Partners of the Dark

T-rated for mild coarse language because I couldn't write this without Chuuya swearing lmao.

---

Dazai Osamu was arguably the most annoying person you could ever find on Earth.

He just knew how to get on people's nerves and push their buttons, and he would do it on purpose, just so he could laugh at you.

Such a horrible personality, right?

If it weren't for his brains, well, he would be long dead. He would have also been buried six feet under, had people actually bothered to bury him, but guess what, nobody was even going to hold a funeral for this epitome of irritation.

Chuuya woke up after passing out from the fight against the Guild, and yet once again it was proven that he shouldn't have placed a single ounce of faith in this person named Dazai Osamu.

What was the point of folding his clothes?! At least put the coat on top of him so he wouldn't have to wake up freezing in the middle of nowhere at night! Goddamnit.

Chuuya cursed Dazai to hell and back, and swore to kill him when he next saw him. Or maybe just hit him multiple times to relieve his anger.

At least the rest of Port Mafia managed to find him, and bring him back properly.

He really should have known better. He really should have.

It wasn't like Dazai's nasty personality could ever improve.

There was one particular mission that Chuuya would never forget, no matter how much he wanted to.

The two of them were hiding behind a fence and examining the enemy base they were supposed to invade.

Chuuya had to use his gravity-manipulation ability to slightly float above the ground to peep over the fences, while Dazai had to bend down a little to avoid being seen.

Chuuya took off his hat so that his hat wouldn't be noticed, and his apparent height noticeably decreased.

Dazai took a look at him and commented, "It has been years and you still haven't grown an inch since the day I met you."

"Shut up." Chuuya bit back. "Why are we doing this? We can just run in and kill all of them."

"It's always good to know thy enemy." Dazai shrugged and replied. He quickly judged the number and the formation of people to decide on the best way to get into the place.

Chuuya also surveyed the enemy base and said, "Let's do Deception of the Lily."

Dazai laughed and shook his head, "No, do Skies That Are Red instead."

"What was that again...?" There were so many names that Dazai had come up with, and Chuuya could hardly remember every single thing. After a while, Chuuya's face visibly paled a few shades when he suddenly recalled what that actually meant. "Oh no, hell no, I refuse."

"It would be good." Dazai nodded earnestly.

"It will absolutely not be! I thought that was just some sick humour of yours when you wrote that into the book! Didn't you add it in just because you thought it was humiliating? That can't be a real strategy."

Dazai shot him a disapproving look. "Chuuya. You know my choice of tactics is always right."

"Arghhhhh!" Chuuya's ability was already rising around his hands, and he wanted to destroy something out of frustration. Unfortunately, he couldn't deny that Dazai was most likely right.

"Shh, don't let the enemy know we are here."

Chuuya grumbled under his breath. "How do you come up with these names, anyway? They are so stupid and long and weirdly poetic."

"With my brain." Dazai stated matter-of-factly.

Chuuya narrowed his eyes at him. "I want to dig out your brain and smash it."

"Before you do that, let's finish this first." Dazai smiled, "Come on."

Chuuya reluctantly followed behind Dazai.

After Dazai finished the setup, he looked at Chuuya and asked, "Ready?"

"For this? Never." Chuuya muttered disgruntledly.

Dazai did not even bother to hide the smile on his face nor the gleam in his eye. "Don't worry, it looks fun. It's not every day we find such fine and elastic vines. Perfect for this plan." Dazai said as he tugged on the vines in his hand.

Chuuya obviously was not as amused. "Why don't you try it too?"

Dazai laughed. "Just activate your ability, partner, and stand on this."

Chuuya didn't move until Dazai gave him another look. "We don't have all day, mister."

"Promise me you wouldn't laugh." Chuuya said as he tried to balance himself on the vines.

"I won't laugh at you now. Okay, just do as I have said. Remember to maximise and spread your powers as much as possible before you land."

Chuuya nodded.

As soon as Chuuya was flung into the air thanks to Dazai as the latter released his hold on the vines, sending Chuuya straight into the enemy base like he was using a slingshot, however, Dazai immediately burst out laughing. "HAHAHAHAHA!"

"You said you wouldn't laugh, liar!" Chuuya shouted back in mid-air.

"I said I wouldn't laugh at you just now, but that doesn't mean I can't laugh right now!" Dazai nearly ran out of breath from laughing, but did not forget to remind him, "Make sure to use more of your ability to surround you, then you would look more like a stone being launched from a catapult- I meant, then you can destroy more of the enemy!"

