fanfiction.lol^{fun, silly, low-stakes fandom}

Chapter Text

Coffee is more of an obligation than a pleasure, or at least that’s what Dazai would tell you. Breakfast is a concept rooted in dignity and diligence, an attempt to prepare to face the demands of the coming day. It’s, by definition, an act of self-care.
His coffee is not part of it; it’s terrible, coating his tongue in a bitter film. How unsurprising; good coffee requires either money or patience, and he possesses neither. Regardless, he sips it.
A warm punch; it’s something that negotiates with one’s drowsiness, both mean and kind.

The flat is a mess, a bit more than usual, but now there is the addition of a small plate on the floor, in front of the couch. It stays in Dazai’s field of view for a couple of sips. The bare minimum would be picking it up and setting it down in the sink, maybe even giving it a rinse. Yeah, not even the full task of doing the dishes.
He doesn’t move, though; he’s leaning against the kitchen counter, rooted in place.
He should pick it up.
It’d be wise.
Eventually he will. Just not right now.

He forces his gaze away from the plate, redirecting it to the window. The rain stopped hours ago, but its ghost still haunts the glass with droplets of water. It’s an epilogue like any other, an impermanent announcement of something that has been, and soon won’t be anymore. Rain comes back, sooner or later. What about cats, though?

Now, this is not a regular train of thought, we can all agree on that. He’s implicitly trying not to think about a tiny ball of orange fur, and yet through the view of a wet window, with the aid of a couple of flights of fancy he goes right back.
This is a bad habit of his, a tendency to press on a bruise again and again, even when he doesn’t want to. Especially when he doesn’t want to.

The cat is gone.
Dazai checked twice, frantically, all in vain. The windows are closed. The door is closed. There’s nothing else he can do, so letting go would be the most rational choice.

Dazai takes another, slower, sip, letting the bitterness linger on his tongue.
He cannot let it go. Because… it doesn’t make sense. Pride factors in, admittedly: he’s always been good at things that don’t make sense! He is a detective now!
Whilst cats are notoriously elusive, it’s not like they can vanish from a locked room. It’s absurd! Besides, he has checked all potential hiding spots: nothing under the furniture, nothing on top, nothing inside. Nothing at all!
Well, at least the little thing isn’t stuck in one of those spots, scared and exhausted. It shouldn’t be a consolation, but it is, albeit a meagre one.

If one wants to preserve hope, they have to be realistic about it. Said realism can be achieved either through effort or through a natural predisposition towards pessimism. Dazai possesses the latter in spades, so he can only plead for the following: ‘may it not be scared; may it be safe and alive, even if I might never know.’

He drains the cup and sets it down. It’s near the sink, but not inside it.

He sinks onto the floor, his back against the cupboard with the edge digging into his spine: this is it, the most soothing part of his morning. Everyone, to some extent, has their own self-destructive habits, but Osamu Dazai is a collector, so: paper, tobacco, roll, lick, seal. He doesn’t even need to look; thanks to the joint forces of his dexterity and the unhealthy amount of repetition, here it is, fully formed, a cigarette.

There’s no lighter around, but there’s a matchbox within arm’s reach, tucked in the groove where the cupboard meets the flooring. He lights the cigarette by striking it against the cupboard’s edge: this is a habit that has ruined the finish, but this is furniture in the ADA dormitory, what are they going to do? Sue him for the damage? Withhold a deposit he never gave in the first place?

The smoke fills his lungs: it’s a welcome sensation, despite how objectively distasteful it may be, crawling down his neck and chest; he’s on the floor, he is smoking. This is the present moment, which is the only place he can afford to be.

But like all good things, it ends. So, the cat is gone. This is fine. He has no ownership of it; cats are way too independent…

He takes another drag, longer, and yet it doesn’t work. That previous instant of serenity has been shattered and he cannot go back. He forces his eyes to follow the smoke curling upwards, towards the ceiling, in a loose spiral.

