Chapter Text
The night was a dreary one, the kind that people called in just to stay inside and avoid the vengeful rain that Yokohama’s fall season nurtured. A thick veil of fog blanketed the city and its surrounding outskirts and that alone was enough to ward any drivers off. Of course, that was everyone except for Dazai Osamu.
The sleek black car kicked up the near flood-level waters on the questionably paved street as it sped along, cutting through the fog. The torrential downpour hit the car like bullets, though Dazai wasn’t focused on the surrounding weather, paying it no heed as he held the phone up near his mouth.
“I’m just getting back into town from a week-long trade agreement and you are just now informing me of this information?” His tone of voice had an unimpressed dip to it while anyone else would be raging at the prospect of having to come back into work after a week straight of nothing but discussion of trade bargains and boundaries.
The sheep, a bunch of teenagers with too big of heads for their own good, had been tough to deal with. While Dazai could have sent the order to annihilate every last one of the children, they were still of use to them. A group he would keep in the back of his pocket should any other group encroach on their territory and have mercy on the children.
They were not children, they were little devils.
Dazai gripped his steering wheel just a little tighter.
“Yes boss,” Hirotsu, his most trusted subordinate, sounded equally as monotone over the phone. “We understand that you have gone through a lot of negotiations over the week but the executives need you for the meeting. After all, they need your approval to pass anything on.”
Dazai sighed, how tiring. If he knew what a hassle being a mafia boss would be then he would have defected a long time ago, though it wasn’t that he had a choice. The title had been thrust upon him with no mercy.
“I suppose I have no choice in the matter then,” Dazai mumbled over the rain pelting down on the car's sunroof.
“My apologies,” Hirotsu sounded far away and muddled, the line cracking under the influence of the storm.
“Inform the five executives that I’m on my way-”
Dazai’s headlights were bright and blindingly so, a perfect way to see through the dense atmosphere and the reason why he noticed the thing bolting out in front of his car. He instinctually swerved, letting his foot off the gas and tipping his steering wheel in the opposite direction to avoid colliding with whatever had stepped in front of his path.
The water on the road fanned out in all directions as if caught in a waterspout until Dazai’s car finally managed to make a safe stop. Luckily, he had not hit anything and the airbags had not deployed.
“Sir?” Hirotsu asked from the phone that had fallen to the floorboard, “Is everything okay?”
The windshield wipers worked furiously on the car window, but Dazai had to squint through the raindrops obscuring his vision to see just what he had swerved to avoid. Something dark and alive, by the rapid rise and fall of its chest, or perhaps that was the wind whipping the corpse of an animal around.
Then he heard it, piercing through the deafening sounds of the howling wind was a sharp yelp.
He had hit a dog.
Or, he swerved out of the way of a dog, he was absolutely sure he would notice if he had hit it.
It still wasn’t moving from its place in the middle of the road, just waiting to be hit by more oncoming cars. (Though it wasn’t likely that there would be any more vehicles out at this late hour.)
What a suicidal dog. Dazai should join it.
“Hirotsu, change of plans.” Dazai started, putting his car in park and unbuckling his seatbelt. “Move the meeting to a later date, I am unable to attend tonight, unfortunately.”
“Of course boss,” no more words were exchanged and the line went dead. Either Hirotsu had hung up or their signal had been lost.
Dazai was not using this dog as an excuse to get out of work. He was simply being a… good samaritan. Yes.
Dazai was immediately assaulted by the elements when he stepped out of his vehicle, bandages growing completely damp within the ten seconds it took him to kneel next to the animal. It was wounded, obviously.
Dazai’s headlights gifted him with enough light to see the crimson mingling with the rainwater collecting on the street. It seemed as if the dog had been running from something and in the process, gotten injured.
He carefully prodded at the dog's shoulder area where the jagged cut had been and it immediately whimpered, trying to escape Dazai’s grip. “Hold still,” Dazai hissed, though the order was lost in the wind.
He couldn’t assess much with their current settings, though Dazai could tell that if the dog remained here then it would surely die.