"You little-" The profanities Chuuya shouted disappeared into the wind as he flew over and crash-landed onto the ground where the troops of the enemy were at, and his ability formed a huge black ball around him to cushion the fall while destroying the whole lot of enemy in the process.

When Dazai finally arrived at the bottom ground to go into the place together with Chuuya, Chuuya was dusting dirt off his clothes. "I really hated that. We are never, ever, going to do that again."

Dazai shrugged nonchalantly, "It worked, didn't it?"

"But we could have done something else and it would have still worked." Chuuya said scathingly and cursed, "So screw you."

"It's the fastest way. When am I ever wrong?" Dazai smugly asked back.

Chuuya gritted his teeth, "Next time, add another one where I will be throwing you instead."

"That wouldn't be a good idea. You get nothing but injuries on your partner."

Chuuya shook his head, a great idea suddenly came to his mind. He exclaimed, "Yes, we all know that you are crazy weak, but think about it. A group of ability-users. Then I throw you onto them so that you can nullify their abilities all at once. Beautiful!"

"Shush, Chuuya, we are going in." Dazai dismissed Chuuya's suggestion with a wave as they proceeded towards the entrance.

"I even thought of some poetic names too! How about The Throwing of Dazai? The Dazai Attack? Dazai Bomb? Pick one." Chuuya continued.

Dazai just ignored him as he walked in front.

Chuuya grudgingly trailed behind him. "Why don't I get to choose what new strategy to add?"

----

Ever since Chuuya got his hand on a bottle of wine, he could never let go of them again.

He even started his own wine collection in his room, and if the collection got bigger, he would have to ask Mori to give him some place in the cellar to keep the bottles.

Dazai walked by the lounge and saw Chuuya drinking a glass of wine. With a raised eyebrow, he said, "Isn't that underage drinking? Chuuya is such a bad little boy."

"We are in the mafia. And all you care about is underage drinking?" Chuuya rolled his eyes at Dazai, before twirling the wineglass and asked, "You want some?"

Dazai shook his head, "Not a big fan of wine."

Chuuya shrugged, "Your loss. Not like I really wanted to share this with you anyway." Chuuya took another sip from his glass, "Ah, heavenly."

"Doubt you know what heaven feels like."

Chuuya laughed, "I don't want to hear that from you, bastard."

Dazai didn't bother to reply, but stood up to grab some food from the counter. As he slowly munched the food in his mouth, he watched Chuuya's face get progressively redder. "How much have you drunk already?"

"Hmm?" Chuuya looked up, lowered his head to look at the glass in his hand, then looked back up again. "Two glasses? Three? I've lost count."

"..." Dazai decided that he shan't comment on Chuuya's low alcohol tolerance, because he would be too drunk to even talk properly anyway. Dazai would like to leave soon, if he hadn't felt like there would be an interesting show five minutes later.

As he had thought, Chuuya had this incapability of noticing that he was getting drunk, so he just kept drinking more.

Soon enough, Chuuya's head hit the table and it didn't get back up.

"Chuuya?" Dazai finally left the counter, walked towards him and called out, but there was no response. "Chibi? Idiot? Slug?" Still no response.

"Being a part of mafia, wouldn't it be dangerous if you become unconscious so easily? Why don't I teach you a nice and useful lesson?" Dazai grinned as he bent down to Chuuya's level.

It was hours later when Chuuya woke up. He rubbed his eyes and tried to orientate himself. He was still in the lounge, his wine was still there, but Dazai was already gone.

"What time is it already?" Chuuya said out loud, but there was no one in the lounge to answer him.

He grabbed his belongings and wobbled back to his room to rest.

As he walked back to his room, however, the people who saw him did not greet him as usual, but started laughing while trying desperately to cover their laughter.

"What, have you never seen a drunk person before?" Chuuya scowled at them, and they quickly bowed and apologized, then scuttered off.

"What's their problem?" Chuuya grumbled under his breath. It wasn't the first time he was drunk, so why were they laughing so hard?

When Chuuya reached his room, he placed the leftover wine on his table, then walked to the bathroom to wash up.

Everything was alright until he looked up in the mirror, and then he froze.

On his forehead were the words 'Dazai's dog', and on the right cheek was 'midget', and lastly on the left cheek was a badly drawn slug. There wasn't a clean area left on his face.

