Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“6 dead in 6 weeks? This is unacceptable.”

“Oh please you act as if we've done nothing about this. I’ve already sent people to look into it but to no avail.”

“You underestimated the threat, as always.”

“You better not be implying what I think you’re implying.”

“What? That you have dismissed the armed detective agency time and time again leading only to your downfall.”

“Since your little club is so great you won’t mind sparing me a certain someone to work on this little issue.”

“Typical, I suppose you will offer up an equal counterpart to use to manipulate your way into a truce, long enough for us to draw our attention away from you and your mafia.”

“Fukazawa you wound me, surely you don’t think this stunt isn’t just bothering your agency. The port mafia has important inventory in France and I’d rather like for the attention to shift away before our presence there is discovered.”

“And if I refuse? Surely it would be in my best interest for this inventory to be discovered.”

“Then the bodies will continue to pile up with no end in sight, this deranged individual will kill and kill till he gets bored and moves to a new location to turn into his personal graveyard. I understand your hesitance but I will play my trump card if you play yours. We will either both win in the end or lose. 50/50. Whaddya say?”

“Mori don’t pretend like this decision is in my hands, you know the answer because you know I have no choice.”

“Splendid, see you Monday.”

-

-

-

“Surely we can’t start the meeting yet, the president said it was important and Dazai isn’t here yet.” Atsushi asked, eyes flickering from the members already sitting to the door that had been untouched for the last 20 minutes.

“That’s never stopped us before.”

“Don’t say that Kyouka.” Atsushi pouted lightly, going through the motions.

“She’s not wrong, that lazy bastard will either be half an hour late or never show.”

The entirety of this interaction felt like déjà vu, unfortunately for everyone Dazai was rarely punctual, although there was a higher chance of him showing up when they weren’t already informed about what the meeting would be about. Some say it’s because he's curious but it’s more like he can't already have everything figured out if he doesn’t know what it is, and that bothered him. Curiosity may have killed the cat but if the cat had just been three steps ahead his nine lives would be intact.

“No worries, Dazai and our guests will both be here shortly, knowing the timings Dazai works to he may just run into them on his way here. We’ll begin.”

The agency fell silent at the presidents’ words, Kunikida still squirming slightly in his seat, enraged once again at Dazai’s tardiness and blatant disrespect that even the president had noticed.

“We have been given intel regarding a string of murders taking place in Monte Carlo France. It has been 6 weeks since the first murder and since then there has been a new victim every week. As you can believe this is a worryingly short amount of time between murders and the French lack resources capable to counter ability users.”

“What has led them to believe it is an ability user?”

“Simple, the complete lack of any evidence. No point of entry, no exit, almost no struggle, no murder weapons, no witnesses and no survivors. Even worse these murders are all happening within one area and even with the sheer number of guards being stationed there is no sign of them catching him anytime-” The president was cut short by the approaching sound of two people's voices.

“Oi bastard that’s my foot you're standing on.”

“My condolences, I couldn’t see you from down there shorty.” The voices were growing louder the closer they got causing heads to turn towards the large door that acts as the only entry to the meeting room.

“After 7 years you’re still using short jokes, I think it's about time you reboot your creativity it's getting old.”

“Whatever you say, you compressed ball of anger.”

Before the first man could reply the doors to the office were flung open by those who were previously bickering, each shoving the other as they desperately competed to get through the door first. The president sighed, resting a hand to his forehead as the boys finally stumbled forwards, making it a draw. It was obvious that Kunikida was doing everything in his power not to shout at Dazai, he would’ve, if it weren’t for the unexpected guests that joined him.

“Yosano, please remind me that I need to get these walls fitted with soundproof material.” The president said with no sign of sarcasm.

“Don’t tell me you started without us Fukuzawa, after all we were the ones who asked for your help with this.” Mori cooed making his own way into the room, rightfully letting the boys shove their way through before getting too close.

“President please do explain, I cannot express the sheer need to kill myself when I ran into this dwarf at the buildings entrance.” Dazai wined swinging his arms widely clearly trying to stage an accidental smack to Chuuya’s face.

The now even angrier looking executive shoved Dazai away before a limb could connect. “Tch you're so dramatic go take your seat like the good little employee of the agency you pretend to be.”

The president cleared his throat wordlessly signaling to both the agency and the port mafia to just get straight to the point.

“As I was saying,” he continued while Dazai joined Atsushi and the mafia sat on the opposite side of the table.

Mori deliberately swooping into the chair Chuuya was approaching at the last second, forcing him to sit opposite Dazai, that man loved to bring misery to anyone he could. He considered just sitting on the floor or floating at the other end of the table but decided against it as to get this mysterious meeting over with. he resisted the urge to throw up when Dazai winked his way.

“The mafia was contacted after the third murder and they allowed 3 more to happen before coming to us.”

“We sent what we thought was a sufficient amount of men but we either heard nothing from them having to report them as MIA or came back with no leads.”

“Resorting in them finally requesting our help.”

“Ok so when do we leave, if we all go, we can just flush out the bastard and call this a day.”

“Not quite, as I stated before the mafia arrived, it is believed that this person has an ability that allow them to move around completely unnoticed, potentially teleportation or invisibility. Due to this if they were to be scared off by a conspicuous man hunt it’d be impossible for us to find him before he manages to escape.”

“I can confirm it's not invisibility, we had our men set up cameras in main areas searching for heat signatures and comparing that to a normal camera. We found nothing meaning that the ability must be something else, it makes it easy for him to enter, surprise, subdue, kill and exit.”

“Fuckin fantastic.”

“Quite.”

“Alright then stop tiptoeing around the subject, what are we doing about this? You’ve clearly come up with something, out with it.”

“Now now Chuuya if I were you, I wouldn’t be in such a rush to find out.”

“Fuckin fantastic.”

“Due to the nature of this situation, we have decided that this will be an undercover mission, the chosen candidates will pose as tourists and gather intel without being detected. They will travel to the south east coast of France under a well thought out cover story, spending a few weeks to compile a list of suspects and better yet arresting the culprit before anyone else is killed.”

“But president sir ya already said that this person has gone completely unnoticed but is extremely dangerous. Who are ya gonna pick? Ranpo would be an obvious answer but he – no offence Ranpo – can't exactly defend himself.” Kenji piped up.

“Plus, he’d get lost before even getting on the train.” Yosano laughed, “That is if it is a train, God a plane would be even worse. He’d somehow end up in Florida or Egypt.” Yosano continued to chuckle as Ranpo waved an offended lollypop in her direction.

“You may jest but that was a legitimate point to look at when deciding the members who would be going. We decided that as the ada and pm are working on this together it's only fair to have the same amount of people going from each group but touching on the point from earlier it's imperative that no attention is drawn to your presence. So with that we've decided on one member from each group.”

Kunikida warily spoke up “Seems like far too little, how are two random members from opposing groups supposed to work together?”

At this Dazai practically leapt out of his chair, heading rigidly but quickly towards the door at the opposite side of the room. Ranpo chuckling in that wise but know it all way he does and grabbed the end of Dazais’ coat as he passed by his chair. At the small amount of resistance Dazai gave up his attempts at escape but made it very obvious from his face that he was not happy.

“I know where this is going.”

“Oh I’m sure you do,” Ranpo giggled, this scene being even funnier to the young male as he was faced by extremely confused faces from almost everyone else in the room.

“Of course those two have figured it out but would anyone care to fill the rest of us in.”

“we understood that we needed two members that can work together while also having the ability to figure out the case and stay safe. Those with the highest success rate are Dazai and Chuuya.”

Silence eloped the room as the news sunk in.

It didn’t last long.

“WHAT?” Chuuya bellowed he too now flinging up from his chair. This had been the first time he’d spoken all meeting, he tries to remain as professional as possible in meeting only being achieved by him not talking, but now that all goes out the window.

“Oh boy here we go.”

“Are you takin the piss, I haven’t worked with this bastard for 3 years and you now expect me to spend weeks in FRANCE looking after this fool and solving a case that has so far stumped an entire country.”

“For once I agree with the shrimp, how can I get anything done while tripping over this flamboyant eyesore.”

“Now now boys think about it, who would you rather we send. You can't deny that you are the only ones here who have ever really worked together.”

“Send Akutagawa and the tiger then.” Second of silence, “Wait no never mind that would be a shit show.” Atsushi and Akutagawa both furiously nodded their heads in agreement from opposite ends of the table.

Mori was practically giggling like a school girl in his seat.

“Cut that out Mori, help.”

“I can't help it, this is already fantastic and they haven’t even heard the best part.”

“Ey farm boy I’m gonna need you to clobber me over the head till I die.”

“Well sure Mr fancy hat but I'd only need to hit you once, what would you like me to do it with?”

Chuuya cocked an eyebrow at Yosano who shook her head, having a silent conversation discussing Kenji’s lack of understanding sarcasm.

“How about we discuss the specifics of this case before going any further with the plan. Boys if you will,” Fukuzawa continued gesturing to the two empty seats both boys begrudgingly sat back down in.

Everyone’s eyes were on both the president and the boss, the room dimmed like the mood as the blinds where closed, the projector lit only everyone’s facial features, a sea of sorrow staring up at a picture of a hotel. A very luxurious one at that.