There was nothing stopping him from leaving the dog on the road and simply continuing on with his night. Dazai didn’t particularly care for this dog's fate and he wasn’t a good man either. Though an idea had sparked in his mind, an idea that was mutually beneficial to him and the dog currently suffering under his fingertips.
Dazai was not an animal person though he knew that dogs were loyal, more loyal than any other subordinate who would eventually backstab him. This dog would know who its master was and would listen to his every command with the proper training.
Saving it tonight would be him extending a branch of opportunity out to the animal.
“Come here,” he wrapped his arms around the dog’s stomach and hefted it out of the water. It was heavy, but not devastatingly so. It made noises, low growls from its chest, and high whimpers, but Dazai could tell that it was more out of pain than aggression.
He chose not to mourn the loss of a clean interior of his car because he saw no use in making a fuss over something replaceable, though despite that he grumbled under his breath as he hefted the dog into the back seat. “Such a hassle you are.”
The dog gave him a look from between matted fur, an innocent one that made Dazai snort as he closed the door and slid into the front seat, soaking that too. “Don’t give me that look, it won’t work on me.”
Now for the next order of business.
Surprisingly his phone still had service, so Dazai searched for the nearest vet and set it on his GPS. Only about five minutes away, how lucky for them. Or, for just the dog. Dazai had nothing to lose if it died because dogs too could be replaced.
Then it made another high, keening noise from the backseat and Dazai reached to adjust his rearview mirror to catch a glimpse of the dog trying and failing to lick its wounds. “Refrain from bleeding in the back of my car please.”
The leather seats were already stained crimson.
The dog stared right back at him into the mirror, big eyes blinking slowly as if Dazai’s reflection was the most interesting thing in the world.
“You sure are a strange specimen.”
Its lips drew back as it panted, revealing sharp canines as if it was smiling.
Yes, certainly a strange one.
In the four minutes it took to get to the pet clinic, the rain had only increased, and once Dazai successfully parked, that rain had turned to hail. The universe seemed to be against him that day.
Dazai had previously been driving in the rural part of Yokohama though now he had encroached upon the Urbanized section and it seemed that mother nature had no mercy for either part.
The hail battered against his car and the dog continued to whine and Dazai felt the undying urge to drive his car off of that nearby cliff, but instead, he simply flung the door open and threw bandaged arms over his head as he carefully moved to retrieve the animal from the back seat.
Not a single tennis ball-sized piece of ice hit him.
Dazai hadn’t noticed it before, but now that the dog was in his arms it was shivering violently. His leather shoes sloshed through the water collecting in the parking lot.
Another suit ruined though the amount of clothing Dazai had lost during his time in the mafia was in the triple digits, most unsalvageable with rips and tears he couldn’t re-sew. Just one more number to add to that list.
Another thing he should have noticed the moment he parked was how desolate the place appeared. Lights off and no movement inside, though it was hard to tell through the thick onslaught of rain and hail.
Of course, it would be closed during a storm and the late hours.
Dazai’s muscles tensed as his brain, a well-oiled machine, prepared to reroute his plan to its next destination, though before he could put any of that into action, the car’s door next to him opened.
Dazai had figured that the car had been abandoned or broken down in the storm, but apparently, things were not as they seemed.
A figure stepped out of the car (that looked slightly more worn and beaten compared to Dazai’s, yet more personalized.) and he couldn’t see any identifiable features with that large jacket.
Whoever it was, they were short.
The first thing this figure yelled up to him over the storm was, “Why in the hell aren’t you covering your dog!”
Dazai didn’t bother correcting that the dog wasn’t his, “Well sorry I don’t rescue dogs for a living.”
The figure audibly growled, cursing under their breath so obscenely that even a sailor would blush before the dog in Dazai’s arms took priority, “Is she injured?”
Though the question was a no-brainer, Dazai nodded and suddenly he was being pulled by the elbow with a surprising amount of force towards the clinic. Ah, this must have been a worker closing up.
