”
“You think I’m gonna let the new guy have all the fun?” Dazai immediately argued. “Besides, you wanted us to bond. We might end up real close.”
Getting into the ambulance with Chuuya for the second time felt different. Maybe it was the adrenaline of trying to get a live grenade out of a guy’s leg, or the acceptance that Chuuya was as competent as he seemed, but Dazai wasn’t as mad about getting squeezed next to him by Charlie’s side.
“You ready?” Chuuya turned to him once they had finished the preparations. Dazai had to remind himself that it really wasn’t the time to focus on his coworker’s really blue eyes; getting blown up didn’t even seem like a fun way to die.
He took a breath and nodded, “Yeah.”
Once he had uncovered Charlie’s wound, it became clear that their time was running out. “He’s losing a lot of blood.”
“Keep pressure on it,” Chuuya urged him.
The process had sounded simple enough when Jim had explained it to them —carefully get the shell out and put it in the box he had handed them— yet Dazai couldn’t say he felt that confident about it as he kept putting pressure on the wound while Chuuya tried to get a good grip on the shell with the tool.
“There it is.”
“Alright, so pull it out. Come on.”
“I got… to be careful.” Although Dazai couldn't take his eyes away from the process, the strain of the effort in Chuuya’s voice wasn’t hard to miss. “The sensor measures the distance traveled based on how many rotations the shell made after the launch. The key is not to turn the shell while we pull it out.”
“Okay, so don’t turn it.” Dazai was sure Chuuya would be glaring at him if he could. Getting him angry wasn’t really beneficial for him at the moment, so he made sure to add a quiet, “You got this.”
“Gonna have to just…” —Chuuya continued to slowly pull the shell out of Charlie’s thigh— “a bit…” By the time it was fully out, Dazai could feel sweat running down his face.
“Get the box,” Chuuya rushed him, voice coming out as a groan.
Somehow watching him transport the shell in the box was even more stressful than watching him pull it out of Charlie. Chuuya moved slowly, his heavy breathing the only sound in the ambulance. Dazai kept the box as steady as he could, very aware of the fact that the three of them were only a few rotations away from getting blown up.
When the shell finally touched the bottom of the box, Dazai couldn’t help but grin at the man next to him, relief mixed with adrenaline almost completely erasing his jealousy and annoyance towards him. Chuuya grinned back as they closed the box.
Huh, he really had a nice smile. Perhaps being under such pressure like that with someone could actually help you bond with them.
“Let’s get the robot in there,” Jim spoke onto his radio as Dazai and Chuuya wheeled Charlied away from the ambulance and towards the hospital staff that waited to take over.
Once they had handed him over to them, Chuuya turned to him “You’re a badass under pressure.”
“Me?” Dazai replied, taken off guard by the genuineness in his voice.
“Hell yeah. You can have my back any day.”
“Yeah. Or you know, you could… you could have mine.”
Chuuya laughed, extending his hand to him. “Deal.” Dazai shook it with a smile of his own.
“Nice work, boys. I’m glad you both made it out of there.” Fukuzawa approached them.
“We are both professionals, you shouldn’t have worried in the first place.”
The ambulance chose that moment to explode, making Fukuzawa and Dazai violently flinch and crouch down. Dazai didn’t miss that Chuuya barely moved.
“Cancel the robot,” Jim spoke into his radio again.
“You guys hungry?” Chuuya asked, not missing a beat.
“—and I will only admit it to you because you are my sister but I swear my heart stopped at least five times during that whole ordeal, I really didn’t want to be taken out by a grenade stuck in an ambulance with Chuuya of all people—”
“Wasn’t there that old guy in there too?” Akiko interrupted him to ask from the other side of the couch.