It finally dawned unto Chuuya that Dazai had drawn these humiliating things on his face, and the people on the corridor were laughing about his face and not his drunken state. To his horror, he had also found out that Dazai had the nerve to use a permanent marker to draw when he realised he couldn't wash it off with water.

"DAZAI!!!! I WILL KILL YOU!!!!" The shout was so loud that it could be heard even from outside of his room.

What was the point of having abilities, when he couldn't even wash marks left by permanent marker off his face completely? Chuuya thought as he stood in front of Mori in his office.

Mori smiled when he saw him again, and Chuuya wasn't sure if he didn't find it amusing or he just wasn't that good at laughing, because Mori did not laugh outright.

"Just laugh if you want." Chuuya finally said, because that smile was even more infuriating than him just laughing at him. He just wanted to get it over and done with.

Mori shrugged, "It's a rare sight to see him being so childish."

Chuuya narrowed his eyes. "What, and it's a good thing? I am so going to get my revenge."

"Isn't it amazing when two people with no childhood act like children?" Mori continued.

Chuuya folded his arms in defiance. "We don't act like children, or at least I don't. Can't be so sure about him."

Mori didn't bother replying to that, but said, "I've heard you have tried to beat him up whenever you saw him for the past couple of days, and I think he has gotten enough injuries to make up for this."

Chuuya still didn't feel like his anger was placated. "Let me write something on his face too."

Mori paused for a moment, before saying, "You do realise that permanent marker ink could be removed by alcohol, right?" And Dazai probably knew that too.

Chuuya stared back at him blankly.

"Off you go. Enjoy the rest of your day." Mori abruptly said, sending him off.

"..." Chuuya didn't react, but as Mori shooed him with his hand, his muscle memory made him turn around and head towards the door.

As he slowly made his way towards the door, he suddenly stopped in the middle of his tracks.

Wait, it had been so many days, and no one bothered to tell him?!

He turned back to Mori mechanically, like a poorly oiled robot.

Mori did not have a good feeling, as he watched Chuuya stare back at him.

It wasn't the first time he had seen Mori since the incident, Chuuya thought.

... Goddamn these cunning bastards who liked to watch people suffer.

Mori's office needed some repair after that, and Chuuya received an order that he had to learn how to control his temper.

---

Dazai was messed up.

Sure, everyone in Port Mafia was messed up in their own way, but Dazai was another kind of messed-up.

It was as if there was something missing in him, and it would never be filled up.

Chuuya seldom felt it from him as compared to the others, since Dazai was more like an annoying insult machine when he was with him.

The bouts showed up randomly, often when he was alone, like how Chuuya found him before going to missions together in the past.

"Oi, brat, get your ass up. We need to go work now." Chuuya kicked Dazai who was sitting on the floor, staring into space.

Dazai looked up, the only eye he had exposed was dark and void of emotions. "Don't call me a brat when you are a brat yourself."

Chuuya rolled his eyes at the sullen aura around Dazai. Who did this guy think he was? What, so only he had stupid problems? Chuuya kicked him again. "Did you forget that you are younger than me? And stop acting like your whole family died."

Dazai gave him a side-eye. "They did. Or they might as well be."

"..." Chuuya rephrased, "Well, then stop acting like you're the only one in the world with no family."

Dazai finally got up and rebuked with an eyebrow raised, "Stop acting like you've got a stick up your ass first then, Chuuya."

Chuuya stood up straighter. "Do you want to fight?"

"No." Dazai responded.

Chuuya nodded, surprised with Dazai's oddly unusual pleasing answer. "Then don't try to-"

Dazai continued while interrupting him, "There's no point in fighting an idiot anyway."

"What did you say?" If Chuuya had a tail like a cat, it would have been puffed up by now. Well, how could he have thought that anything good would come out of Dazai's mouth?

Dazai shook his head. "Let's go."

Dazai walked off and Chuuya followed after him, saying, "You are the one with something stuck in your ass today."

Their mission today, was clearance.

A complete clearing of an organisation that was trying to sabotage the Port Mafia.

Chuuya was a suitable person for this job due to his destructive ability, while Dazai was sent too in case he wanted to use Corruption, probably.

With a gun on his hand, Dazai rapidly swept through the crowd of people.

"Shouldn't they be happy that they are going to die? Why are they running away? I am just trying to end their misery. I would love to be in their shoes any day." Dazai asked Chuuya while tilting his head in confusion.