He watched as the person shucked their own jacket to hold over the dog and block out the elements as they hustled up the concrete steps and to the glass double doors, slightly wider than normal doors to accommodate for larger animals. As expected, the figure drew keys from their pocket and fumbled with the key, jamming it in the lock before shoving them both into the building.
What a warm welcome.
“It’s dark as hell in here,” the figure grumbled in a slightly raspy voice, reaching over to flip on the switch and oh-
Dazai’s vision was assaulted with fiery hair, ocean eyes, fair skin… The man wore scrubs with little paw prints on them and Dazai felt his mouth dry up.
Why he had that reaction, he would ponder on later during one of his sleepless nights because Dazai had never been one for experiencing emotions, and at the moment that weird organ in his chest was fluttering-
Perhaps this man was so hideous that Dazai went into cardiac arrest.
Now the man was prodding the dog, fingers delicately running through waterlogged fur as he shushed the animal. Dazai’s gaze traveled even more downwards and he spotted the glint of the name tag ‘Chuuya Nakahara.’ At least now he had a name to match with that horrendously ugly face.
“Hey, idiot” he snapped his finger in Dazai’s face, “are you listening to me?”
“No.”
Dazai realized how long they had been standing there because a puddle had started to form under the two of them, rainwater dripping from their damp clothes like waterfalls. Chuuya rolled his obnoxiously blue eyes and gestured for Dazai to follow him past the reception desk and down the dark narrow hallway before they arrived at a room in the back.
As Dazai set the dog- it was a her right?- down on the table, Chuuya flitted around the room, pulling on latex gloves that looked far too uncomfortable on wet skin and grumbling under his breath. “To think I'm doing this after my shift.”
He must have really liked dogs because Dazai would have left Chuuya at the doorstep had their positions been reversed.
“What in the hell happened?”
“Shouldn’t you be stitching her up?” Dazai shot back to be annoying.
“Don’t tell me how to do my job,” Chuuya pierced through him with a glare, “get out and fill out an information sheet if you're not gonna help.”
Dazai yawned, “wasn’t planning on it, later.”
He could have left that vet when he had the chance that night. He could have dragged his already soaked feet on the already soaked floor and jumped into his already soaked car to drive to his dry house and try and fail to get some sleep.
Instead, he took the towel Chuuya had thrown at him, dried himself off, and saw himself out to the reception desk.
This place would have been eerie with the storm and the low buzz of the light system, but the office that Dazai was often secluded in was isolated enough to the point where the sterile vet clinic seemed bursting with life.
Dazai plucked a slip of paper from the reception desk and scanned over it. Information for a check-up, what he was assuming Chuuya wanted him to fill out.
Settling down on one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs in the waiting area had been the first order of business, and the second had been ditching the uncomfortable plastic chair for the atomically more comfortable one by the reception desk. It was probably a staff member but Dazai paid no mind to the revelation, it could be the presidents for all he cared.
What he could fill out on the slip of paper was regretfully limited, considering Dazai had only known this dog for half an hour.
The dogs breed? He had no idea, big and black.
The dog's height? Perhaps to about mid-thigh
The dog's Weight? He could answer that one with at least some form of accuracy, around 60 pounds taking into account that Dazai could carry her and her waterlogged fur.
Any allergies? Dazai might as well put everything
Any concerning habits? Running in front of random cars in the middle of the night
Easier to do than filling out the dog's information was the information about himself, or rather, his alias.
Dazai, with only the company of the pitter-patter of the rain, remained seated until Chuuya emerged from the back room exactly forty minutes and fifty-five seconds later looking slightly exhausted but mostly proud.
His face fell when he spotted Dazai.
“Hey! That’s Yosano’s chair, get the hell off!”
Dazai didn’t know who Yosano was but she sounded annoying.
“Such dirty words for a middle schooler,” Dazai easily slid out of the chair before Chuuya could push it to the ground in a fit of rage.