Time flows by silently, and its passage becomes obvious only when the cigarette burns his fingers, like a built-in timer to conclude his daily rumination. All right. He stubs it out in an empty mug which, by virtue of its profession as an ashtray, lives on the floor too.

How do people get ready quickly in the morning? Dazai’s always wondered. The process is a bit more perilous than it should be, for him. Hunting for clothes is time-consuming, and every catch has a problem… or a dozen: this shirt isn’t fresh enough, this one has a hole in the left cuff, the beige trench coat is still damp. Only his shoes and the bolo tie rarely betray him, and it’s such a relief getting to such a point.

It took him twenty minutes to find something from the pile near his futon, the corner of the room employed as a wardrobe while the proper one, which lives in the opposite corner, houses discarded and clearly forgotten garments. Today’s outfit looks remarkably similar to that of the day before; he’s wearing yesterday’s trousers and waistcoat after all.
It’s all in the details! Today’s shirt is light blue, yesterday’s was white! He puts the bolo tie back on: it’s the same as always, the same chipped gemstone as always… or maybe it shimmers a bit brighter today, conscious of having been, albeit momentarily, invested with the title of ‘cat toy’.

Eh, it’s stupid.

Keys, phone, Kunikida’s wallet. Yeah, that’s all. Dazai pauses at the door, fingers curled around the knob, and looks back. There’s nothing new in the flat: it’s cluttered, dim, faintly sad, and there’s no orange ball of fur in sight.

He steps into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind him without any additional thought. He’s had enough thoughts for today.

We all know things change when they’re not observed; the dust settles, the light shifts… and on the floor, near the couch, a single copper hair lies. It’s far too long to have come from any cat, and it’s also fine and wavy.

Its destiny is to linger there, unnoticed, until the next time Dazai bothers to clean the floor. If history is any indication, it never will.

The Armed Detective Agency office wakes up at different paces.
Kunikida arrives at seven sharp, as he always does. This feat is achieved not through a natural unravelling of things, but by simply arriving around six-fifty and then standing in front of the door, waiting, eyes on his watch, for seven to come.

Already on, the light competes with the morning sky, and Ranpo is there, seated at his desk and wrapped in a blanket. This is neither usual nor surprising: sometimes he’s way too early, at times he doesn’t show up at all. It’s one of those things that just is, one of the many quirks of the organisation as a whole.
By the time Kunikida sets his bag down, Ranpo is biting into his second melon pan and has the news pulled up on his laptop.

“[...] unprecedented damage to the warehouse district,” comes from the speaker. “No clear culprit has been identified, the number of casualties is still uncertain. What we know is that three buildings collapsed, sometime in the early evening, with no reported witnesses just yet. Authorities are working tirelessly to shed light on the incident.”

“Ranpo-san, isn’t that a bit loud?”

“Shh!”

Shaky aerial footage flashes on the screen, showing a wasteland of rubble: concrete shattered in slabs, glass dusted over every surface and shimmering in the morning light. Only a single lamp-post is still standing.

Ranpo’s eyes open just in time to catch the ground-level shot: there’s debris everywhere, that’s something anyone can see. But he sees more, the evidence is always on the scene and people are too dumb to notice: no scorch marks, no radial blast pattern. This isn’t the aftermath of an explosion. Eventually the authorities will figure this out too.
“Some of the casualties have been linked to the infamous Port Mafia, which makes this case [...]”

Not really listening anymore; he’s cracking the mystery in between bites.
If the building hasn’t exploded, what has occurred? The camera pans a bit wider: a container, a car frame, what looks like a part of a crane… all of the metal is deformed, crushed and, seemingly, aimed at something specific.

Crushed and aimed? What a surprisingly peculiar tactic! One that requires an ability that works in a truly unique way too!
Amongst the ability users in the city of Yokohama, only one has an ability known for similar mechanics.

Wait, so the casualties? Port Mafia on the scene, a peculiar pattern of destruction. It’s easy, a child could crack this case: Nakahara Chuuya, Port Mafia Executive, seeking revenge for his own organization, employing the surrounding debris as projectiles. He’s not responsible for the initial damage, that’s true, but for the anomalous distribution of the debris.

