Chapter Text
Chuuya is having a horrible day, doing his work as best he could after the Lovecraft fight with Dazai a few months ago. He found that, for some reason, he hadn’t been able to sleep right afterwards. And whenever he was reminded about how Dazai had quite literally left him in the dust, he felt a pit in his stomach.
Now, Chuuya wasn’t an idiot. He knew that he loved Dazai. And he knew that Dazai didn’t love him. He never had. Which is why it was so incredibly stupid of Chuuya to think that Dazai would care enough about him to carry him all the way back. But at least the bastard took back the kid. And not him.
Anyways, at the moment, Chuuya is doing paperwork and also trying not to sleep. His eyes are heavy, but he forces them open, determined not to have another nightmare. Especially at work. The ones after Corruption are always worse, and while he used to have a certain bandaged bastard there to help, obviously he doesn’t care. Chuuya often wonders if he ever did.
So yeah, Chuuya’s having a bad day. And it seems that it’s only going to get worse.
“Hello?” He picks up his phone, realizing it’s been ringing.
“Chuuya-kun.” Mori’s voice makes the redhead jolt awake. “There’s going to be a meeting with the Armed Detective Agency to discuss our truce, and hopefully extend it. The meeting will be at the agency tomorrow at 3 in the afternoon. Your presence would be appreciated.” They both know it isn’t a question, but Chuuya agrees anyway.
When he hangs up, he’s tempted to throw his phone across the room. He decides not to, instead dropping his head in his hands.
So, he’s going to have to see the bastard. Again. He feels a wave of sadness building up, and immediately pushes it down, forcing anger in its place.
Anger is easy, simple. If he’s angry, there isn’t room for anything else. He learned that when the Sheep betrayed him, and he’s used it most after Dazai followed in their footsteps. Funny how everyone that supposedly cares about him abandons and betrays him. Of course there’s always Kouyou, but she and the others don’t know him. Not like Dazai did.
Besides, it doesn’t matter how he feels anyways. He’s always been a tool. A weapon, or experiment. He really only tries to be human to have a sense of control, and even then it’s difficult.
Chuuya leaves work tired, hungry and angry. When he gets home, he throws off his coat and gloves, not even bothering to change as he makes a beeline for his wine cabinet. When in doubt, drink until you die of alcohol poisoning.
He gets out two bottles of wine. This is how he’s been spending his nights after Corruption. The nightmares only go away if he drinks until he can’t remember his own name, and so that’s exactly what he does.
He doesn’t bother with a glass. Or a shower, he’ll do that in the morning.
He sits on the side of his too large bed, frequently taking swigs as his brain gets more and more fuzzy. Sure, he’ll have a killer hangover, but at least he won’t wake up and want to kill himself over how horrible he is for imitating a human and he deserves to be abandoned because all he ever does is–
He takes a long sip of his wine, practically chugging it if he’s being honest. His vision finally starts to go blurry, and he drinks just a bit more to really make it work.
***
Chuuya wakes up slowly, blinking his eyes open and silently thanking whatever god is out there that his pain isn’t as bad as it normally is.
He gets out of bed, slowly sitting up and wincing at the stab of pain in his head. Luckily he’s gotten used to it from the amount of nights spent like yesterday in the past few months. Really, the past 5 years. It got worse when Dazai left, and today’s reminder is only going to make it that much more unbearable.
He gets out of bed, taking a shower, getting dressed and putting yesterday’s bottle of wine in the trash, deciding to go ahead and place two more on his nightstand.
He takes a moment to consider cigarettes, but he stopped using them about 2 years ago, and he doesn’t want to disappoint Kouyou any more than he has.
He puts on his gloves and coat, heading out the door and down to where his motorcycle is parked.
Once he’s in his office, he checks his phone for any notifications, seeing that Hirotsu called him a bit ago. He opens the man’s contact and pressing the call button.
“Chuuya.” Hirotsu sounds as gruff as ever.
“Hey Hirotsu. What did you need me for?”
“The boss assigned you another mission today. He expects you to be done around 12.”
Chuuya checks the time. 11:30.
“What are the details?”
The mission itself is pretty simple. Collect money from a local casino that owes them, and if they don’t have it, either set a deadline or demolish them. It’s up to Chuuya based on how they seem.
When he arrives, he sees the casino looking pretty well off. Its name is in lights and the building is spotless. He walks in, and is immediately greeted by the owner himself, Yamasaki Kotatso. The man must have been alerted of Chuuya’s presence.
“Nakahara Chuuya?” The man offers his hand, and Chuuya shakes it.
“That’s me.”
Yamasaki smiles. “Let’s go somewhere more private for the exchange, yes?”
Chuuya nods, forcing an easy smile.
Yamasaki leads him to a backroom, where there’s a table with two chairs and a briefcase on top of it.
“So, do you have the money?” Chuuya doesn’t miss the slight tension in the other man at the question.
“Um,” He scratches the back of his head. “You see, I have some of it here with me, but the rest was stolen.”
Chuuya raises an eyebrow. “Stolen? I thought you guys had A-grade security? The best available?”
“Ah, no you’re thinking of one of our neighbor casinos.”
“Really? Because I remember being one of the people who installed it.” Chuuya narrows his eyes. “You don’t think I’m that dumb, do you?”
Yamasaki’s eyes widen, and he takes a step back, smiling nervously. “No, of course not Nakahara-san. I–”
“Then what happened to the money?”
There’s a beat of silence.
“Nakahara-san, please understand that we were in a really bad spot. We didn’t have any choice, we couldn’t–”
“So you didn’t ask for another loan?” Chuuya crosses his arms. “You thought it was a good idea to miss your deadline?”