Dazai waved her off, almost spilling wine out of his glass in the process. “Sure, but if I had died there with Chuuya it would have almost been like a double suicide—”
“Would it qualify as a suicide if it was an accident? That Chuuya guy doesn’t sound like he was trying to blow you up on purpose. I would argue that maybe he would be interested in some different kind of blowing—”
“Akiko, do not finish that sentence. Haven’t you heard about how annoying he is? I could write ten books about it.”
“All I’ve heard is that you’ve only had two shifts with the guy and you’re already obsessed with him,” Akiko said with a smug smile, taking a long sip of her wine. “Besides, you already admitted you thought he was cool in there.”
“Now you’re just putting words in my mouth.”
“Oh, would you like for a certain redhead to put something else in your—”
“I’m kicking you out of my house.”
“I regret to inform you it’s not your house.”
“Ugh, I really hadn’t missed you at all,” Dazai said with a pout. Akiko laughed brightly at his reaction, decisively patting his head even as he tried his best to dodge. Even if his sister was making fun of him, having her there beside him safe and happy was the best thing that had happened to him in years.
“Anyway,” Akiko said after she got her laughter under control. “It sounds like your rivalry with him was short lived, so play nice. You're gonna be seeing the guy a lot.”
“We're still not friends. I will just not be actively hating him.”
“Right, right. I believe you.”
“9-1-1 What's your emergency?”
“Yeah. We need help. My friend got a microwave stuck on his head.”
“His head is stuck in a microwave?”
“No, it’s cemented on.”
“Quick they’re in the back,” a boy who couldn’t be older than seventeen greeted them at the door, leading them around the impressively massive house towards the pool. “We put a tube in so he could breathe. I think the cement smushed it.”
“Was it for a YouTube prank?” Kouyou questioned. Even though she was walking ahead of the rest of them, Dazai could feel the eyebrow raise.
“Don’t judge,” the kid replied. “Followers equal cash.”
Once the guy with the microwave cemented on his head came into view along with their other dumb blond friend trying to hold him upright, Chuuya leaned in towards Dazai and whispered, “Do we ever get normal calls?”
Dazai had to hide his chuckle behind a cough. “This is L.A.”
“Let’s get some screwdrivers, try to get this frame off,” their captain decided once he took in the situation. Chuuya rushed to follow his instruction while Kunikida took his vitals.
“Pulse 120, BP 150/110.”
“He’s panicking,” Dazai pointed out as the guy started moving more and more fervently.
“Alright, he’s starting to choke.”
“Saliva’s probably aspirated through the breathing tube.”
Before they could do anything about it, the microwave guy —who they were informed was called Jessie— somehow managed to get up. But of course, with a whole microwave stuck on his head, gravity wasn’t on his side. After only a few distraught steps, Jessie tumbled forward, falling straight into the pool.
Dazai barely let a second pass before jumping in after him, and a second splash followed right after. Within seconds he and Chuuya, in a freaky show of synchronization, had grabbed the guy and brought him to the surface, letting the rest of their crew pull him out of the pool and help him lie down.
Kunikida rushed to reevaluate him. “His pulse is weak. I have no respiration.”
“Is there a plastic bag in there or something?” Kouyou asked.
“Yeah, we put it on his head before we poured the concrete,” the blond kid replied. Perhaps the situation finally had dawned on him because he followed that with a frantic, “Please don't let him die. He's been my best friend since kindergarten.”
Dazai met Chuuya's eyes as they were both in the middle of hiding a scoff, matching soaking wet blue uniforms dripping all over the place while they worked on getting the frame off.
“We had 30 minutes to get him out of there. Now we’ve got 30 seconds.” Fukuzawa turned to the two paramedics.
“No response to sternal rub.”
“Pulse is fading. Still no respiration.”
“All right, Dazai,” Fukuzawa addressed him this time. “Once we get this frame off, you and I are gonna go hammer and chisel on that block.”
“All right.”
“Starting compressions,” Kouyou announced just seconds before they finally managed to get the frame off.
Fukuzawa handed Dazai the hammer and positioned the chisel on top of the cemented microwave. “Let's go.”