A still frame depicts yet another close up: half-hidden under a slab of concrete, a single black glove. A confirmation, how lovely. He finally takes his glasses off, setting them down on his desk.
The mystery is closed, filed away amongst the myriad of invisible successes Ranpo carries.

Except.
The Port Mafia usually does its cleanup in a far more precise manner; why hadn’t it been done? Why was the glove left behind?
Rushed, then. Why? Rush means no time, no time implies the Mafia became aware of the incident far too late to respond properly. But if Nakahara was there, which he clearly was, why didn’t he report it in time?

He must have been unable to do that. Was he taken out of commission? How do you do that to a gravity manipulator? Ranpo sets the half-eaten melon pan down. All right, he’s reopening the case, this is not boring any longer.

For half an hour he has nothing to deduce, no more details to help him unravel the puzzle he’s entertaining himself with. Aid comes up a bit later, after one taiyaki or a couple, buried in an ordinary conversation.

Kunikida, amidst sorting paperwork with the Tanizakis, frowns at nothing. “That reminds me… has either of you heard anything this morning? It was akin to something hitting the ceiling in Dazai’s hallway.”

“No, not really,” Naomi replies, spinning lightly on her chair.

“I assumed it was him dropping something, yet it was far too early for Dazai to be awake, so I didn’t check,” Kunikida adds, with a pinch of regret in his voice. Maybe such an oddity, in the ADA compound, in the early morning, was worth investigating. He didn’t. Of course not, it wasn’t suspicious enough to interfere with his ideal morning.

Ceiling. Dazai’s hallway. Early morning.

New data that is, at first glance, not related to the puzzle Ranpo’s toying with. Yet.

A noise coming from the ceiling of their specific building can be explained in only two ways: it came from the rooftop or, in a more interesting interpretation, it truly came from the ceiling.

You see, deduction has its rules, and usually bizarre coincidences tend to be linked, even if it seems insane at first glance. What is loud enough to be heard and can move on a ceiling? No, who can walk on a ceiling?

It’s two puzzles converging into a single, albeit not comprehensive, answer: a short Port Mafia Executive.
So, for now he can locate Nakahara in the warehouse district, in the evening, and then in the ADA dormitory, which is not too far away on foot, in the morning. All whilst maintaining radio silence with his own organisation.

How fascinating; a web of events Ranpo cannot see, not yet, not in its entirety. That is the best part of it. The best mysteries are the few that are bashful enough not to display everything at first glance, but that timidly tease, beckoning one forwards.

Dazai arrives at a quarter past ten, which is late even for his non-existent standards. Today he walks in quietly, hangs his coat and sits at his desk like a normal person.

This is the second clue: there is no universe in which Dazai Osamu is a normal person. Even when it’s clear that the emptiness has taken hold, even then and especially then, his dramatics increase in what, according to Ranpo, is a subconscious plea to be seen. The performance becomes unavailable when there’s something important to be done, or when something sinks deep enough to affect him.

One day each year, when it always happens, but today’s date doesn’t match.

Kunikida says something about schedules to which Dazai gives a non-committal hum in response, a non-answer that makes the blond man’s eye twitch, but still he lets the matter drop.

Then Dazai shifts in his chair, crossing one leg over the other; this he frequently does when he’s about to start working. During regular days the interval between ‘Dazai arriving’ and ‘Dazai crosses his legs and opens his laptop’ is roughly equal to thirty-seven minutes. Not today.

Regardless, the light from the window slides across the cream-coloured fabric of his trousers, unveiling a new piece of the same puzzle. There, caught on fabric, is a small cluster of fine, short copper hairs. Definitely not human.

Those behavioural clues lose their relevance in favour of the hairs: definitely not human. Most certainly not a dog, given that Dazai would never get close enough to one for this to happen. So, a cat? Many strays are orange, after all.