“On the 14th of March we received a call from the French police, explaining how there had been 3 murders in the last 3 weeks, asking if we could send assistance as so far they had found nothing and assumed it was an ability user. It was decided that we’d send a team of 10 as the timeframe to victims was only a week. At first the police couldn’t figure out how the cases were linked besides their location, all three murders had happened either inside or around the luxury hotel Hermitage. The men we sent took pictures and made detailed reports of each crime scene and sent the information back to be worked on. Clearly they made their investigation far too obvious as our men started to disappear and then one became the fourth victim, spooking the remaining subordinates to pack up and come home. But before that, they discovered that in each crime scene there was a precious gem hidden in his ‘art?’, the files sent back included images.” Mori detailed.

“At first they thought that there was a drug cartel or some sort of organisation. Which is why they originally reached out to the port mafia, due to their unconventional practice they thought they may be aware of potential rivals in different countries.”

“Why? I thought there was no evidence that led to a culprit, let alone suggest a large group of people like a gang.”

“Here are a couple of pictures from the crime scene.” Mori stated bluntly, as if they would answer that question.

“Mori no-” but Fukazawa failed to stop him before he shared an image on the projector.

At the sight of the enlarged picture, while most turned to face it some got one look and quickly snapped their heads in the opposite direction.

Atsushi with his eyes looking anywhere but the gruesome scene before him watched as Akutagawa mouthed pussy his way, all he could do was put up his middle finger as there was no way he would prove a point and look back at that horrific crime scene plastered against the wall.

It was evident that this used to be a prestigious hotel room but now all that remained was blood-stained surfaces and a very disfigured corpse. Bones visible but not connected to each other how they’re supposed to be. It looked like a totem pole of flesh and joints with a skull placed on top, hands on the floor somehow holding up the severed skin of a female face, makeup scattered in the background, crudely having been smeared on the flappy skin of what remained of her face. A small shining stone placed on the middle of the collar bones that the skull wore as a crown.

“As you can see, this has become a big problem.”

“But this isn’t us trying to force you boys into accepting this mission, this is a very serious matter, your lives will be in danger and you have every right to decline. But do know that it will be done legally, with you working closely but secretly with local police. And at any sign of your covers being blown we will have you back in London by the hour.”

Silence fell over the whole room, some still studying the disturbing crime scene while others studied the opposite empty wall. The oldest men were waiting for an answer from only a fraction of the people in the room but it was like everyone was making up their own mind on what to do.

“Why not send me? Why does it have to be Dazai.”

“This isn’t a trust thing Kunikida it's just that Dazai is the most suited to figuring this out.”

"you act as if I'm not a detective."

“Sure lets send you off into a den of pricks that likely used illegal methods to gain their wealth and let you wave your notebook around like a target board, shouting about morals and justice. I'm sorry Kunikida but I agree, Dazai has a track record of figuring things out being second only to Ranpo. Besides, are you going to work closely with Chuuya or any of the port mafia members without blowing a fuse. Actually Chuuya will you be able to?” Yosano pondered aloud not expecting an answer to her last question more just airing that concern to the group, showing no fear for Kunikida or Chuuya speaking freely and matter-of-factly.

Yikes this is awkward. Dazai thought, glancing over at Chuuya who was also grimacing at the bickering that he was clearly trying to stay out of. Knowing him he too was trying to place the puzzle pieces together and figuring out whether this is doable and if not who to take their place.

“I could go with Akutagawa.” Kunikida said through clenched teeth, he himself clearly despising the idea.

“Akutagawa’s banned from entering French soil, he wouldn’t make it past security.”

“Obviously, whatever just don't come crying to me when Dazai goofs off and ends up dead.”

There was a silence that filled both room and mind, everyone in the room simultaneously had second thoughts over this assignment. Who would be better? Maybe the president himself? Or send Ranpo with Chuuya or even go and find Poe. Where was Tachihara, could he replace Chuuya? However, this silence was soon broken once again.

“Soooooo, are we riding first class?”

All eyes turned to the once quiet Chuuya.

“What are you talking about Chuuya?”

“Eh, I’ve never been to Monte Carlo, might as well make the most of it.” He shrugged as if this were the most pressing matter out of everything they’d just been told.

“So, you’re accepting the proposal?”

“Eh think of it as me accepting an all-expenses paid holiday to be a bit nosy. I'm expecting spending money.”

“Well, that’s one way to look at it.” The president gave a small smile at the childlike view of the situation, appreciating what he thought to be Chuuya’s attempt to stay optimistic.

“God Chu you're so stupid.”

“Oi”

“In that case I suppose I’m in as well. I’ve gotta help this idiot stay inconspicuous and stop him from punching everyone who looks at him funny.”

“OI. At least I'm not the one who needs to be babied, you'd be dead in an hour without me.”

“you're right and that is why we chose you two. Now that’s sorted we’ll continue this later, I expect both of you to be here at 7 am tomorrow,” Fukazawa detailed looking directly at Dazai when specifying the time, “to go through the evidence already collected and go into more detail about your undercover identities. For now you are all dismissed.”

“I need to discuss a quick matter with Fukazawa you lot hang around,” Mori ordered.

Just great, Chuuya thought, he had wanted to escape as quick as possible and scream on a roof top somewhere. The agency members walked back to their assigned desks like muscle memory. Apart from Atsushi who was tripped up by Akutagawa and had to hang back for a second to punch him in the arm.

Chuuya felt like a lost dog wanting nothing more than to leave the building but felt like he'd be scolded by Mori later, so instead he hovered around. First walking past Ranpo who hurriedly scooped up his immense pile of sugary snacks, as if Chuuya was about to lung at them. Next was past where Atsushi sat, the boy instantly straightening up in his seat and becoming very rigid, putting so much thought into looking professional that he stopped actually doing anything, his work forgotten. He next passed Kiyoko who he was originally planning to ignore until he noticed her also tense up and caught a quick daunting look flash across her face. Surely she had to know that her leaving didn’t bother him after all he was already used to it, so to silently convey his lack of anger he ruffled her hair ever so slightly while moving past swiftly, pretending not to notice her small relieved smile.

Unfortunately, he next found himself at Dazais' desk, a mess littered with random paper, trash and stationary, none of which looking work related. The man had been watching him walk, he knew it, probably trying to psychoanalyse him, not that itd work, he'd play naive and present like a blank slate, like none of this shit bothered him.

Dazai was laying back in his chair, his feet ever so slightly perched on the edge of his desk, like that would save him from Kunikida shouting at him. He would’ve if the man weren’t furiously working on the next desk.

“Someone call Willy Wonker, one of the Oompa Loompas have escaped.” This remark earned the man a swift upward kick to his precariously poised legs, just enough to cause him to fling forward in his chair as his legs fell back to the ground. Chuuya huffed a noiseless laugh as he perched where Dazais legs had just been as it was seemingly the only part of the desk that had space.

He looked down at Dazai, a rare thing but he had the height advantage of the desk compared to his chair. “What’s with you.” He asked nonchalantly, not a question more a statement but still he asked it quietly as to not be seen talking to Dazai. Picking up a piece of paper besides him as Dazai rolled his chair next to him, he was now sitting at his desk next to where Chuuya lent.

“Nothing.”

“Uh huh that’s why you're unusually quiet. Nothing.”

Moments like this weren’t unusual, that was 7 years ago but now it felt like a fever dream, a deadly secret.

They both busied themselves with watching Akutagawa lean over Atsushi to point out every mistake in his paperwork while he tried to elbow him out the way. Chuuya noticed Gin standing nearby usually very protective of her brother even if it were hidden well, but now he could be wrong as she was wearing her mask but he was almost sure she was smiling.

Oh to be that age again.

He found his eyes trailing back to Dazai, meeting his.

“I'm sure it'll be fine.”

“I almost threw up looking at that image.”

“Oh wow the stoic and tough executive Chuuya Nakahara was almost sick because of a little blood. Surely you of all people should remember the crime scenes we used to leave.”

Kunikida looked up at this comment, he was still after all this time, struggling to comprehend the fact that Dazai was mafia.

“The worrying part is that after doing all that shit with the body he must’ve been covered head to toe in blood, how does a man looking like that go completely unnoticed?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out.”

“That’s if you both don’t die.”

“Thanks Akutagawa.” Chuuya rolled his eyes as Akutagawa seemed to ponder what he just said.

“You're both definitely going to die.”

Everyone turned to look at them after that very blunt statement.

“Can I keep your motorbike?”

Chapter Text

“The mission duration is unpredictable as it all depends on how quickly you can gather evidence and then obviously find who did it and catch them, along with the fact that the train ride lasts 12 hours without stops. So you could be looking at a month undercover.” The president flicked through to a slide showing a map with the train route painted in blue.

“Great, so I have to spend a month with Dazai before inevitable dying in a horrifically gruesome way.”

“Not to mention that everything has to be done following PACE rules and the fact that you guys could be discovered and therefore be in danger too. We are also aware of the fact that you two haven’t properly worked together in a long time, sure there was the guild incident and we’ve been working with the mafia to find Fyodor. I don’t know the extent of the time Dazai worked in the mafia but surely you guys weren’t working closely together alone for long periods of time.”