"Say, Chuuya. Why do you think we are alive? How could one continue to live knowing that there is no ultimate meaning in life?" Dazai turned around and looked at Chuuya.

It was back, the void in Dazai's eye, and it even had slight hints of derangement in there. The blood of the people was enough to dye the whole ground red, and Dazai looked like a demon - the only one left standing in a bloodbath with murder on his hand.

Chuuya could not answer the question, or at least he could not answer the real question Dazai wanted answered. When someone lost the innate will to fight as a living being, how could they gain it back?

Chuuya doubted the darkness surrounding Dazai would just go away like that. Perhaps he just learnt to hide it better after leaving the mafia.

"It takes too many qualifications to be a human." Dazai thought out loud. "I don't think, I would ever want to be a human again."

Chuuya blinked, and thought about himself.

"All I wanted, was to prove that I'm a human."

---

Dazai and Chuuya were complete opposites.

Chuuya loves alcohol, but he gets drunk easily.

Dazai didn't love alcohol like Chuuya, but his alcohol tolerance was much higher than Chuuya's. It was hard for him to get drunk, and he had to drink a lot before he was dead drunk.

Or it might just be that Dazai didn't let himself get completely inebriated often.

So when Chuuya saw Dazai passed out on the streets reeking of alcohol after Chuuya came back from an out-of-town mission, he was confused for a second.

"Oi, shitty Dazai." Chuuya kicked what seemed like a dead person on the ground.

"Hmm..." Dazai didn't even wake up, and only moved slightly to make himself more comfortable after he shifted when Chuuya kicked him.

"What are you doing here?" Chuuya bent down and asked after slapping Dazai's face.

Dazai finally opened his eye, and squinted at Chuuya. "Oh, look who's back. It's shorty."

Chuuya heard the insult from Dazai so many times he just scoffed, "If you want to die, go die somewhere else."

"What did you say, shorty? Can't hear you from your height." Dazai was still struggling to keep his eye open and focused, and was obviously out of it as he laughed at his own joke.

Chuuya stared down at boneless Dazai lying on the ground. "... You do realise you are lying at a lower level than me, right?"

"Can't hear you~" Dazai continued to chant.

Chuuya decided to just walk off and leave Dazai there.

"Hahahahah! Shorty's so small he can't even be seen!" Chuuya turned around to stare at Dazai when he heard him suddenly burst out laughing. He then took a look around their surroundings and the people staring at them as they walked by.

Chuuya decided that Dazai was going to make the whole of Port Mafia lose face if he remained out here on the streets, and could only walk back to him. "Are you going to go back?"

Dazai did not reply him, because he was out cold again. Chuuya bent down and observed him, but scrunched his nose as the stench on Dazai hit him.

"Argh, you smell disgusting. Did you drink some cheap and bad alcohol or something?"

Dazai reeked of alcohol, and for all of Chuuya's love for alcohol, this didn't smell good. Maybe Dazai didn't bathe for days, or he just puked on himself or whatever - Chuuya didn't want to know, and he definitely refused to go closer to him no matter what.

Now was the time his ability came in perfectly, although it might seem that it would be wasted in such a circumstance, on such a person. Yet, there was no way Chuuya would carry Dazai back like this.

In the end, on the streets of Yokohama there was a strange sight: a petite person with orange hair and a hat walking with an unconscious man in a completely black attire floating beside him. When Chuuya finally managed to reach Dazai's room and throw him onto the floor of the bedroom, he didn't bother to clean him up or anything and just walked out.

Hell, on any other day, Chuuya would just leave him to die and hope he dies, so there couldn't be anything more that could be expected out of him.

When he walked out of Dazai's room, he came face to face with a subordinate of his. Offhandedly, Chuuya inquired him, "What went on while I was gone?"

"Oda Sakunosuke is dead." The subordinate replied after bowing.

"Oh." Chuuya raised an eyebrow. Had he expected it? No. But was it unexpected? Not really, either. After all, it was the mafia, and people die every day. "That explains it."

Chuuya let the subordinate return to his work while he went back to his room to rest since he had no tasks to do today.

He didn't see Dazai for a while after that, because what could he do or what should he have done about it?

The next time he had to see Dazai, was due to a mission as they were ordered to do it together.

"And here I thought I was the alcoholic." Chuuya said to himself when he found Dazai to be drunk again, this time in a bar. He had only found this place after asking people where Dazai could be and where they last saw him.