The two of them worked quickly, everyone exhaling in relief when the cement started to crack and they could free Jessie. Kunikida was immediately on him with the bag valve mask while Kouyou continued the compressions. The boy burst into coughing soon enough and, with the adrenaline gone, Dazai could finally think about how uncomfortable the uniform felt stuck on his skin.
“Shay Reed here, fans. And today's Shay-nanigan is maybe our most intense yet!” The blond boy —Shay?— who had been on the verge of sobbing just moments ago, somehow had already taken his phone out of his pocket and turned it towards them, filming his friend as they helped him recover.
“Are you filming this?” Fukuzawa asked the two boys who probably didn’t know him well enough to pick out the anger in his tone.
“Yeah, bro. If we didn't film it, it didn't happen.”
“You were just crying like two minutes ago,” Dazai couldn’t help but say.
“Yeah, two minutes ago, he was gonna die. Now he's gonna live and be a legend,” Shay replied with a grin. “Say hello, Shay's Army.”
“Hello, Shay's army,” Fukuzawa said deadpan as he grabbed the phone out of the boy’s hand and threw it in the pool.
“What the hell, man?!”
“Good-bye, Shay Army.”
“Dude!”
“I bet you hadn’t seen that on the battlefield.” Dazai bumped his shoulder into Chuuya’s as they made their way into the shower room, neither of them fans of smelling like chlorine for the rest of their shift.
Chuuya snorted. “I’m really starting to doubt my decision to move to L.A.”
Dazai opened his mouth to make yet another smart comment, but the words got stuck in his throat as his eyes caught sight of the other man, nonchalantly stripping out of his uniform.
One thing that Dazai was sure of, was that he wasn’t a prude. His sexual life had always leaned towards sex addiction (self-diagnosed), and his job required him to change in the same room with other people day in day out. Casual nudity wasn’t something he was unfamiliar with, he had seen Kunikida’s bare ass more times than anyone should have. So why was he averting his gaze away from Chuuya’s annoyingly toned chest and — Jesus, how did he hide all that under the uniform? — muscular thighs like he was a thirteen year old in a locker room whose hormones had just started acting up?
Chuuya continued talking (About what? He couldn’t focus enough to listen) and Dazai almost collided with the door of the shower stall in his effort to enter it without looking at the other man again.
“Why do you even start a conversation if you’re gonna go back to ignoring me afterwards?” Dazai finally picked out as he closed the door of the stall behind him, but he knew his voice would betray exactly what he was feeling if he spoke.
“How was your shift?” Akiko asked as he joined her in the kitchen for breakfast. This little ritual had already become familiar enough that Dazai knew he would miss it once his sister left again. Nonetheless, at that moment, he had another problem to focus on.
“I think I need to change stations.”
“That’s… a grand statement. What happened?” Akiko’s expression was caught between confusion and concern.
“I don’t think I can stand to work with Chuuya any longer.” Dazai leaned on the table and buried his face in his hands.
“Hasn’t it only been three shifts? What did he even do?”
And what was Dazai supposed to reply to that? He wasn’t a thirteen year old boy going through puberty and God, Chuuya was his new annoying coworker, why was he focusing so much on the fact that the guy had such perfect physique? Every person who did their job had to be fit, it shouldn’t be a surprise.He pathetically groaned into his hands, trying to rid his mind of certain images that kept coming back.
Akiko only let him have his moment for a minute before she laughed. “So it’s that kind of problem.”
“It’s not, he’s just annoying,” Dazai rushed to defend himself.
“I swear if I hear the word annoying come out of your mouth one more time—”
By their sixth shift together, Dazai was stuck in a loop of constantly seeking out Chuuya to annoy him half of the time and avoiding him like the plague the other half. To say the other man was confused by his behavior was an understatement. He was in the middle of the first half of the loop, harassing Chuuya who was entertaining himself at the pinball machine about possible nicknames he could call him instead of his name (Chuuya protested loudly about all the ones that alluded to his short height), when Fukuzawa walked up towards them and their rest of their crew hanging out in the loft of the station.