So, a cat, an orange cat, maybe. There’s a simple way to check: “Brought a friend home last night, Dazai?”

Dazai blinks, looking up from his battered laptop just to hold Ranpo’s gaze. The detective’s green eyes are visible behind the glasses. “Yeah, nobody can hide anything from you, huh?” Dazai replies, resuming whatever job he is clearly doing, for once.

“Nobody even tries,” Ranpo adds, allowing his eyes to narrow and close: this should put the bandaged man at ease, at least, and with ease some more information might come.

“Yeah, I did. Didn’t last,” Dazai mutters, without lifting his eyes. “Cats are like that, you know? They decide you’re convenient, and then they decide you’re not.”

Here, in the span of a couple of sentences, there’s enough to explain Dazai’s mood: every reason is blatant now, but the picture is not complete, not yet.

The imperfect silence of a semi-functional office fills the space between them.

All the pieces are in his grasp now, he just has to take a proper look at them. After a slightly longer breath, after letting the anticipation linger for a moment, he dives in: warehouse district, Nakahara fights something, he is left unable to give a report. Roughly a dozen hours later, a thump on a ceiling. Only one man can walk on ceilings, and it’s Nakahara again. It’s not a reach, it’s the only plausible answer, the simplest alternative is the correct one; bizarre as it might be.
Dazai, a cat, a stray that didn’t stay. An orange cat.

It takes Ranpo all of his will-power not to laugh, and he conceals the hilarity behind a bite of red liquorice.
Absurdity permanently resides in Yokohama; that’s not new, but it doesn’t make it any less ridiculous.

Ranpo cocks his head to the side; Dazai is staring at his laptop, actually typing. Oh poor idiot, he doesn’t know.

If he talked, Ranpo would give him the answer and a good dose of teasing, but Dazai hasn’t asked for it. The taller man seems to be intent on wallowing in his own misery, which is tied to the fact he has only a partial picture of the events.
Everything Ranpo knows about him suggests that Dazai won’t ask, at least unless something else comes his way. Eh, his loss.

It’s funnier if Dazai doesn’t know, isn’t it?

Ranpo’s lips curve in a smirk; he is, indeed, the world’s greatest detective, and he has a front-row seat to witness a comedy played by actors unaware of the plot itself.

Spare clothes are Chuuya’s only option.

They live in the bottom of a drawer, sealed in plastic and pressed between a file of an old mission report and a silver tobacco holder. A white shirt, black trousers, socks, underwear: the bare minimum not to attract any stare. He’s got enough of that earlier, when he was traversing the main Port Mafia skyscraper in borrowed clothes that engulfed him. He has made his entrance barefoot and stepping on the joggers’ hems almost at every step; currently those clothes reside in the rubbish bin, sharing it with plenty of scrunched up paper.

Yet, even now, with shoes brought to him by a low-ranking grunt, he might as well be naked. His hat is missing in action. Yes, he knows that the saying shouldn’t be applied to an item; he’s aware, but that’s how it feels. A fallen companion, missing, its fate uncertain. The same applies to his other belongings, but money can be replaced, after all, his savings reside in off-shore accounts. His hat, on the other hand…

Regardless, he has no time to linger on such thoughts. Thinking elicits feelings, and he cannot afford them; his budget allows only for avoidance.

He should get going; the thought makes his jaw clench, a minuscule motion in a surprisingly still office. Chuuya’s got dressed and he’s been stuck, sitting at his desk, for at least a quarter of an hour. His gaze is firmly fixed straight ahead, almost unblinking.

You see, when you are Chuuya Nakahara and, against your will, you end up vanishing from the Port Mafia radar for the span of roughly ten hours… then you have to be ready to face the consequences.

The Port Mafia is unforgiving, but not in the way one might think: there’s no bodily harm waiting for him outside of his office, there’s no punishment or interrogation ready to prise his misdeeds out of him one tooth at a time.
No such thing.
It’s worse, it’s way worse.