It was déjà vu all over again, as Chuuya went ahead to kick Dazai. "Oi, we have work to do. There's no time for you to be drunk here now."

"I don't want to work~" Fortunately or unfortunately – Chuuya really couldn't tell – Dazai was seemingly soberer and more responsive today.

Chuuya scowled. "You know what happened to people who don't work in the Port Mafia? They get-" Chuuya suddenly stopped in mid-sentence, because for a moment, it appeared that there was not a hint of insobriety in Dazai's eye as he stared at him.

"-Yeah, you get what I mean." Chuuya hastily finished off.

"I don't care, Chuuya, I just want to sleep." Dazai whined as he let his head rest on the bar table. "You can go and do it yourself." Dazai said, his voice muffled as his mouth pressed against his arms.

Chuuya kicked him again. "No way I'm going to do your work for you, dumbass Dazai. You were already bad enough before, and now you want to skive off work? I might kill you, Dazai."

"Go on, then." Dazai didn't care about that threat at all.

"I swear to god." Chuuya's hand ran through his hair in frustration. "Get a grip, Dazai."

Dazai actually started snoring from the bar table and Chuuya had to grab him by the collar to get him up again.

"What do you mean?" Chuuya made a face. "What do you want? Do you want to not do work and get kicked out of Port Mafia or what?"

Dazai simply shrugged.

Chuuya hissed at him, "You of all people should know that it's not going be that easy. One doesn't get kicked out of Port Mafia, they just get removed. Don't tell me you don't understand what that means."

"Ok, whatever you say, Chuuya." Dazai acknowledged him perfunctorily.

Chuuya released his grip on Dazai's shirt, and Dazai fell back onto his chair, making his eye a little clearer. Dazai finally smiled as he peered at Chuuya, "Didn't know Chuuya cared so much about me. I feel very touched."

"I do not!" Chuuya denied strongly, and was highly affronted. "I will be the happiest if you were gone and disappeared from my sight, Dazai."

Dazai just laughed, "I would be the one who is happy if I don't have to see idiot Chuuya every day in my life. I mean, everyone should not have to see you, in case your idiocy actually rubs off on people and they get stupider day by day thanks to you."

"Hah, I will return that statement right back at you." Chuuya said as he stormed out of the bar, and finally came into terms with himself that he had to do this mission alone.

---

Even after joining the Armed Detective Agency, Chuuya could tell that Dazai was still the same suicidal maniac.

Well, small things changed. Dazai seemed a little more eccentric and out of his mind, but also less despondent.

Chuuya still wanted to roll his eyes every moment Dazai was within 50 meters of him, or kill him and get it over and done with. Hmm, come to think of it, killing him is such a tempting thought.

Looking at how Dazai interacted with the other people in the Agency, however, did make Chuuya wonder a little.

Maybe despite Dazai being so suicidal and all, he still revelled in people acknowledging him?

He probably still yearned for some extent of brightness even though he was born from the darkness.

As for Chuuya? Nope, he never cared for that.

On a very unlucky day, Chuuya very unfortunately met Dazai and Atsushi outside when the both of them were running errands.

More like Atsushi was trying to get Dazai to work, but Dazai was whining as usual like the little kid he was.

Chuuya's first instinct was to turn around and leave this place as soon as possible, but the two of them spotted him before he could walk away. The weretiger whispered to Dazai, but Chuuya could still hear him, "Dazai-san, isn't that the guy the one from Port Mafia?"

"Yikes, it's Chuuya." Dazai made a face, then whispered back to Atsushi, "Stay away from him, he's bad influence."

"Oi, I can hear you, you know!" Chuuya who was just turning away turned back to them and shouted, "And I don't want to hear that from you of all people, shitty Dazai!"

Dazai pushed Atsushi on his back to steer him in another direction away from Chuuya, "Just pretend we didn't see anything. See no evil, hear no evil, and the evil will not exist."

"..." It was fine. In fact, it was great that Dazai managed to get out of his sight on his own accord, but what was he saying about the evil again?

As the two of them left, Chuuya decided to go back now, but was distracted by a wine shop along the way. His addicted self uncontrollably went into the shop and tried too many samples before getting out, so the next thing he knew, he was sitting on a bench and he couldn't even remember how he got there.

With a bottle of opened wine in his hand, Chuuya contemplated the pros and cons of continuing to drink it.

"What's that awful smell?" Chuuya suddenly heard someone talking beside him, and jerked to see who was it. He didn't even notice there was someone sitting beside him until now.