“Alright, listen up, everyone. I’ve got an announcement to make. I just got off the phone with the people from the calendar, and they have made their choice.”
“No hard feelings no matter who won, little snail.”
“I definitely didn’t consent to that,” Chuuya hurried to protest.
“That’s good, Dazai, because they didn’t pick you,” Fukuzawa informed him.
“Well, it’s obviously a fix,” he said with faux seriousness, before laughing. “No, congratulations anyway, pipsqueak!”
“They didn’t pick him either,” Fukuzawa added before Chuuya could complain about the nickname again.
Dazai was genuinely confused. They hadn’t picked Chuuya? “No? You?”
“No.” Fukuzawa turned to Kouyou who was standing behind the kitchen counter. “Congratulations, Kouyou. Or should I say Miss April?”
Kouyou burst into delighted laughter. “Wow, 2019 is really gonna be the year for the lesbians!”
While Kouyou was graciously accepting her congratulations (and certainly not rubbing her win in anybody’s face…) a new pair of footsteps made their way up the loft.
“Hello everyone!” Ranpo’s loud voice greeted them. “What’s for lunch?”
Without missing a beat, the man made himself comfortable at the dining table, and just like that, Fukuzawa’s attention was solely focused on him.
“Who’s this?” Chuuya whispered to Kouyou, Kunikida and Dazai, curious gaze following the interaction.
“That’s Ranpo, the captain’s son,” Kunikida attempted to whisper back.
“Ah, I didn’t know he had a kid. He’s not married, is he?”
“He’s currently going through a divorce,” Kouyou informed him. “It must be, what? His third now?”
“Third?” Chuuya questioned, probably a bit louder than he intended to, considering that Fukuzawa momentarily turned around to stare at them.
“Number 1 and 3 are with the same person. Allegedly,” Dazai chimed in.
Chuuya narrowed his eyes in confusion. “So he got married with someone, divorced them, married someone else who he also divorced, and then got back together with the first person—”
“And divorced them again, yeah,” Dazai helped him conclude. “At least that’s what we have concluded from the information we’ve gathered. Kunikida claims to have met both the ex husbands.”
“I have!” Kunikida replied exasperatedly, apparently not even attempting to whisper anymore. “We’ve all met Fukuchi—”
“Husband 1 and 3,” Dazai added for Chuuya’s sake.
“Yes, and I met Mori when I first started working here seven years ago—”
“Cause he’s actually geriatric—”
“Dazai stop interrupting me!” Kunikida hit him with a spatula that had been left on the counter before continuing, “Yeah, I met Mori briefly back when they were still married, though I believe the marriage was short-lived.”
“As short as—”
Chuuya grabbed the spatula out of Kunikida’s hand and hit Dazai himself before he could finish the sentence.
“Ouch, Chuuya! And here I was ready to share all the juicy details I know with you!”
“What juicy details do you even know?” Kouyou rolled her eyes.
“Like who has custody of Ranpo.”
“Ranpo is pushing thirty, I doubt it matters who are legally his fathers.”
“I heard there is a third guy who was between the alleged number 1 and 2 who is actually Ranpo’s dad—”
“Now you’re just making stuff up,” Kouyou stopped him before he could share his conspiracy theory.
Fukuzawa loudly cleared his throat, approaching them to get the food he had prepared out of the oven. “You guys know you stopped whispering several minutes ago, don’t you?”
While Kunikida attempted to make excuses for them, the rest of them made their escape to the table.
With Ranpo joining them, Dazai found himself sitting next to Chuuya, their elbows bumping into each other while they ate.
It was weird. Even though the two of them had barely known each other for three weeks by that point, as Dazai sat there at the table, it felt almost like that was how things were supposed to be; the two of them next to each other.