“Chuuya pop quiz.”

“Tch not this again, I thought I'd finally escaped these.”

“Zigzagging pineapple”

“I go high and draw attention to myself while you do some stupid smart shit bellow.”

“When I wear a cast I either have a broken bone or...”

“Or a cement block or steal plating or lighter fluid or some other crap you won't tell me about till I think you’ve been stabbed and then it's surprise I'm actually wearing Kevlar armour.”

“You call me salmon instead of mackerel.”

“I think something is seriously wrong and we might have to leave the situation.”

“If while conversing with someone else I compliment their tenacity it means… ”

“That you don’t trust them or to be wary when with them till told otherwise.”

For a second Chuuya could’ve sworn he say surprise flash across Dazais face, but if that were true why would he have tested him if he didn’t think he'd remember. Dazai nodded and turned to the leaders with a proud smirk, whether he was proud of Chuuya for remembering this shit for all these years or at the fact that his dog was trained to perfection, Chuuya won't know.

“Seems like this won't be a problem, you two are closer than I thought.”

“Last time I checked people who were close didn’t blow up each other’s cars.”

“When will you leave that alone, I brought you a new better car you didn’t need that dingy thing anymore. But anyway what won't be a problem?”

Mori practically jumped up and down from excitement.

“We’ll get to that later, for now let’s get your undercover alias printed out and while we wait tell you the specifics.”

“You guys will stay in the Hermitage hotel and pose as guests with the same first names but different last names. This is a luxury hotel for the richest of rich so you will have to act as if none of it is new to you and make sure you are regularly seen around the hotel as it's normal for guests to stay for months at a time. At the same time you’ll have to somehow discreetly survey the many suspects while simultaneously attending social events as to maintain your cover all while taking pictures, noting down people’s whereabouts, watching security footage and examining the crime scenes for your own conclusions.”

“One days from now you will both take a 12 hour train to Monte Carlo, you will be met by a member of the French police who is disguised as a butler from the hotel, he’ll escort you to the Hermitage. You will have the first day to get used to your surroundings and set up any equipment you need in a secret part of your room. You will make yourselves look approachable and willingly talk with the regulars as to make yourselves look unthreatening, scope out which guests may cause any problems or better yet find who’s responsible.”

“If they think that one of the regulars could be responsible for the murders and they keep happening in the hotel, why haven’t they just closed it? Maybe it's someone who has a vendetta against the hotel and as time goes on they’ll just get more angry at the fact that it remains open.”

“Unfortunately, as you’ll soon come to see, the guests that are still currently staying at the hotel even with the murders are incredible entitled and stubborn enough to believe that they’ll be perfectly fine. Which is why we can't rule any of them out, you're either a mass murderer or completely delusional if you stay at a hotel with that many murder victims.”

“What a bunch of nutcases.”

“Indeed. Now due to how long this mission could potentially take we suggest that you both pack a large variety of outfits and treat it as if you were actually going on holiday. You will be allowed to bring a firearm each although I didn’t think you’d need one Chuuya.”

“Eh might as well, better to be safe than sorry.”

“Fair enough, we’ll be creating you fake passports to go along with your cover story so make sure on the train you memorise that information. You may need to go shopping to get some fancy looking clothes, actually you can do that while we wait for your details to be forged. Meet back here in 3 hours.”

Both the president and Mori rose to signal the end of part 1 of this meeting. Chuuya copied the action, bowing his head slightly towards the boss and making a big show out of knocking into Dazais chair causing his head to drop out of his hand and wake him up from his micro nap. He enjoyed the mans frantic scramble to also rise, nod and chase to keep up with him.

They left the room in silence and then the elevator and then the building but Chuuya was growing increasingly annoyed as Dazai continued to follow him.

“Why are you following me mackerel?”

“You better get used to this, I'm simple preparing you.”

Chuuya sighed and pinched his temple, “you have no idea what we’re supposed to be doing now, do you?”

Dazai smirked sheepishly, “I assume we’re heading back as we never received that paperwork but what we’re meant to be doing now I may have missed.”

“You really haven’t changed; we have to buy new outfits and travel supplies as we’re meant to be rich or summin.”

“Ohhh, aren’t you already rich, you must’ve been on loads of holidays, I'm sure an executive’s salary ain’t cheap.”

“You would know.”

Dazai cocked an eyebrow at Chuuya like he still wanted him to answer the question.

“I'm not good at spending money even when I have it, I've never been on holiday and the only expensive clothing I buy is for work so that Ane-san won't shout at me. The most expensive thing I own is my bike.”

“Hah typical Chuuya behaviour, well in that case I'm sure you won't mind splashing out on me.”

“Like hell asshole.”

“I can't believe that you haven’t been on holiday though.”

“I mean sure I've travelled but never outside of work, so in all honesty I have no idea what we’re supposed to do when we are pretending to be on holiday.”

“I suppose you just lie next to a pool, eat a bunch of food, go to events held and spend money.”

“You been on holiday much?”

“Not in a long time, Mori used to take me along like I were a stuffed toy to show off, I knew what a holiday was supposed to feel like but it never really did.”

“Don’t blame ya, what were you like 12, being dragged around like a purse dog.”

“Now now don’t forget who’s the dog here.”

“Seriously dickhead, when I think you're finally opening up about your past.”

“What would it matter it's not like you’ll ever betray your precious boss.”

“And whose fault is that.”

“we’re getting a bit off track.”

“Tch whatever just show me where the shops are, I don’t come around this area very often.”

-

-

-

“I told you to show me the shops not join me.”

“Eh you should’ve been more specific, besides I need new clothes too. Not as many as you apparently.”

“Says the one who doesn’t own swimming trunks.”

“I never planned on swimming so why bother buying any. I don’t know how long you expect us to actually be in the pool."

“Welp you're gonna need some now, we gotta keep up our cover right and that means lounging around with a cocktail and occasionally going for a dip. It’d look weirder if we didn’t use the pool.”

“I bet you’ll love that; you call me a mackerel but all you apparently do is swim up and down in your pool.”

“it's not my pool it's the buildings and it's a good form of exercise.”

“Whatever you say rich boy.”

They pottered round a few clothing stores, buying more holiday appropriate clothing as they went. At one point Dazai suggested they went to a tailors.

“Don’t tell me we’re gonna have to attend some of those posh dinners or parties that happen in the movies.”

“Name a film where rich people casually attend a fancy party.”

“Batman.”

“Well shit yer but remember this stuff needs to appear like its second nature and we should be seen in public as frequently as possible to avoid tipping off the murderer.”

“We’re gonna need a lot more stuff than I originally thought.”

Dazai shrugged his shoulders casually hooking a pair of jeans over his forearm and heading off to look at sunglasses.

How is this dickhead always so relaxed?

“Yo Chuuya what do you think?”

Dazai called over, showing off the hot pink sunglasses balanced on his nose wonky.

Maybe this guy just doesn’t have a brain

“Cut it out dickhead I'm trying to concentrate”

“What’s the big deal you have clothes at home.”

“I don’t have 30 individual outfits, do you? And I don’t think there’ll be a washing machine, not that you’ve ever used one.”

“Hmm when you put it like that, I suppose not, I guess if it comes to that we can just buy clothes in Monte Carlo.”

“Yer if you want to sell a kidney first.”

“It would sure make killing myself easier.”

“I love how that’s what’s playing on your mind. You're completely unfazed by this.”

“It was on topic.”

“Ok well new topic, how do you think this will go?”

“I know this is a big deal.”

“I didn't suggest you thought it wasn’t.”

“Mmm well I suppose we’ll have to watch some rich bastards lounge around on holiday till we catch one of them shooting someone.”

“It won’t be that easy.”

“I’m no fool. I’m well aware of that but who’s to say what will happen. For now all we can do is clue ourselves up with potential motives or attributes and hopefully prevent any more deaths.”

“Is this a bad time to mention I’m not great at acting.”

“Heh who would’ve guessed, it's fine I’ll do most of the talking, just follow my lead. I'm sure my undercover identity is a playboy millionaire and you’re an intern that I picked up off the street.”

“No need to sound so smug.”

“Surely you’re used to following my orders after all these years.”

“You’re such a narcissist.”

“And on that note this narcissist is hungry.”

“Fine we’ll grab lunch and then we’re heading straight back no more shenanigans.”

“Yippee!”

“Dazai you are 22 years old.”

-

-

-

Chuuya would’ve dropped his shopping off at his apartment but if Dazai didn’t already know his address there was no way he was taking him right to it, plus the idiot kept getting side tracked so it's not like he had time even if he wanted to.

“Boys welcome back, perfect timing your passports are ready to collect and we've compiled a document for you both to go through with basic info and everything you have to know about your undercover identities.”

Fukuzawa explained while mori distributed, something glinting in his eyes that both boys didn’t want to figure out.

“We’ll leave you two to have a skim read of the facts and then come back with your passports.”

“But Fukazawa I want to watch.”

“Nonsense let the boys read in quiet.”