He’s been gone for enough time for Ozaki Kouyou to notice, and not enough time for her to act. This is a perilous position to be in: she has had no chance to seek redress for his disappearance, but she’s had enough time to develop a spark of curiosity regarding the events.
In a way there is torture and an interrogation awaiting him, but the tools aren’t pliers and the interrogation is done over a piping hot cup of tea.
Usually Chuuya taints his own serving with some rum and bitches to no end, complaining about all the bullshit he’s been through.

Today he’d rather part with a couple of his teeth, if that’s the price for not having to talk.

Kouyou’s office is at the end of the corridor. Chuuya goes without being summoned, because that’s most certainly on its way anyway. It’s better to act preemptively, chickening out is never an option. Kouyou-nee would get to him, regardless.

The tea is poured in silence; vapour billows in elegant swirls. The office is traditional in each and every meaning of the word: the table mandates sitting on the floor, the furniture is timeless and distinctly Japanese, and the smell of tea seems to come from every direction.
Chuuya’s never noticed how permeating the smell is, not until today.

Both hands wrap around the cup: it’s way too hot, but putting it down would feel like weakness. Enough of being pathetic, for today at least, or rather, for a lifetime: he is fed up but not weak; he’s just been turned into a fucking cat and been pampered by…

Kouyou sits across from him, serene and static, waiting. Her silky kimono adorns her sides in surprisingly symmetrical folds and her hands rest on her lap; not a twitch in sight. The curiosity is there, he knows her well enough to see it, but she’s currently weaponising patience.

“You know, lad, that when the cleanup crew arrived the news helicopters were already circling?” She starts with this, a query that’s a reprimand in disguise.

“Ane-san, I know… sorry for the fuckin’ headline.”

“Apologies are of no use, explanations are,” she retorts as her nails clink against the ceramic of her cup.

Chuuya takes a breath that’s more like a drag of air, sharp and impatient. He knows she’s not mad, that’s not how she acts when she is, but his eyes haven’t met hers just yet. “There was a weird-ass thing, responsible for that bullshit. I engaged with it, threw fuckin’ concrete, it reformed, then it hit me and I went down, okay?!”

“You lost consciousness,” she muses, and it’d be perfect if she believed it. She clearly doesn’t, nobody would. It takes very specific circumstances to knock him out cold, and the premises currently laid out don’t match.

“Duh.”

“For how long?”

“Dunno, few hours, maybe more,” Chuuya mutters. He stays still, his blue eyes tracing the hem of his own cup; his hands hold on tight to the cup. The heat has reddened his palm, however he hasn’t let it go just yet. A sting should come any time now, no? Even if it does, it doesn’t register properly.

Kouyou takes a sip, savouring it before setting it down. “And then you woke, you made your way back here barefoot, without your own clothes or your hat.” Here it is, the hole in his story, the point where he’s supposed to crack.

The thing is, truth is on the tip of his tongue, it’s an option. Being transformed by some freak wearing human skin isn’t a crime, it doesn’t touch his honour. He could just say ‘I turned into a cat, or I hallucinated doing so.’ Chuuya could, he really could, but he doesn’t for a very simple reason: more questions would follow, and they’d lead somewhere he refuses to go. So he buries it: the grave is neat and private, and he stands over it convinced it’s deep enough. It has to be deep enough, obviously, because who the hell would guess that he spent last night purring on the bandaged bastard’s chest?
Nobody would.
Nobody.

“I’ve been hit, I wasn’t thinkin’ straight, what the fuck ya want me to tell ya?!” The growl tears out of him before he can catch it, loud and defensive, and his head snaps up for the first time since he sat down. Their eyes meet; he’s cornered, they both know it.

Kouyou doesn’t flinch, she’s used to his outburst at this point; her mouth curves in a gentle smile instead.
Oh no.
She got what she wanted: not the story, but the feeling. Chuuya gave her more than enough: the tone of his voice, the way his hands are strangling a cup he’s refusing to put down. She knows enough.

This, by itself, would be a catastrophe, a thought he’d be ruminating on for aeons to come. But that’s when he notices the hairpin.

