Work Text:
Chuuya doesn’t really want to be here. He’d rather be in his bed instead of overseeing some mafia deal. But work is work and this plan has been in the works for too long for it to fall apart right in the end.
It all goes smoothly until he hears someone scream behind him.
He turns back just in time to see a man standing right in front of him.
Before Chuuya can ask what the fuck that was, the guy punches him.
He activates his ability and sends his ass flying, but something about the way he smiles as he runs off makes Chuuya think that there might be more to this attack.
He vaguely remembers Mori warning him about a mysterious ability this organization has. They, unfortunately, know nothing about them other than how every person who crossed paths with them ends up dead or in the hospital. He doesn’t seem dead or injured so Chuuya thinks nothing of it as he goes back home.
It starts while he is getting ready for work. He goes through his usual routine: shower, breakfast, then putting on his signature outfit. When he's putting on his hat, however, hands that are not his own appear around it.
It's as if he were placing a crown on top of his head instead of a hat, Chuuya turns back to stare at the man that has appeared behind him. To his horror, Arthur Rimbaud looks at him with an expression he cannot describe.
Rimbaud smiles, “I’m glad it found its way to you.”
He doesn’t need to explain what it was, Chuuya already understands.
Dumbfounded, Chuuya replies involuntarily, “Yeah, it did.”
“I wish you had met him in different circumstances.”
“Me too.”
When Chuuya lets go of his hat, Rimbaud disappears.
Fuck, it wasn’t nothing.
Despite his moment, he still needs to go to work. As he walks to his bike, he realizes a figure standing by it. Upon closer inspection, it’s someone he knows - or used to know. It’s Albatross. He is smiling at him as if he was waiting for him to arrive. “You’re taking good care of her!”
“Of course I am!” says Chuuya as he gets on his bike. “As if I’d treat her like shit.”
He hears Albatross’ signature laugh before the engine kicks in.
Albatross stays with his bike when Chuuya gets off it and goes into the mafia headquarters.
God , he thinks as he rides the elevator up to Mori’s office, this day is going to be a fucking mess .
“Oh, Chuuya-kun!” Mori looks up from the papers in front of them. “How was last night's mission?”
“The mission went by alright. There was… an unexpected thing, but it’s nothing I couldn’t handle.”
“Perfect.” Something about their smile changes. “Though, what was this ‘unexpected thing’?”
“Right,” He takes a deep breath. “I might have gotten hit by an unknown ability.”
Mori’s eyes widen. “The same one I warned you not to get hit with?”
He shrugs, “Possibly.”
“Well, we don’t have much information on this ability, so could you explain what the effects of this so-called dangerous ability are like?”
“Hallucinations.”
Mori gestures to him to keep explaining.
“They’re of people I used to know. They’re like ghosts.”
He hears Mori murmur interesting to himself. “Alright Chuuya-kun, feel free to take today off.”
“Thank you, boss.”
“Our truce with the Agency is still in effect so you can go there for Dazai-kun to nullify it or Yosano-kun to heal you if the effects get too difficult.”
There’s no way in hell Chuuya is going to do that, but he appreciates the sentiment. He bows and exits Mori’s room.
He almost crashes once because of something Albatross said while he’s driving home.
“You still drive awfully by the way,” his friend who should be dead says.
Oh shut the fuck up , he thinks. As if you knew anything about how to drive properly.
Albatross laughs, he sounds alive and Chuuya wants to scream. He really needs to stop talking to these hallucinations.
He changes his trajectory from home and decides to head for the agency. His pride be damned, he cannot keep seeing his dead friends and them possibly causing his death.
The second he walks into the agency, there, on one of the couches in the waiting area, is Detective Murase, looking at him as if he were waiting for his arrival.
To make the matter worse, Murase speaks calmly.
“This place is not too shabby.” He is looking inside with a wistful expression. “I think I would've taken you here if it existed back then.”
Chuuya shuts his eyes. Even as a ghost, the detective finds ways to annoy him.
He forces himself to look away. He just needs shitty Dazai to nullify whatever ability that's been affecting him so he can go back home.
He apparently didn't look away soon enough because he suddenly has a very annoying presence in front of him.
“Hey, Kunikida-kun~ I thought you said dogs weren't allowed inside the building?”
Out of instinct, Chuuya kicks Dazai.
“Chuuyaʼs so mean! That's no way to treat your owner!”
“Stop whining, asshole!” He hadn't even hit him that hard.
Before Chuuya could continue, however, someone else comes up to them.
“Nakahara-san!”
Finally, someone he respects around this place shows up.
“Oh, Kenji.” Without realizing it, his hand goes up to pat the kid on the head. “What're you up to?”
“Just wanted to say hi!” Kenji might be the only person who would walk up to a mafia executive ‘just to say hi’. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m looking for some piece of shit ability user that got me. We don’t have any info on the guy, but Boss told me that you guys might help.”