Both men exited the meeting room, one far more begrudgingly than the other.

“What a weird man,” Dazai muttered under his breath as he pulled out one of the chairs and began to read the first page as Chuuya joined him. And they stayed like that reading opposite each other for a few minutes.

“Hey so what’s this,” Chuuya asked pulling out an envelope with a word written on front in red, “Suprise? This better not be you.”

“It’s not,” Dazai replied snatching the letter off Chuuya and opening the top before the other could complain, he pulled out the contents and quickly began to scan the writing on the pages mostly unfazed. Until Dazais' jaw visible went slack.

“Come on lemme see too,” Chuuya complained switching seats so that he now sat beside Dazai rather than opposite, he moved the papers over slightly so that Chuuya could read their contents too, him still not saying a thing which was certainly unusual. 

The papers showed their undercover information, nothing seemed unusual, stating his age, birthday, some distinguishing characteristics and a little background on the life he would’ve lived such as his fake family and school results. Everything seemed relatively normal until-

Status - taken 

Spouse - Dazai Cooper

Chuuya snatched Dazais papers and found an identical envelope surely also containing Dazais undercover information and opening it as his eyes searched for only one thing.

Status - taken

Spouse - Chuuya Wood

His face went blank from shock, reading a little passage underneath saying that they were long friends who after being separated for a few years due to different jobs, reunited and blossomed into lovers. And their reason for being there was that Dazai’s family had paid for an all inclusive honeymoon in France.

“And what do you have to say about this?”

“Heh wood.”

“I’m going to kill you, this can’t be happening, are you in shock or something?” Chuuya jabbed his elbow into Dazai before moving back to his original seat, now seeing that dazai was reading an additional piece of paper.

“What’s that?” Chuuya asked desperately trying to distract from the inevitable.

“Instructions.”

“For what?”

“How to make our relationship……convincing.”

There was now definitely an embarrassed flush spreading through his face.

Chuuya tried to smother out the silence “sooo, what does it say?”

“You want me to read this out loud to you? I'm pretty sure Mori wrote it.” Dazai smirked cocking an eyebrow and coughing slightly, himself a little red in the face from whatever was in the paper.

“No I take it back, if I have to read it I’ll do it later, if not burn it.”

Dazai grinned and looked back down at the paper but now started to read out loud, “it is vital to present your relationship in public, you guessed it PDA, including casual touches like hand holding, verbal affirmation like compliments or petnames and to ensure that there is no suspicion it may come to you making some very flamboyant gestures like flirting and kis-”

“Okay okay I get it please stop, you’re not helping.”

“Heh I just hope you don’t choke up when it comes to kissing me.”

“That won't be a problem if I kill you before we go.” Chuuya seriously contemplated, going for the knife he keeps on his waist in case his brain came to the conclusion to go through with it. Before he could enact his plan, the boss and president came back into the room.

“So boys, how’s it going?”

“Sir, respectfully, what the fuck.”

Mori mock gasped Chuuya’s way as if he weren’t used to the man swearing, “are you telling me you didn’t enjoy your surprise Chuuya.”

“No obviously not. Could you not have picked a different backstory and identities?”

“No can do, anything else would’ve been far too suspicious.”

“For the record I'd like to state that it was not my idea but unfortunately it's too late now, here have your passports.” The president apologetically passed them both the fake ids to study.

“Ey how comes I took his last name?”

“Come now Chuuya, of course they take the last name of the man in the relationship.”

“You calling me a chick, bitch boy?”

“Ok that’s enough for one day both of you head home to start packing and meet at the port mafia at 7 am where you'll meet us and we’ll take you to the train station. Dazai do not be late.”

“Yes sir.”

Both boys turned to leave and almost made it out free before mori called out,

“Feel free to practice your undercover identities, wink wink, I want you two to be calling each other honey and sweetheart the next time we meet.”

At this little comment the boys took off running, like teens trying to escape the chores. A convenient jog to escape mori ended up turning into a full-fledged race, ending in Chuuya winning, flipping Dazai off and walking to his apartment without another word.

Chapter Text

Thank God this building has bloody lifts. Chuuya practically dropped the shopping bags to the floor, his upper arms straining after carrying the four filled bags from his car. It only dawning on him to use his ability after the event. Turns out you need a lot of stuff considering they were moving and staying in a different country for an extended period of time and there’s no way he was bringing all this in from the car after the exhausting Dazai filled day he had yesterday.

All that was left now was for him to pack it all. Easier said than done. Owning only one suitcase he had to rely on folding his articles of clothing into little rolls. Lining the bottom of his case in T-shirt’s and jeans so as to have room to lay his suits and shirts out flat. He moved onto his toiletries and was making sure to tick things off his list one by one when his phone lit up indicating he had received a message.

Unknown number - Almost finished packing you over ripe orange? The director said that someone would be round to collect our bags in an hour or so but I’m done already

You - there’s no way I’ll be done in an hour how comes you're the only one who got told this and how can you possible be done already??

The message was read but Chuuya gained no reply. This annoyed him but he knew he couldn’t waste any more time especially with this new deadline meaning that he has to turn his attention back to the items that were still strewn out across the living room and bedroom floors.

In the bathroom he went over his toiletries placing them in plastic bags to prevent the rest of his items from being ruined if there were to be a spillage.

Within his routing he paused thinking that he heard a door open. How could anyone get inside, you can't even get in the building without a keycard. The instant rising panic was dispelled with a call of his name.

“Dazai what the fuck, how do you know where I live? How did you get in?”

Dazai looked around for the red head but instead found clothing scattered everywhere including the kitchen, some floating around the room. He had to avoid stepping on a hairbrush as he closed the door behind him afer placing a key back on top of the doorframe outside. “Let’s hope you’ll never need that key because I have no idea how you’re going to reach it-”

“That spare key was there for emergencies, not to let yourself in whenever you feel like it.”

“Wow the normally neat Chuuya is making a mess.”

“Oh shut up would ya, now how many toothpastes am I gonna need?”

“Um 1?”

“But what if I run out?” He called as Dazai joined him in his bedroom. Clocking the open suitcase Chuuya had been lugging around the house and was currently kneeling over. Dazai made himself comfortable on the bed, ducking out the way of a sun cream bottle floating past into Chuuya’s hand.

“Hey Chuuuuya?”

“Mm.”

“Why are you bringing a dictionary?”

“I-”

“Chuuya for the love of god please tell me that’s not a thesaurus.”

“Ugh fine whatever.” He huffed pulling out the twin sized books no bigger than A5

This caused Dazai to truly realise how stressed Chuuya must be even if he were laughing at him, he’d personally travelled around with Mori for cases when they were younger but back then Chuuya mostly worked in the local area with Ane-san, even now he's sure that it's rare that he gets sent anywhere outside of London. Sure, he's an executive and Mori trusts him but it doesn’t change the fact that his ability is a loose cannon, it's better to indirectly keep him close to Dazai.

With Chuuya placing two combs in his case, Dazai nudged his back with his foot. Leaning back to rest against the base of the bed, gaining his attention, he turned to look up at Dazai.

“You nervous?”

Reluctantly Chuuya nodded, pondering whether to jump out a window instead of having a semi-serious conversation with Dazai.

“You’re not moving out, you don’t need to pack your entire apartment.”

“I just want to be prepared for anything.”

Dazai chuckle, pushing his luck slightly by ruffling Chuuya’s hair, earning him a deep scowl.

“It’s impossible to be ready for everything but it’s nice to know that you’re thinking things through.”

“That doesn’t make me any more confident with the fact that you're already packed.”

“All you have to do is chuck in your clothes and some toiletries.”

“Speaking of,” Chuuya got up and continued to throw things in his case and a backpack.

“Realistically how much do you actually have left to pack?”

“Um I suppose not too much left, now that I can’t bring home essentials.”

“Since when was a dictionary a home essential and let’s be honest when was the last time you picked it up and used it rather than just googling it.” He chuckled while raising an eyebrow Chuuya’s way. 

“I’ll be done in 5.”

Dazai laughed as Chuuya gave up trying to argue his non-existent point, he too not knowing why he'd need a dictionary. With Chuuya distracted with his medicine cabinet, he took this as an opportunity to snoop around a couple of draws as to find anything of interest to pack too. Avoiding the large wine display case by all means possible just in case he bumped into it, that really would make Chuuya cry.

He surprisingly found a Rubix cube and chucked it in the open case, along with a funny looking hand cream tube and a pack of cards.

“I don’t appreciate you going through my stuff.”

“And I don’t care, are you done yeeeet?”

“Yer yer whatever help me zip up this case would you?”

“My pleasure, if it means that we can watch a movie.”

“Not in my house you ain’t.”

Dazai visible drooped, purposely appearing like a sad puppy. Chuuya however was very used to his attempts at emotional manipulation.

“Stop being dramatic. You need to go home and get your case if they're meeting us here.”

“It's by your front door.”

“Of course it is.”

-

-

-

Bored of waiting for Dazai, down at the lobby Chuuya used his back to push open the front door and lugged the suitcase out with him, wishing that the case had 4 wheels rather than the 2.