Kouyou wears it every day, an ornament of gold and jade nestled within the red strands of her updo; it sways with every breath. He’s seen it a thousand times, if not more. It’s insignificant.

The pendant swings. Left, right, left. His eyes follow it, his pupils widen: track it, track it, get it, it cannot escape. A twitch in his right hand, his index curls like it’s getting ready to… no, hell no. Kouyou doesn’t notice, or, more probably, she pretends not to.

“Go home. Rest. I’ve sent some more men to retrieve your hat.” She pauses. “And if you feel uncertain… come to me before you do anything stupid.”

“Define stupid,” he answers way too quickly, and suddenly he’s a teenager again, blurting out the first response coming to his lips.

“I have faith you’ll know it when you see it, lad.”

He almost laughs as he lifts himself up from the floor, legs stiff, and makes for the door. “Gee, thanks.” He doesn’t trust himself to look at the hairpin again.

The door closes behind him. For the first time since he joined the organisation, Chuuya is going home early.

Taking a vehicle is the wisest option; he decides to walk. It’s not far, it should take twenty minutes. It doesn’t.

It ends up taking forty minutes: he keeps stopping. It’s not a choice of his, it’s the circumstances. Once his legs decide they’ve had enough, and he leans to catch his breath, his body feels borrowed. Besides this permeating exhaustion slowing his pace, there’s also the fact that the world is full of distractions.

How he has never noticed before is beyond him. The city carries so many different smells, tangled and very distinct, it’s all up to how the wind blows. Exhaust fumes cutting through something sweet escaping a bakery. The rattle of a delivery truck, a burst of laughter from the side, heels clicking on the floor: when has the city become so noisy? More importantly, there are so many dogs. Now, this, on a regular day, would be amazing news: Chuuya has an uncanny ability to befriend dogs. It doesn’t take much, really, just the right body language and showing enough appreciation, and those smart and loyal creatures… they just get it! He has the bad habit of stopping and crouching for every dog he sees. It’s actually one of the best parts of his days.

Today, however, whilst he’s almost halfway home, a poodle stops him right in his tracks, and Chuuya does something he’d never done in his life.
He flinches.
It’s not big, it is not noticeable to human eyes, but his heels lift off the pavement as he shifts his weight away from the dog. The poodle sniffs his shoe, tail wagging… this would have been such a welcome sight on every other day.

This is a well-loved dog, the recent grooming is unmistakable. It’s a nice, pretty and polite little thing…

The poodle looks up at him, and Chuuya stares back down.

For one split-second, just the span of a breath, he sees it through different lenses: too close, too interested, teeth too sharp, both a threat and competition.

After shooting him a dirty look, the dog’s owner tugs the leash. “Come on, Biscuit.”

Biscuit comes, removing itself from Chuuya’s path. He stays there, his ungloved hand pressed against his own chest, trying to soothe his own heart which is caught between alertness and fear. Fear? Fuck no, he doesn’t have the time to process this.

By the time he reaches his building he’s taken a detour, adding so many unnecessary minutes to his walk, just to avoid every street where he heard barking.

He knows what this is. Wait, no, he has a theory: the transformation might still be lingering in his bones, like an infection of sorts. After all, not even a cold goes away all at once, but it gradually subsides, and some symptoms can persist for weeks. Same as a hangover.
Yes, this is what it is.
A hangover, one not produced by alcohol but by… well, the experience of being a cat for a night. It’s bound to have residual effects.

The apartment welcomes him: it’s dark, it’s cool, it’s home. He locks the door behind him, kicks off the borrowed shoes and he makes it to the bathroom. Exactly what you would expect of someone who used to have nothing: luxurious but relatively unadorned. Having the means allowed him to purchase the place, the appliances, the furniture… but decorations aren’t that easy. Sure, one could pay for them, but then, how does one live with them? Given that he doesn’t fully grasp their usefulness? He is learning though, and that’s been years in the making; the immediate benefit, the thing he grasped, it’s to have pretty things to look at. That’s all.
The penthouse is his space: it doesn’t have to communicate shit to others, but just to himself.