“Oh, I’d love to help! Maybe we can go talk to some of my connections?”
“That sounds good.” He would like to avoid talking to other agency members if he could, so he’s glad Kenji came up to him first. “But let’s check if shitty Dazai can nullify it first?”
“Iʼll get some tea ready for us then!” Kenji sounds so excited that Chuuya doesn't have it in him to reject the kid.
After Kenji leaves, Dazai ( unfortunately ) decides to open his mouth. “Well, I'm not doing that after what you did to poor me!” Before Chuuya can yell at him, Dazai continues, “Also, your greeting from before should've done the job.”
He looks over to the couch, Murase isn’t there anymore. Before he can be happy about it, he realizes another one has appeared behind Dazai.
“Shit, he's here now?”
“He?”
“That doesn’t matter, it didn't fucking work.”
“Come on Chuuya, are you that sad to see me?” Piano Man says.
He's not at all sad to see them, that's the problem. The problem is that he will be absolutely miserable if he doesn't get rid of this soon. He already knows that he'll be spending tomorrow surrounded by the smell of incense.
Piano Man smiles. “You’ve missed us that much?”
It takes all of Chuuya’s willpower not to scream Of course I fucking did .
Dazai pokes his cheek. “Did you come here to ask us to find your brain or something?” Another poke to his cheek. “We can’t find things that don’t exist y’know?”
“Oh shut the fuck up, you’re going to judge me with your fish brain?”
“How dare you insult my very smart brain.” Chuuya rolls his eyes.
“He hasn’t changed a bit, hasn’t he? Well, maybe-”
Chuuya doesn’t let Piano Man finish. “I’m going to go find Kenji.” And leaves Dazai on his own at the entrance.
He finds Kenji holding two cups of tea, he hands Chuuya one of them.
He takes a sip. It doesn’t compare to the tea he drinks with Kouyou but it’s pretty decent.
“While I was preparing us some tea, Yosano-san came up and told me that she wants to run some tests on you. Said an unknown ability could be very dangerous.”
He doesn’t want to have tests made but her ability could potentially heal him. “Sure, sure, let’s keep it fast.”
“Her room is right this way, Nakahara-san!”
Kenji leads him to Yosano’s infirmary, he wordlessly sits by on a chair, still holding his cup, wanting to get this over with as soon as possible. She seems to understand his discomfort because she keeps silent.
Everyone who knows Chuuya also knows that he doesn’t like hospitals or anything medicine-related, but to make matters worse, Doc has decided to appear and stare at the medical equipment that’s been laid out on a table.
Chuuya hopes that Yosano doesn’t notice the way his breath hitches, but today is a string of awful things happening to him so of course she notices.
“Are you seeing one right now?”
Chuuya nods. “He’s staring at your equipment over there.”
“I’m not staring, I’m admiring. There’s a difference,” Doc says.
Chuuya exhales, “Yeah, whatever. He says he’s admiring them.”
Yosano laughs. “Looks like your friend had good tastes. Who was he?”
“That’s Doc,” he motions to the ghost she can’t see. Doc waves to her anyways. “He was a total weirdo who wanted to become God by saving people’s lives.”
“Sounds like quite the character.”
“Yeah. He saved me a bunch of times back then.”
It’s silent again after that. He finds himself thinking about the cup of tea Kenji prepared that he’s not going to get to finish because it has gone too cold already in his hands.
A few moments later, Yosano taps his arm to signal that it’s over. “Come back later for the results, but you can go now.”
He gets up from his spot to leave the agency with Kenji.
Chuuya is not exaggerating when he says that everyone in town greets Kenji with a smile as they pass them by. No one questions how he has a mafia executive next to him. Someone even asks him if he is Kenji’s big brother.
Kenji suddenly stops. He looks like he noticed something. “Oh, he’s this way, Nakahara-san!”
He calls out for someone as they walk over, a man stops and stiffens the moment he realizes who’s walking up to him.
The man is twice Kenji’s size, but he is shaking from head to toe as they talk. Kenji, however, isn’t aware and is talking with him as if they were friends. He is so on edge that he doesn’t even notice Chuuya is there, which he’d usually be offended by, but he’ll let it slide because what’s currently happening in front of him is too funny for him to care.
“I don’t think I’ve seen anyone this scared of someone this tiny.” Lippman appears next to him, but Chuuya doesn’t have it in him to be surprised by these sudden appearances anymore. “He would’ve been a great help during my negotiations, would’ve made things much easier.”
“As if you ever needed the help,” he whispers without thinking about it.
“It would’ve been nice to have an apprentice,” Lippman shrugs. “Who knows, maybe he’d join me on the silver screen, unlike you.”
He sighs and moves forward to listen to Kenji’s chat.