An unlabelled black police car was parked nearby, a man stood outside it but approached Chuuya when they made eye contact.

“Let me take that son.”

They exchanged bags and Chuuya watched him wheel it to the car and start to lift it into the boot.

“He better not call me that.”

Chuuya jolted slightly at the sudden appearance of Dazai.

“You sure took your sweet time.”

“Busy rummaging your cupboards, do you think it’d be rude if I just left my case here and went back inside.”

“Um yer probably and I'm not letting you back in.”

“Ugh I’m hungry.”

Chuuya was now only half listening to Dazai as his attention was drawn to a couple of young woman walking down the street. At least they were walking down the street until they’d stopped in their tracks to gawk at the oblivious Dazai who was currently talking about pot noodles.

Chuuya couldn't tell exactly what they were talking about but whatever it was lead to them then approaching the two boys, eyes still stuck to Dazai. The taller less bland of the two, in Chuuya’s opinion. He was used to this, it used to happen back when they were teenagers.

This would no doubt turn into a situation that would be an absolute waste of Chuuya’s time, instead opting to just leave now, seeing that Dazai had now also clocked on to the approaching girls.

He told himself that is was easier to leave now then to be ignored in a conversation and then trapped by social standards and unable to just walk away. He scanned his card and re-entered the building, not seeing it necessary to say anything else to both Dazai and the man who just picked up his case.

Lost in his mind, contemplating what snacks he should pack in his backpack, he blocked any noise of the pending conversation that would be heard through the small open windows and not very sound proof walls. He did however almost leap out of his skin when an arm snaked around his shoulders. Head darting round to face Dazai.

“How comes you’re here?”

“What do you mean, I should be the one asking you after you just started walking away?”

“Did you not talk to those girls?”

“Nah, managed to walk away just before they could say anything.”

“Dazai that’s rude.”

He shrugged nonchalantly not seeing the problem with his actions.

“You are aware that they were probably going to ask for your number.”

“Yer probably.”

“So, you shouldn’t just dart off, I left so that you could chat to them not for you to make direct eye contact and then turn your back seconds before they make small talk.”

“I'm a married man Chuuya and yet you suggest I cheat on you already; it's only been a day.”

Chuuya swatted his arm.

“People ask me all the time, I never give them my phone number so it’s easier to avoid the conversation than to turn them down.”

“How comes? If there’s that many people asking for your number then surely one of those girls have caught your eyes.”

“Eh maybe.”

“Then how comes-”

“I don’t know my number.”

“What?”

“I’ve never memorised my number so I don’t know it.”

“Pfft.”

“Oi don't laugh”

“How can I not.” Chuuya laughed as Dazais pout increased becoming more unbearable to look at. With a final snicker Chuuya continued, “so what were you saying about pot noodles?”

-

-

-

6am the next day they were off to the port mafia headquarters, a large skyscraper disguised as a business, welcoming civilians with open arms acting as a cover to the illegal activities going on in the higher floors. Just thinking of spending a month with Dazai made Chuuya shiver in disgust. You’d think he would’ve distanced himself as much as possible to enjoy some alone time before a month beside the snobby brunette, but no. He couldn't get rid of him the night before, the man threatened to break in at night and draw on his face if he were kicked out. So instead of chancing it they ate cup ramen and cookies until 11pm bickering whether to watch Disney or dream works, naturally deciding on one of each. Chuuya had to remember to request a different appartment when they got back.

It was the first day of their mission and he was already annoyed at the other with his dilly dallying and constant head nods as he tried to stay awake in one of the many rooms in the port mafia. Acting as if he were the only one tired. Chuuya may not had visibly shown it but he too was exhausted, spending most of the night before worrying more than sleeping.

This morning was for final checks, both being handed train tickets, hotel reservation documents and getting a last lecture from both men before being ushered out of the room to wait for the taxi.

Chuuya took this time to go through his mental checklist, making sure to stop off at the toilet on the way to reception. Heading back it dawned on him how busy the port mafia always is, even in the morning, employees and civilians alike.

Heading into the front open layout of the buildings ‘reception’, Chuuya ducked and weaved through employees and civilians. He was just moving towards the front of the building in general, not knowing where the others were waiting.

At some point he walked past a small group of girls most likely around his age, he couldn't help but overhear their conversation.

“I told you I saw him go in here, that’s him over there.”

“I can’t believe you made us come here before school just for some interns number, you don’t even know if he works here Jessica, let alone what this place is.”

“Oh I’m sorry Abigail that I’m keeping you from your painting, this is only my future boyfriend we’re talking about here and besides i know he doesn't work here.”

So he’s in that direction

Chuuya changed his orientation moving swiftly away from the girls and instead narrowed his search for a tall brunette, finding him quickly completely oblivious to the unintentional attention he was drawing to himself, even when wearing casual clothing.

On approach Chuuya put himself in Dazai’s line of sight, waiting for their eyes to catch.

“I thought you chickened out.”

“I’m nervous but not that nervous.”

“Yer and I’m tired.”

“And who’s fault is that, just sleep in the taxi.”

“I would but the presidents walked off again, meaning  we’re gonna have to wait for him.”

“So the taxi's already here?”

“I’m assuming so. He muttered something about last safety check before getting in. But I'm pretty sure he's just trying to find Mori.”

This signified the start of their mission, meaning that everything here on out had to be done efficiently and professionally as to ensure no one else had to become a victim to this killer. Chuuya clocked on to the two females making a beeline towards them, seeing this as his time to completely avoid yet another unnecessary conversation he was surely about to witness, he instead headed out the front of the building, ready to take one last look around the buildings basking in the mornings barely risen sun.

The air was refreshing in an English way, it was hot but only where the sun shone. A taxi was in fact parked out front, whether it was for them or not he didn’t want to chance it.

Dazai however wasn't as lucky, confused by Chuuya’s sudden exit and cornered before he could continue on.

“Hey there beautiful, what are doing working in a glum place like this.”

“Glum?” Dazai cocked an eyebrow at the rather orange faced girl and her pale black-haired friend who had seemingly appeared in front of him.

“I couldn’t help but follow you in here, you work at that agency place don’t you, how boring, I can give you a good time, when you free to take a girl like me out?”

“A month give or take.” Dazai was aware of the flirting but however much he didn't want it to continue he gave a straight forward answer. Luckily for him the blonde girl must have thought he were being sarcastic as she turned up her nose. He now regretted his decision to be a decent human being instead of just leaving to follow Chuuya.

“A month?! You could just say you're not interested but surely that’s not the case.”

“Jessica you’re being embarrassing let’s just go, he clearly has somewhere to be.” The friend had been desperately giving her friend looks and Dazai sorry glances.

The blonde looked ready to fume, clearly embarrassed by her friend’s blunt statement, she turned on her heal and stormed out the building. Dazai complimented the black-haired girls camera that lay around her neck before she thanked him and headed towards the pull doors that released them to the outdoors.

Dazai took a second to make sure that he wouldn’t run into them again before walking in that same direction, exiting the building through one of the many doors.

He scanned for his partner across the marble steps that lead down to the Main Street, surrounded in local shops and modern buildings. In the early sunlight the paths glowed, illuminating peoples’ steps and their bright day. His train of thought was interrupted when he found a hair shade that perfectly matched that illuminated path, his eyes landing on the outline of the boy who shares his age. He was perched on the railings to his right, they outline the edge of the wide steps that grant access to the building they both just exited. One conversed foot helped him balance on the top bar from it’s spot on the bottom bar. His side profile showed his youth, youth that was uncommon to find in such as ‘glum’ place. To the outside eye he was a normal young adult, wearing jeans and wired headphones that connected to the phone he clutched in one hand.

He looks…. ordinary

Watching his hair flap in the wind, Dazai felt guilty to pull Chuuya away, bring him back to the reality that people’s lives depended on what happens next. But that was what he was used to, he worked for a mafia and had an ability that raged on inside him. He wasn’t normal.

Upon approach Chuuya’s features became clearer, dark bags stealing the show from his blue eyes, clashing against his pale skin. In the light his hair colour could draw anyone’s eyes to him, like a siren. Hiding his fatigue was useless even with Dazai having noticed it hours ago, its always when you need to sleep that you can’t, this little myth seemingly applying to both of them.

Having reached where he sat, Dazai waved a hand in front of Chuuya’s face, making him jolt slightly as he hadn’t heard the approach due to the headphones placed in each ear. He relaxed again after realising who it was and simple watched as Dazai’s hand moved from in front of his face to across reaching for the ear that was furthest from him, lightly tugging out a headphone by the wire, having to move his hair out of the way slightly, before placing it in his own.

With Chuuya being perched on the railing, the height difference had decreased making their ears line up, making listening to the music easy, now that he thought about it, he was supposed to retrieve Chuuya not join him.

“Whatcha listening to?”

“The irony of choking on a lifesaver.”

“Seems.. on topic.”

“How?”

“Fits the gloomy mood”

“Mmm for once the sky’s nice though.”

“Talking about gloomy, I came to retrieve you after you left me to suffer.”

“Still haven’t learnt your number heh.”