Four eyes met, and chaos ensued.

"No wonder, it's Chuuya." Dazai said with a look of disgust.

"Why the hell are you here, bastard?" Chuuya was thinking how unlucky he was, to run into Dazai not once, but twice in a day.

Dazai gave him a side-eye, "I could say the same to you, idiot. I sat here first, and when I sat here, there wasn't another person around, so why did you come and sit on this bench?"

Chuuya couldn't quite remember what happened before this, so he just shouted, "Do you own this bench, shitty Dazai? Then shut the hell up. I thought you were on a mission, why were you even sleeping here?"

"Ah, Atsushi-kun is at it..." Dazai smiled.

Chuuya frowned at how despicable Dazai was, "Still leaving your work to other people, I see. You're a waste of bandages, and a waste of space."

They sank into silence after that, and the only sounds they could hear were the waves of the sea in front of them.

In an uncharacteristic moment of himself – Chuuya would attribute it to being drunk – Chuuya asked, "So you do like being at the Armed Detective Agency, huh?"

Dazai shrugged, "What's there not to like? It's much better than the mafia for sure."

"... Then, did you find what you were looking for?"

Dazai glanced at Chuuya, "What was I looking for?"

Chuuya rolled his eyes, "I don't know, ask yourself."

"People, do make life a little more interesting." Dazai slowly said.

"Dazai-san!" The weretiger suddenly appeared and called out to him, "Where did you go?"

"Hahaha, Atsushi-kun, are you done? Can we go back now?" Dazai smiled and patted Atsushi's head when he reached them.

Chuuya raised an eyebrow, and even felt a twinge of pity for Akutagawa due to Dazai's blatant favouritism towards the weretiger, but that dissipated in a second.

Hah... Whatever, Chuuya suddenly remembered how happy he was when Dazai left Port Mafia.

He even opened a bottle of his most treasured wine and celebrated, because goddamn Dazai was finally gone.

Until he found a bomb in his car, and he was too drunk at that time to think properly.

And yeah, guess who put the bomb there? Oh, Chuuya should have known, but he wasn't thinking straight in his drunken state.

Who else other than Dazai Osamu?

"Are you still drinking till you are out?" Dazai stood up and straightened his clothes, but shook his head disapprovingly when he saw the bottle of wine on the bench at Chuuya��s side. "When you are on the streets, too."

Chuuya narrowed his eyes at him. "How's that your business?"

"Don't you remember that one time you were out and then after that everyone knew you were my dog?" Dazai smirked.

Yup, one thing sure didn't change. He was still so annoying. Chuuya thought as he threw Dazai a well-deserved punch.

----

Dazai was cunning, crafty and devious. He was someone who schemed, plotted, and basically had everything under his control, while keeping everyone else out of the loop.

Chuuya, on the other hand, found it too troublesome to think so much and plan the next actions so carefully. He obviously preferred to solve everything with his fists and kicks, and most of the time they do get solved thanks to that.

Maybe Dazai had to plan everything out so carefully because he was too weak. Hah.

When you don't have the brawn, you've got to have the brain to make up for it, right? Otherwise, Dazai would have been long dead by now.

Mori had informed him previously that he had to do something, and he reluctantly cooperated with Ango to save Yokohama, or something like that.

Standing at the edge of the plane thousands of feet above ground, Chuuya stared down at the red dragon in the distance.

Chuuya was not one who feels fear. Everything was simple to him. Either he succeeds in defeating the enemy, or he doesn't. There was nothing to be afraid about.

Ango's voice rang in his earpiece: "Dazai is most likely eliminated now."

Chuuya raised an eyebrow. Dazai of all people wouldn't be eliminated so easily. As the Chinese saying goes, a wily hare has three burrows to hide in, so how could they not expect the same or more for the world's most cunning fox Dazai? He would definitely plan out his multiple possible retreats, or at least be able to see all the possibilities and move on from there.

"Nah, I don't care about that." Chuuya replied. "Moreover, unless he successfully commits suicide, I doubt that dimwit Dazai can die so easily."

"Are you sure about continuing with this?" Ango asked him again. Wasn't he an annoying one too, Chuuya thought at the back of his mind. Didn't know he actually cared for him, so why be so pretentious?

"Yeah, and I'm sure that Dazai is in there." Chuuya cracked his knuckles and continued, "I need to give him a smack for this or I'll never get over it." Chuuya thought of the satisfying crack when his fist hits Dazai's face and a smirk played on his lips.