“Nakahara-san! He was just telling me where to find someone with an ability similar to what you mentioned!”
“Oh? Let’s hear it then.”
“N-Nakahara-san?” All the color from the man's face disappears. “O-Of course I’ll even write down directions for you!”
“Thank you! City folk really are so kind!” Between a man scared shitless and the world's sweetest child, Chuuya laughs.
The man didn’t spare any details about this place while sending them here, as it turns out the building is a shithole that was abandoned just before construction finished because of an argument between workers.
“You stay outside.” Chuuya says to Kenji. He really doesn’t want the kid to see how ugly things are going to get in there. “Be the lookout, I’ll call for you when I’m done.”
Kenji seems to understand why he’s asking him to stay behind, he does a mock salute. “I’ll make sure no one comes in or out.”
They both laugh and Chuuya finds himself ruffling his hair again.
Chuuya enters the building.
The place isn’t huge to begin with, just 3 floors, so there aren’t a lot of people standing guard. He quickly knocks down a few people while they’re distracted and starts to make his way through the floors.
As he is fighting the very inexperienced guards, he sees Iceman from the corner of his eye, pointing at various rubble laying around that he can use as weapons. He is glad that at least one of the hallucinations is trying to be helpful.
He goes through all 3 floors suspiciously easily. Something is definitely up here, but he doesn’t have enough information to figure out what just yet.
He kicks the final door down. The guy he remembers from last night is waiting for him with a gun in his hand. Iceman is standing behind the guy and points to the pile of bricks next to the door. He moves to pick one up.
The guy points his gun at him. “What are you doing? Put that down!” His threats might’ve worked on someone (who is not him) if he didn’t sound like he was about to piss his pants.
Chuuya smirks. “Sure.”
And he throws the brick at him. He aims at his legs, effectively breaking one of them with a little help from gravity manipulation.
The guy goes down with a scream. Chuuya picks up his gun then steps on his broken leg.
“So you’re the guy who did this last night, huh?”
The guy weakly nods. “I was paid to do it, I swear, please don’t hurt me!” He pleads.
“We’ll see if I’ll need to hurt you more.” He puts the gun on his head. “Remove the effects of your ability.”
“Look man, I don’t really know how to turn it off, but it should be gone tomorrow.”
The guy is weeping now. It’s obvious how he has been used by someone else. Considering everything, he probably has been hired by someone and left here to be killed by him. Chuuya becomes painfully aware that he’s not going to get anything out of this guy.
He doesn’t really trust him but nothing he can’t really punch the ability away. “It fucking better. But just in case it doesn’t, let's make sure you can’t escape.” He yells out the window. “Kenji!”
In a few seconds, Kenji comes in holding a pair of handcuffs. “Hello, sir!” He moves to cuff him but the guy starts to move, trying to escape. Kenji grabs his arms to stop him, Chuuya thinks he hears a crack. “Sir, please don’t struggle. I’ll be taking you to the Armed Detective Agency for questioning.”
The way back to the agency goes by without a problem. The guy bitches about his broken bones a few times but stops when Kenji offers to carry him on his back as an apology for breaking his bones.
At the agency, the guy with the glasses ( Kunikida, if he remembers correctly ) takes him away to a room probably to question him. The poor guy doesn’t even know what’s going to happen to him when the Mafia gets their hands on him after this.
Thinking that there isn’t any reason for him to stay here, Chuuya turns around to leave but Kenji pulls on his coat to say something.
“Uhm,” he sounds unsure of what he should be saying. “I know they’d just be the effects of an ability, but…” Kenji shuffles where he stands, “I think it’d be nice to see old friends you couldn’t see anymore. Wouldn’t it?”
It’s suddenly apparent to Chuuya that Kenji has lost someone important to him in the past. He probably misses them a lot too.
“It wasn’t all bad, you don’t have to worry about me kid.”
Kenji smiles at him in response. “I’ll take you out for beef bowls to thank you some time, okay?”
His smile grows bigger. “That’d be great!”
When he goes back home, Rimbaud is waiting for him sitting on his couch. It's like he was meant to be a part of his life and he really could've been, if Verlaine had managed to run away with both of them by his side. It hurts more than he cares to admit. Chuuya feels like it'd be more pleasant if he ripped his heart out right now.
But doing those things would not help him with anything. Instead, he decides to listen to Kenjiʼs words and tries to enjoy it for a little while. He grabs one of his favorite wines and two wine glasses then sets them down on his coffee table.
“Don't think I ever learned which brand you preferred, so don't start bitching if you don't like it.”
Rimbaud chuckles. “I don't mind, not that I can drink it.”
“Oh, shut up.”
They spend the night silently sitting together, it’s surprisingly comfortable.
He falls asleep on the couch a few hours later.
When Chuuya wakes up the next day, his apartment is empty. There's only a full wine glass left behind.