When he doesn’t get a response, he walks over to the briefcase.
“How much is in here?”
No answer.
“I’m going to find out anyway. Just tell me, and I might kill you faster.”
That seems to snap the man out of his trance. His eyes go impossibly wide. “U-um, about 30,000 yen.”
Chuuya narrows his eyes, and opens the briefcase to confirm. As said, 30,000 out of the 100,000 he owes is there.
Chuuya sighs. “I was going to walk away and just extend your deadline, but this is less than half of what you owe. It isn’t that hard, barely anything in comparison to what you gave that gang last month.”
“H-how do you know about that?”
Chuuya raises an eyebrow. “You really think the Port Mafia doesn’t track your exchanges?”
Yamasaki moves his hand down to his pocket, clearly about to reach for his gun. Chuuya quickly walks over to him, grabbing the man by the collar and lifting him into the air.
“If you don’t get that 70,000 yen to us by next month, you can kiss your sorry excuse for a casino goodbye. Understood?”
Yamasaki nods as best as he can, and Chuuya drops him, letting the man fall to the floor as the redhead turns and walks out.
As he heads over to his motorcycle, he checks the time. 1:45. Later than expected, but still before the meeting.
He heads back to headquarters, and goes back to paperwork to pass time.
At about 2:30, he gets a call from Mori telling him to get over to the Agency. The ride is about 20 minutes, so he should have some extra time before the meeting starts.
When he arrives at the agency, he almost scoffs at its layout. Really, they couldn’t even get a whole building.
(He ignores the bitterness of realizing that Dazai preferred being here because being with Chuuya was that bad)
He waits for Akutagawa, Gin, Mori and Hirotsu to arrive, playing some random game on his phone to pass the time. When they finally get there, Chuuya falls behind Mori as always.
He remembers when it used to be Dazai.
The little place the Agency has is small, but well spread out so that everyone has their own desk and space, FUkuzawa and Yosano having their own rooms.
They’re greeted by the president himself, and the silver-haired man leads them to his office where there’s a long table with about 10 seats on either side and 1 seat on each end, clearly there for him and Mori.
Chuuya ends up in the seat beside the end where Mori is with Hirotsu at his other side and Kyoka in front of him. His seating wasn’t too bad.
The meeting goes by quickly in a blur of passive aggressive insults flowing from Mori and (surprisingly) Fukuzawa, with a member occasionally interjecting to support or oppose a statement. It got harder when Dazai was involved. Mori was clearly enjoying himself when the brunet would speak up, and he even went so far as to insinuate his return. Chuuya had to keep himself from rolling his eyes at the suggestion.
So, he was simply listening when his peaceful existence was interrupted.
“Chuuya-kun,” Mori started, making Chuuya’s attention snap to him, “What are your opinions on this arrangement?”
Chuuya considered the question for a moment.
“I think it’s more beneficial to both organizations. It allows better communication and will be useful if we ever have a situation like the Guild. It does more good than bad.”
“So you would be willing to work with Dazai again?”
Chuuya grits his teeth. “Yes. If it’s required, I would.”
“Aww,” The bastard himself speaks up, “Chuuya misses me~”
Chuuya resists the urge to throw the mummified asshole out the window. He instead rolls his eyes, but decides not to encourage the other.
The meeting continues without any further hiccups. They eventually agree to at least 7 more years of alliance, which in Chuuya’s opinion is a stretch, but he supposes it’ll work.
When Chuuya’s outside, he waits for all the others to leave.
“Well?” He asks, and he hears a laugh from behind him.
“Interesting,” Dazai’s voice brings up a wave of grief that Chuuya fights to push down, and he instead decides to be angry. “The chibi still knows all my tricks!”
Chuuya turns to the brunet, rolling his eyes. “That’s just because you haven’t changed a bit, jackass.”
“Is the hatrack too caught up about how short he is to be able to properly analyze a person?”
Chuuya feels his eyes narrow. “Cut the shit. What do you want?”
Dazai’s expression goes soft, and while it makes Chuuya’s heart go fast, he’s not dumb enough to believe that it’s genuine.
“Can’t I miss you?” He takes a step forward. “I know you miss me.”
Chuuya scoffs. “As if. I’ve been happier than ever since you left.” It’s a lie, but it’s what Chuuya tells himself when he misses the bastard a bit too much.
“Chuuya,” Dazai’s tone is serious now, “You and I both know that isn’t true.”
“No,” Chuuya feels anger boil up in his chest. “It is. You’ve just been arrogant enough to convince yourself that you actually did a good job pretending to care, good enough to convince me. Well news flash motherfucker: you didn’t. Not for long.”
Dazai’s eyes go wide, and Chuuya feels satisfaction at being able to surprise him.
“Chuuya.” To the redhead’s surprise, he sounds…hurt. “I never pretended.”
Chuuya rolls his eyes. “Sure. Because it’s not like you manipulated the only people who cared about me to turn them against me when we met. Of course not. And that would never make me think that you would manipulate me either. Why would that ever happen?” His tone is dripping with sarcasm.
“Chuuya–”
He puts a hand up. “Don’t. Don’t do that. Just…pretend this conversation didn’t happen. You’re good at that, aren’t you? I mean, you did that with our whole history, so this should be pretty fucking simple.”
Dazai, to his credit, looks genuinely caught off guard. But clearly not enough to drop his mask, given that he looks so hurt. It makes guilt curl up in Chuuya’s gut, even as he reminds himself that it’s fake.
He turns, and gets on his motorcycle. As he rides away, he can’t help but let the wave of grief and sadness crash over him.