His silence agreed with the statement but instead allowed for the song to play on until the final notes. Prompting Chuuya to hop off the bar and with their chests symmetrical he pulled out the wires from each of their ears with one tug, absently winding them round his fingers. Now face to face at natural height Dazai’s chin was tilted down slightly with his head still held high in a way that had been brought up as natural, their eyes held the contact.

“It’s almost time to go.”

Chuuya nodded the darkness under his eyes sprouting, the gold tints in his hair disappearing when he walked around Dazai into the shadows of the skyscraper they were re-entering.

Dazai being a few steps behind Chuuya caught a glance at a woman hovering nearby as if she wanted to approach them. It was the black-haired girl from earlier, he cocked an eyebrow her way but stopped to see if she'd make the approach.

“Sorry to bother you again and sorry for my friend, she's desperate for a boyfriend, she reads too many books. But it's kinda weird and random but as we exited the building after talking to you I ended up taking a picture of that boy you were just with. Straight after I regretted it, it is weird but the way he was practically glowing in the sun the photographer in me couldn’t help it but anyway I was just going to throw it away as there’s no way I could ask permission after already taking the photo I don’t want him to think I'm like a stalker or anything and I'd feel bad if I kept it. But then I saw you come out and the way you looked at him, I'm just saying I now know why you rejected Emily but anyway I digress. I was wondering if you’d like the photo?” The girl rambled, spewing out words rapidly as if she were trying to prove her innocence. Her arm outstretched holding a polaroid picture delicately between two fingers.

It was beautiful, Chuuya looked like a Greek god, hair glowing gold and once moving in the wind till it was captured in time by a camera. A water fountain behind him sparkled, Dazai couldn’t blame the girl for having taken that picture.

“This is a beautiful photo, you are very talented. You shouldn’t be so nervous to ask to take pictures of people, the worst they’ll do is say no and I'm sure Chuuya wouldn’t have minded but with that I'm still going to have to take this from you.”

The girl smiled softly as she watched Dazai pocket the image.

“I hope you both are well,” the girl almost whispered as a goodbye and took off once again.

“There you are Dazai, are you both ready to go.”

“Yes sir.” The president was with Mori, Chuuya and Kenji who had presumingly been helping with the heavy lifting done earlier when all their luggage and mission equipment was sent ahead to the train, he however was just leaving.

“The ashes of yesterday are our path to a new foundation.”

Both boys raised an eyebrow at Mori. Fukuzawa shook his head.

“Why thank you master Oogway, I will make sure to have a flash back to this moment in a time of need.”

“Dazai you smart ass I’m mystically saying that the new generation has to fix the mistakes of the past.”

“Yup I was never gonna get that. Glad you cleared it up.”

“Get your butts in the taxi.” Mori ordered, this acting as the last thing he said to them as he wouldn’t be going to the station with them.

The next minutes consisted of the boys fighting desperately to stay awake, and it was a battle they were losing, besides they knew that the car ride was only about 10 minutes, there was no point. It also wasn’t helping that the president was giving them very helpful advice all in a monotone boring voice, practically lulling them to sleep. But alas they arrived at their destination, Victoria station, where everything started to feel real.

The three males entered the steadily busying building, knowing that rush hour was ready to begin the president only stayed long enough to remind them of their train platform and tell them to call him when they arrived.

And then three was two, sensible adult count dropped to zero and confidence plummeted. For Chuuya at least, as he now fumbled with paperwork to double check everything, organising his bag nervously and squinting at the train times, even after already 100% knowing when the train departs. The last time he'd felt this nervous was during his first solo mission, which was definitely saying something since that was years ago.

Looking at the tickets the train ride would be around 12 hours, not including the mandatory stops, making it virtually impossible for anyone not to fall asleep, especially for someone who was already so sleep deprived his thoughts began to wonder while his feet stayed firmly planted exactly where the President had left him, who’s to say how long went by till he once again checked the train times.

“Hey Dazai looking at the board we should be able to get on the train in about 8 minu..” wait. Where was he? The space he was just in was empty beside Chuuya, he had thought it was nearly impossible to lose sight of the lofty brunette but now looking around he could see no sign of him.

He looked round frantically while also attempting to maintain some dignity which was getting harder as his thoughts spiralled. Had he ditched me? Was this all some sick joke to lure me away from the mafia so that the agency could topple them once and for all? Or he just probably loved the idea of me getting murdered so went along with it till he could bolt. No matter he'd just do this by himself, sure he's no detective but he could make it work. And if not he'd go down fighting he’d take that whole hotel down with him. Surely this isn’t a panic attack, he's not panicking, he's strategising. His breath isn’t that rapid, it's just hot in here and surely his legs aren’t wobbling, he's just tired. He just needs to sit down or better yet find Dazai. How embarrassing, if only he could just activate him ability and fly away.

Then a light tap on his shoulder, so brief it may not have even happened. His head whipping round and there stood Dazai all nonchalant and chill.

“Where the fuck did you go, you can't just be suddenly disappearing especially in this crowd of people moments before we embark to a different bloody country to go get murdered.” He said trying to remain at a normal volume however still fully expressing his anger.

He smirked nervously and held out his hand with its content. “Um, I brought us hash browns, you know for breakfast. You were looking rather pale so I thought you were hungry and you know it might help us stay awake long enough to sort this whole thing out.”

Chuuya stared in shock for a moment longer but his anger was seemingly washed away in relief. Thinking about it now, he was annoyingly hungry. He took the hash brown and quietly thanked him, feeling dreary all over again but no longer panicked.

“Sorry I didn't mean to make you worry.” he said sheepishly, somehow clocking onto the mental 360 Chuuya’s brain had to cope with.

“I wasn't worried,” he muttered back with his mouth half filled with the golden potato, avoiding eye contact, “but I really need to sit down now.”

“and maybe get another hashbrown.”

Chapter Text

Approaching the train it appeared to be rather quiet, most likely because of the time of the year. Kids were still in school and it wasn't warm enough yet to start planning holidays, that wouldn’t be a problem for them as it was definitely going to be hot where they were going.

This was a good thing as it meant that when entering their cart they found it empty and up till now the only people they’d seen were most likely over 60 and taking advantage of their pensions.

Their seats where at an area for 4 which allowed them to have space for their backpacks and a table between them to lay out the paperwork they’d have to memorise.

While Chuuya revelled in the ability to sit down, Dazai was already pulling out the case information and started jotting down a few notes.

“Anything important I need to know or can this wait till later.”

“We have a stop at Gare Du Nord to let on some more passengers, apparently one of the largest stations in Paris, but besides that it's smooth sailing.”

“Good to hear.” Chuuya sank further into the chair.

“Ooo the hotels hosting a party two days after we arrive, according to this it's gonna be jampacked full of rich bastards, we have info on some of them and funnily enough most of them are selling drugs. There is a possibility that one of them has hired an ability user to kill off the rivals but this is just a theory. The family to look out for is the Allard’s who own a Spanish drug organisation. Arrested twice, the second time with the help of the port mafia, does that ring a bell?”

Chuuya leaned over the table to look over the paper briefly, “yer I think so, they would smuggle the drugs inside stuffed toys they would mass produce as cover. Did those bastards pay their way out of jail again? Does this mean I don’t have to attend the party?”

“Is there a chance they’d recognise you?”

“Sadly no, I didn’t participate in the take down that was the Black Lizards.”

“You were almost lucky as there will be lots of parties, most of them are themed as that’s what the Hermitage is famous for. They post the theme a few days before so we may have no choice but to go shopping occasionally as it's in our best interest to attend as many of these as possible, both to develop a social standing and to look out for anyone suspicious.”

“Eh maybe there’ll be wine.”

“Glad you’ve got your priorities straight.”

“Damn right.”

“You falling asleep?”

“Oh absolutely, I can't tell if my eyes are open.”

“They aren’t. Sleep for now we’ll go through the rest after we get off at the stop.”

“Well if you insist.” Chuuya finally let his head rest against the window, seemingly falling asleep instantly. Dazai was surprised he'd even lasted that long. He too would join him soon but first had to tidy away the paper work in case any civilians did enter the cart while they were both asleep. He set an alarm to go off 10 minutes before their expected arrival time at their mandatory stop, after all they couldn’t sleep all day just to arrive and then sleep some more, they had to at least be semi prepared before their arrival.

-

-

-

6 hours seemed to go past in minutes, Dazai could’ve sworn he had just placed his head in his arms but the next thing he knew was a soft vibrating against the table he rest on. His phones alarm signified their soon arrival at Gare Du Nord, the sun high in the sky and the scenery vigorously green.

While turning off the alarm Dazai spotted a text from Yosano.

-how’s the honeymoon going? -

Of course she knew, either the president told her or Ranpo figured it out and then told her.