Well, even if Dazai were dead, then he wouldn't mind the smack even more, would he?

Chuuya took out his earpiece and jumped out of the plane, the last thought in his mind while he was in free fall was the bruised face of Dazai, which ultimately led him to finish what he had set out to do even when he was in Corruption mode.

Dazai was thereafter rudely woken up from his deep sleep by taking a hit to his face, and saw Chuuya right in front of him as was what he had expected.

��That was a rough wake-up call for a handsome man like me." Dazai complained with a slight pout.

"You deserved and expected it." Chuuya stated it as a matter of fact, with no hint of pity or sympathy on his face. No, he didn't have those kinds of emotions, and even if he had, he would not waste it on a person like Dazai.

Furthermore, Dazai placed the antidote in his mouth for the exact reason that he knew Chuuya was going to punch him the moment he saw him. Ah, that felt great, knowing that Dazai actually knew how badly people wanted to punch him. Did he finally realise how annoying he was, too?

Unable to rebut that, Dazai just commented with a smile on his face, "You trusted me enough to use Corruption, Chuuya? I am so touched I could cry."

Chuuya scoffed with disdain, as if Dazai had said something very disgusting. "Don't you think trust is too big of a word to describe what we have?"

Dazai laughed, "Then how about us trusting ourselves that we will correctly know what the other person would do?"

Chuuya didn't manage to say anything as he went crashing down onto Dazai as the force field around them disappeared.

"Like how I know you are a stupid cunning idiot, yeah." Chuuya finally muttered as he regained back some of his strength to speak.

"That's kind of an oxymoron." Dazai helpfully provided the piece of information and knowledge, before saying, "Have a little faith. We were partners for so many years, after all."

Faith? How could anyone have faith in Dazai after all the things he had done? Chuuya for one had experienced all the times Dazai was being unreliable. What a joke. Chuuya's fuddled mind couldn't even think of an insult properly at this timing, and that was a shame, because Dazai should be insulted at all times.

"I can't even lift a single finger..." Chuuya said and faltered off, not even having enough energy to tell Dazai to shut up as his eyelids were heavy and beginning to shut.

Just when Chuuya was slipping out of consciousness, he thought he heard someone say, "You did well, partner."

Chuuya wasn't sure whether it was just some hallucination of his, and he quickly forgot about it as he sank into deep sleep.

When Chuuya awakened after passing out due to using Corruption, Dazai was nowhere to be found, as usual.

Not this again. Chuuya grumbled something incoherent even though there was no one around him to hear him.

Yes, Dazai really needed to get rid of his habit of leaving Chuuya on the battlegrounds after he freaking passed out cold, especially after he was just using Chuuya's ability for his own plans.

Chuuya tried to move his legs, but grunted when every muscle of his was screaming like mad. Giving up, he leant against the debris and looked up at the sky, seriously contemplating life all over, while mentally running through the images of him hitting Dazai again and again in his head until he felt more satisfied.

How was he going to get back to Port Mafia like this again?

With all the strength he had left, Chuuya could only curse under his breath. "Goddamnit, Dazai."

---

Dazai was a crazy, annoying, messed-up, psychopath, Chuuya thought, but he was a crazy, annoying, messed-up, psychopath that he knew for seven years.

For a split second sometimes, a stupid part of Chuuya would think that Dazai was probably the partner who was the most complementary to him, and he would be the most complementary one Chuuya would ever get in his lifetime.

Of course, the next second Chuuya would quickly switch to thinking of ways to kill him, because who wouldn't want to kill Dazai Osamu?

Heck, even Dazai Osamu himself wanted to kill Dazai Osamu.

Definitely, though, Chuuya wouldn't be able to find another partner like Dazai. And you know what? He was damn glad and hoped it would stay that way.

At least now, he could sip his wine quietly in the Port Mafia headquarters without someone annoying him.

That was until someone knocked on his door to inform him that Mori was looking for him.

Chuuya took the wine bottle and wine glasses along as he walked out of his room, hoping to share his treasured wine with Mori or at least drink more wine while doing so.

When he opened the door of Mori's office, however, the wine that was more expensive than gold was fated to be wasted as the bottle was flung into the air towards a certain person.

"DAZZZAAAAIIIIII!"

---

Well, they would still be the most compatible partners, no matter how dark their past, present or future would be.