Standing in front of the sink he opens the tap, letting the tepid water run on his hands. Normal, everything is normal.

His hand rises to his face.

It happens, this is not a choice; the hand is curled, it won’t do anything useful like this… yet his index brushes against his cheekbone. The pattern starts before he catches himself: his fingers brush against his cheek before dragging down to his jaw, and then up again towards his ear.
Eh?!

Chuuya snatches his hand away in a motion that’s way more aggressive than necessary. He stares at his reflection, at his wet fingers. Betrayal flashes behind his eyes. It was subconscious, but that doesn’t excuse…

Only one item in this space is, indeed, decorative, and that's the mirror's frame. It’s an ornate thing, an art nouveau piece, with gold embedded in a pleasant geometric pattern.
As the gold shimmers the bewilderment subsides, fading away as his mind gets delightfully distracted. Tilting his head at tiny angles in either direction makes it glitter even more, catching the artificial light in enchanting variations.

Okay, he’s definitely done with the bathroom, isn’t he? It takes him a solid minute to move, to stop this useless observation of the mirror he’s owned for at least three years now.

This is… it’s alright, it’s bound to happen. Sure, it’s not a normal occurrence, yes, but when has his life been normal? He doesn’t have time to linger on the thought. The doorbell rings once.

Pondering who might come to visit requires patience, which is something Chuuya doesn’t have. He opens the door without checking the spyhole, which is stupid, but today he’s not in the mood for it: if someone wants to kill him on the doorstep they can bloody well try.

It’s Yuda; he’s one of the grunts who got promoted from errand-boy to actual field work sometime in the last few months. He’s standing straight, holding a sealed black bag like it might explode.
“Nakahara-san. Ozaki-san sent me to deliver your… belongings.” The young man’s voice is tight, nervous.
Chuuya takes the bag automatically, holding it steady even if his first instinct is to immediately start digging for the only thing that truly matters.

“Aight, good job.” This is all Chuuya musters, in a decently flat tone, before closing the door. The last thing he notices is Yuda’s eyes being firmly fixed on the top of the doorframe. Oh, smart kid. Don’t look the executive in the eye when he’s like this.

He upends the bag onto the kitchen table without ceremony. Everything tumbles out in a pile and his hands immediately sort through it, pushing the grey waistcoat aside, the harness, one glove, until his fingers close around the brim of his hat. Oh, it’s here, they found it even if it was so well hidden.

Up it comes; Chuuya holds it in front of his face, checking the crown, the top and the chain. Sure, it’s a bit dusty, that’s to be expected, but it’s alright: no damage whatsoever. It’s a relief, yes, and it’s also objectively stupid; those two things can coexist, humans aren’t rational creatures. At least the spark of connection with symbolism to the detriment of logic is something that Chuuya grasps wonderfully well.

Cataloguing the rest takes him a brief glance: everything is there, good. Even if something was amiss, he could replace it, it wouldn’t matter.
A prickling sensation dusts his fingertips.
Back to the hat, there’s something about the inner band that looks off. Only by angling it towards the light is he able to see inside, and there it is, the source of that feeling: a piece of paper is poking out from beneath the sweatband. No, it’s not exactly paper, it feels thinner and yet somehow stronger, like leather… or skin.

He pinches the corner and draws it free before setting the hat down, delicately, on the table. It unfolds in a sizable rectangle adorned with red ink, neat and evenly spaced, no sign of rushing.

The meaning is not difficult to grasp; it’s blatant, and it could only be so to his own eyes. He doesn’t like it one fucking bit, but he got it. A threatening note would be more welcome than this nursery rhyme, Chuuya’s fluent with the former after all, and yet this is what he got.

Now, like any other sane person, Chuuya reads it once, twice; then he sets the note down.

“What. The. Fuck.”

It echoes into the empty flat, as the rays of a dying sun start painting each and every surface with strokes of gold and copper.