-not that I'm surprised you know but I would’ve thought you’d be there to send us off-

-trust me if I could’ve I would’ve but Ranpo said I'd make too many sex jokes and possibly make you guys fail the mission before it even started just from embarrassment-

-thank you for sparing us I'm 90% confident Chuuya would’ve thrown me in front of a train-

-now answer my question-

Damn she's too good, she knows I was changing the topic,

-welp he's asleep at the moment and has been ever since we stepped foot on the train so we haven’t had a chance to talk things out nor do I think we will-

-Dazai, you know what you need to do to upkeep the illusion of your undercover identities, you can't avoid it and neither can he, which also means that you can't throw yourselves into it, it's not like you have much experience in relationships and the last time I checked neither did he-

-which means…-

-you're gonna have to talk it through with him and practice so as when it comes to you guys doing stuff in public you won't look suspicious when he pulls away from you and kicks you in the head-

-I know you're right and I was planning on doing all that anyway but he is one of the most stubborn annoyances in my life. I couldn’t get him to give me a lift you think I can get him to kiss me-

-you forget that he's not stupid. He knows how important this mission is, we know he cares about peoples lives, he will do what he needs to but will you?-

-yes yes but I won't like it-

- uh huh whatever you want to tell yourself, now look in your backpack I packed you a little surprise-

-oh god-

Dazai rested him phone back on the table while he routed around in his bag, surprised that she would’ve been able to sneak something in there without him noticing. His hand emerged holding a small box, weird he thought, opening it to reveal two almost identical wedding rings. God I love that woman. Dazai looked over at the phone.

-you see I think of the small details, you guys can't be married without wedding rings-

-Yosano you're a genius, how did none of us think of this, it would’ve raised so many questions-

-I'm sure you would’ve bluffed your way out of it-

-you know it, we’re coming up to the mandatory stop, tell the president that I’ll call the agency once I'm in my hotel room-

- give your husband a kiss from me-

Dazai scoffed and chuckled while putting back his phone, instead turning his attention to the open ring box. He removed the larger one and placed it on his ring finger, he wasn’t a ring guy but it felt only a little weird. The smaller one now sat in the box alone, he turned his head up to look at Chuuya, still very much asleep.

It was fair to say that Dazai would have to wake him up soon enough as it’d be good for them to get of at the stop to stretch their legs and the alarm he'd set for himself seemingly had no effect on him. Seeing outside that the greenery had been replaced by buildings he was sure any minute now they’d arrive.

He pulled out the second ring before he had a chance to think it over. Finding Chuuya’s left hand placed in front of him, lifting the entire hand ever so slightly, moving the limp limb so that he had access to his fingers. Easily the ring slid on, fitting perfectly. How Yosano got ever detail correct who knew. Dazai placed Chuuya’s hand back on the table admiring the two rings close once again as he held his hand next to Chuuya’s for a second longer.

I wonder how long it'll take him to notice it there.

And with that the train came to a stop prompting Dazai to give Chuuya a shake, scaring him a little.

“Dazai what the hell?”

“Come on lets stretch our legs,” Dazai was already up, grabbing his backpack and casually swinging it over one arm, not waiting for Chuuya as he headed towards the automatically opening doors.

The inside of the building was huge with a tall roof and several platforms, the inside looking rather modern clearly adapting to tourists with it's signs in several languages and a massive KFC in sight. It was indeed very busy living up to it's reputation. Chuuya caught up to Dazai who to be fair hadn’t ended up very far.

“The intercom on the train said that it’d leave at 5pm,” Chuuya started rubbing his neck, “you would’ve heard if you hadn’t hit and run me.”

“Not my intention.”

“uh-huh. So, you gonna lead the way or what.”

Both boys exited the building revealing its stunning exterior, the building was laced in stone pillars topped with full body sculptures. When they had successfully avoided being hit by several taxis, they found a long wide street filled with mini shops and local cafes.

“Heh kinda reminds me of the Lanes at Brighton, you ever been?”

“No but I bet here smells nicer.”

“Mm you didn’t strike me as the kind to frequent Brighton and yer smells like lavender.”

“What’s that supposed to mean, what business does a mafia executive have at dainty shops next to a beach?”

“Oi it's a nice area, besides that’s where I got my tattoo,” Chuuya wandered off into a random direction as Dazai had ceased leading the way at the mention of tattoo.

After over coming the initial shock, he jogged slightly to take his place back at Chuuya’s side, “you have a tattoo?”

“Yer? Don’t tell me you didn’t know this, not that I've ever told you but I guess I've just gotten used to assuming you know everything.”

“What’s it of?”

“None of your business.”

“Where is it?” Dazais eyes wandered up and down Chuuya desperately looking at the little exposed skin, it wasn’t on his arms or his face, which didn’t rule out much.

Chuuya swatted him in the arm once again stating that it was none of his business, Dazai thoroughly amused by the fact Chuuya to his knowledge hadn’t noticed the ring. Which reminded him that they had work to talk about.

“How about we grab something to eat?”

“Your treat?”

“A detective’s salary isn’t that large.”

“It's large enough dickhead you don’t buy anything anyway, you can afford to buy me a coffee.”

“Those hashbrowns weren’t cheap.”

“Forget it then asshole,” Chuuya was ready to walk off before he made a scene but was stopped when Dazai pulled him towards a café with his arm round his shoulder.

“Come now Chewy I'm joking.”

“Tch whatever don’t annoy me before this month even begins.”

“If we catch the guy superfast then it won't last a month. Lets set a speed run record ay.”

“I knew we should’ve restricted your internet access as a kid.”

The café was beautiful in a rustic way, a book case lining the back wall and a mismatch of tables and chairs scattered around, a display case of pastries and cakes lay at the entrance, Chuuya was already glued to it. Dazai had noticed that the man even at his age still had quite the sweet tooth, probably due to the lack of sweets he had as a kid, a lack of anything actually.

“What ya want, I’ll order you grab a table.”

“Just a latte please,” Chuuya stated as he walked off towards the front window sitting at a table in the far corner and looking out at the view. What a liar

“Bonjour puis-je s’il vous plaît prendre un café au lait, un café noir et un mille feuilles.”

“Hi could I please have a latte, black coffee and a Mille Feuille.”

“Oui bien sûr, ce sera sept euros, nous vous l’apporterons.”

“Yes of course, that'll be seven euros, we'll bring it to you.” 

Dazai tapped his watch on the card machine, setting up apple pay was the best thing he'd ever done, if it's not cash he's not technically spending money. He thanked the woman and walked over to the small round metal table Chuuya had picked.

“Look we need to talk.”

“Yer we do, were you just speaking French?”

“Eh Mori made me learn it but that’s not important.”

“Not important,” Chuuya grumbled, surprised by how much he seemingly still doesn’t know about Dazai.

“Ok listen Chuuya, we are in a relationship. No, we are married. Which means for the sake of the mission from here on out we need to start acting like it. You knew this talk was coming too as you picked a table out of the way so what do you think?”

“I know I know but I hate it so much. Let’s just get this over and done with, what do you have in mind?”

“Oh, um I'm not sure, I suppose we should start by going through Moris’ list.”

“That’s a terrible idea.”

“Yes, some of it is unbearable to read but there is a list of things they expect us to be doing in public.”

“Go on.”

“Hand holding.”

“Pass.”

“Pet names.”

“Over my dead body”

“Cuddling.”

“Do you want to die.”

“Kissing.”

“I will shoot myself right here and now.”

“Chuuya.”

“Ugh fine.”

At this point a young waitress came over with their order, placing the drinks down where-ever and the plate with the dessert pretty central.

“Merci.”

“What’s that?”

“It's for you.”

“I didn’t ask for it.”

“No you didn’t.”

Chuuya raised an eyebrow at Dazai but pulled the plate towards him and went to pick up the delicate layers of pastry and cream but paused.

“What’s that!” Dazai looked up from his drink to see Chuuya lift up his hand to stare dumbfounded at the ring on his finger.

“Whatever do you mean dearest, it's your wedding ring.”

Chuuya’s head whipped back and forth between his ring and Dazai till he held up his own hand to show his matching ring. Now Chuuya’s gaze wouldn’t move from Dazais hand.

Oh god I've broken him

This is hilarious

“Eat your cake baby.”

Chuuya glared at him but lifted the cake to his lips.

“Baby no good, how about sweetheart, cupcake, wifie, pookie bear-”

“Please stop, just something normal if you must.”

“of course my love but come now this relationship can't be one sided. You too need to do stuff like hold my hand, flirt and call me names. I'm just letting you know before we get there so that you don’t try to round house kick me in the face when I place my hand on your shoulder or something.”

“Shoulder? God you suck at this as much as I do.”

“The most popular executive in the mafia doesn’t have relationship experience, who would’ve guessed.”

“Oi dickhead I'm a busy person, not all of us can lay around all day doing next to nothing.”

“Stay on topic honey.”

Chuuya made a point to fake gag, “you know I’ll participate when necessary.”

“Good to hear but that includes not punching me when I go to hold your hand.”

“I’ll restrain.”

“Thank you now hurry up and finish your drink Honey-bun, we can't stay here all day.”

This earned him a swift kick to the shin.

-

-

-

Entering the train again both men realised that there were a few more couples and a family of 4 in their cart, it made sense as it could hold up to 40 people even in business class. So that now they couldn’t discuss anything out loud they resorted to busying themselves with thoroughly going through the paperwork and information they were given.