Chuuya’s face reddened to match his hair, “A wha-” surprisingly enough, he closed his eyes and inhaled sharply. “You’re a rude customer especially when I just saved your dog. She would have bled out,” cold eyes met his, “don’t let her have a run-in with any wild animals anymore.”
Dazai leaned against the front of the desk as Chuuya took a seat, “ah, so that’s what happened? For the record, it isn't my dog, it just ran in the front of my car all injured.”
“For the record,” Chuuya shot back, latex gloves being ripped off and discarded into a nearby trash bin, “dog’s are living animals so don’t call her an ‘it.’”
“Yes, my apologies,” Dazai said flatly.
Chuuya sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as Dazai noticed Hirotsu doing when he requested a particularly tedious task to be completed. He must not be a night shift worker. Dazai studied the redhead as he scooted the chair forward, reaching out to snatch the paper and look over its contents.
“Normally I would make you put more but considering she isn’t your dog, you filled out a considerable amount…. Shuji Tsushima?’
“Yes, that is me.”
The veterinarian gave him an apprehensive look as if sniffing out the truth of Dazai’s fake alias. “Well, since you saved her it’s your choice to choose what to do with her.” Though with the hard look in his eyes, Dazai felt that he had no other option than to take her to a warm and safe home or he would die a horrible death.
Dazai didn’t know if he could do the ‘safe’ part but his house wasn’t particularly cold, in fact, it had a state-of-the-art heating system.
“What are my options?”
Chuuya let out a tired sigh, brushing his still wet hair out of his face. Dazai had mercy and threw him the towel he had used earlier and the veterinarian wordlessly started wringing out his insultingly long hair. “Well, regardless of whether or not you keep her she still needs to stay here overnight, I’ll stay with her since the storm is preventing the night shift from coming in.”
Dazai would never understand how people like Chuuya remained so attached to their jobs.
“I looked her over for a microchip, but with the condition of her fur and body, it’s doubtful that she had any previous owners. You can take her to the pound where they’ll probably euthanize her, or care for her for the time being until someone wishes to adopt her.” At the mention of euthanization, Chuuya seemed disheartened and that look on his face just made him uglier so Dazai spared him the trouble of looking so hopeless.
“I suppose I have a steady amount of income,” steady being an understatement, “so it won’t be much of an issue to take her in.”
Chuuya paused in the motion of wringing out his hair, eyebrows drew upwards. A smirk grew on Dazai’s face, “what, surprised?”
Chuuya rolled his eyes, very unprofessionally, might Dazai add. “Yeah, no offense but you don’t seem the charitable type.”
“Offense taken.”
There was a long beat of silence with only the rain and wind outside to fill it before the chair under Chuuya squeaked as he stood up to file away the paper Dazai had filled out. “Well good thing you have a steady paying job because I’m not skipping out on the bill. You can pay for it tomorrow, of course, when you come to pick her up. She had a good amount of stitches so you’ll have to be gentle-”
“Chibi?” Dazai asked, and Chuuya looked over his shoulder to him.
“What- cut it out with the nickname!"
“You can tell me about her tomorrow too, but it’s late and you don’t want me to slip on ice and crash, do you?”
Chuuya sneered, yet another image to put into the catalog of ‘Chuuya’s many ugly emotions’ and when-
When did he have a catalog?
“Eat shit,” the redhead cursed, then shot one last glance at the paper to see if Dazai’s contact information had been written in. “I’ll call you tomorrow to come in and get her, you better not be late.”
Chuuya probably wondered if Dazai would abandon the dog and never come back, in fact, it had probably happened many times in his profession. “I’ll be back, no need to worry you’ll be blessed with the sight of my handsome face again.”
Chuuya looked as if he wanted to shove his bloodied gloves down Dazai’s throat.
“Just get out of my clinic.”
Dazai ducked out before the angry redhead could throw a scalpel at him. All in a day's work, he supposed.
The rain outside had lessened to a harsh sprinkle and Dazai had a couple of calls to make because now apparently he wasn’t the only member of his one-man family any longer.