Dazai was memorising information about some of the regular guests while Chuuya was investigating different known abilities trying to figure out how the culprit had been able to escape every time. They had a little over 3 hours left on the train and soon the sun would start to set, so to ensure it didn’t feel like they’d wasted an entire day doing nothing they resorted to silent working. Chuuya for one was surprised Dazai was actually doing stuff but knew that if he mentioned it the brunette would deliberately stop being useful.

Luckily the rest of the trip went by quickly, with a food cart arriving with fancy looking sandwiches and the free Wi-Fi being the only problem to occur in the last few hours.

Pulling up at the station it was now dim outside but stepping off the train they were both surprised that it was still rather warm. Collecting their luggage from a pick up point Dazai had to nudge Chuuya to stop him from levitating the suitcase and bag before someone noticed, Chuuya sheepishly apologising as he started to wheel it behind him.

“Where do you suppose we meet that undercover cop?”

“I suppose he'll find us.”

And that he did because shortly after exiting the train station they were met with a young man holding a sign in front of a luxury looking black cab.

Dazai and Chuuya Cooper

That was going to be them for the next month.

“Bonjour are you the Mr Coopers?”

Chuuya found that strange to hear however was surprised by how young the male looked, as if he weren’t out of school yet.

“Yes we are, you must be the person we are meant to meet.”

“That’s right, on behalf of Hermitage hotel I welcome you to France, please let me take your bags and we’ll converse in the car.”

Chuuya flashed Dazai a look, asking if this was the right person, was this really the undercover cop they were supposed to work with, Dazai just shrugged at him opening one of the back car door and gesturing with his head for Chuuya to get in. Dazai closed the door behind him and walked round to join him inside.

“Dazai that is a child.”

“I'd say he's 19.”

“There is no way we can allow him to work this case, I hope this is just a regular employee because if not the stuff he’ll have to see. We can't allow this.”

“We were children once; we saw gruesome stuff too at a much younger age.”

“And how did that turn out? How many times just today have you mentioned killing yourself.”

Dazai couldn’t answer before the boy entered the drivers seat, removing his chauffeur hat and turning on the engine.

“Are you old enough to drive?”

Chuuya blurted out before he could stop himself, causing the boy to chuckle.

“I'm betting you didn’t expect someone so young to be your cop on the inside but it was the safest option. The police work very closely with the hotels as it's a massive part of the economy here, which meant it was likely that anyone else would’ve been recognised. I however have only been there for a few months doing an apprenticeship and I am fluent in both English and French making me a likely candidate as a butler in the hotel and perfect for the police to send in. However, the chief of police will meet you in a couple days with the cover that he's friends with your dad Mr Dazai sir.”

“Kid look that’s great and all but I don’t think you understand how deep this shit is. You are going to see stuff you won't forget and your life will be in danger if you are ever caught by the murderer and other guests alike.”

“Respectfully I don’t care sir, I get it trust me but I'm going to be a police officer and this will kick start my career and give me 5 years worth of experience in 5 weeks.”

Chuuya looked to Dazai giving up, the kid had spunk that’s for sure, annoyingly reminding him of them at 15.

“What’s your name?”

“Leo.”

“Lets get this mission started ey, take us to the hotel.”

Leo smiled, “yes right away sir.”

In the 20-minute car drive they passed a plethora of fancy looking buildings all with beautiful architecture, restaurants hotels and shops alike. Finally making their way up a hill towards a large white building covered in windows and lights illuminating the large words Hermitage on front, behind it lay the ocean sparkling in the moon light shrouded slightly by the greenery and palm trees sprinkled out front.

“It's beautiful, such a shame what’s happening within.”

Leo followed a one-way road up to the front of the building, pulling over to one side.

“We’re here, now just be aware that security has increased drastically since the murders have been taking place, it hasn’t really done any good besides them being suspicious of everyone especially new comings for whatever reason,” Leo warned before exiting the car.

“Probably because of the amount of illegal activities that goes on within, they're wary of snitches,” Chuuya pondered aloud noticing Dazai exit too.

Before he could follow, Dazai had already made his way round the car and opened Chuuyas’ door, holding out his hand. Chuuya begrudgingly took the smirking mans hand, stepping out gracefully, Ane-san having trained him well.

“The charade begins now Slug, try to keep up.”

“Right back at ya, Mackerel.”

Chuuya turned his attention to his suitcase and went to grab it.

“No sir please allow me to bring them inside,” Leo turned his voice to a whisper, “remember you're rich rich you don’t do such things like carry your own luggage.” He beckoned at other members of staff waiting near the entrance.

Right of course, posh Chuuya act posh, just like at those meetings at the PM. I can do that, don’t be shown up by Dazai, take the lead so that bastard can't gloat later.

As the other members of staff effortlessly collected all their luggage, Chuuya laced his arm with Dazais.

“Won't you take me inside darling?”

Chuuya revelled in Dazais brief shocked face that no one else could’ve spotted but him, before he composed himself and placed his opposite hand over the one Chuuya had laced with his elbow.

“Of course, love, let’s admire the interior and get ourselves checked in.”

He led the way towards the large sliding doors, instantly being washed over with cool air when they parted for them, all 3 employees trailing behind with their luggage. The interior was just as grand, a tall ceiling made way for intricate detail on the walls, velvet red chairs to wait on and a wide reception table shrouded in the light of a chandelier, security dotted around.

“Good evening.”

“Good evening gentlemen, how can we help?” a man and a woman stood behind the desk and called out when they were close enough. Chuuya was relieved that the man spoke back in English so he could at least follow along with the conversation.

“Why hello there, we’d like to check in under the name Cooper.”

“Right away, may I ask what the purpose of your visit is?”

“it's our honeymoon,” Dazai explained giving Chuuyas hand a squeeze for dramatic effect, Chuuya did everything he could to refrain from biting it off.

“We must disclose that we have had some rather unfortunate events take place here within the last few weeks, we recommend to all of our new comers to delay their holidays till this has been taken care of.”

They don’t seem all that worried

“Thank you for the advice but that won't be a problem, we've heard of your little problem but I insist that my husband deserves nothing but the best and this place is clearly still considered the best, I can't let him down now can I? Afterall just between you and me he's taken quite the interest in crime podcasts recently.” Both men chuckled in a snobbish manner.

“While you are correct sir, the Hermitage is still considered the best hotel around we really would suggest that we only welcome regulars in during this unknowing time.”

“Oh so just because we aren’t regulars, we suddenly aren’t good enough for your hotel, I’ll have you know I could buy this place off the owner right now and it would barely scrape my bank account. In fact I wish to speak to the owner if you continue to refuse our entry.”

“No sir please accept my sincerest apology we would be happy to have you stay here,” the man clicked at the woman who scrambled to take a key off the wall behind them, “your room number is 624 and as an apology for the inconvenience allow me, the manager, to invite you both personally to our next party, I will have personalised invitations and a complimentary gift box sent to your room as a honeymoon gift.”

“That’s much more like it, we will surely be attending as many events possible. Now if you excuse us I'm sure we can find our own way up, have the luggage follow in 5 minutes, and have that young chap do it, he was pleasant company on the car ride over.”

“My pleasure sir, enjoy your stay.”

Dazai led them to the left down a hallway till they found a row of elevators lining one wall.

“Wow you had me convinced, you really fit the entitled type.”

“They already seemed suspicious of us, maybe I should’ve acted more concerned about the murders.”

“You did fine, we’ll just have to convince them over the next few days. Besides as I said before they're probably involved in a lot of illegal activities based on their clientele, why else only insist on regulars? They really didn’t seem very worried, maybe this isn’t the first time something like this has happened here.”

The lift took them up to the sixth floor, everything seemingly plated in gold and velvet, the halls vast with large windows everywhere but after a quick look around there was seemingly only cameras in the very public areas like the reception and lifts, meaning –

“Yo wanna race to our room.”

“You're on.”

Chapter Text

Both boys found themselves at the end of the hall, their room happened to be the last on that floor, from the amount of space between each door they could only assume that the rooms were huge. Dazai twisted the key in the door, taking note that there appeared to be only one tailored key for each door.

He pushed the door open revealing a large room with furniture spaciously spread around. The floor was partially wooden floor boards with the other half being carpet. The wooden floor held a coffee table with a pair of forest green chairs set up with cutlery and napkins in case it would be used to eat. Wide windows being draped in black curtains with a sofa facing towards one wall where a tv was bolted in. On the carpeted side was large cabinets that could easily store a month's worth of clothes, surrounding the singular bed, illuminated by a strip of lights set up at it's base and lamps dotted around the room.

It's beautiful

Wait a second-

“Oi, how comes there’s only one bed.”

“We are technically meant to be married but I hadn’t thought of this.”

“You think Mori couldn’t have pulled strings and made it so there was secretly two beds.”

“That’s true, how comes he didn’t.”

“I’ll find out.”

Chuuya thought this was as good as time as any so pulled out his phone and plopped down on the sofa. Dazai pulled out a laptop and took a seat at the table, thinking that they might as well kill two birds with one stone and simultaneously check in with their respected groups.

“Mori the fuck you playing at.”

“Ah Chuuya how good to hear your voice, what can I help you with?”

“How comes our room only has one bed?”

“Glad to hear that you made it there ok. What you think we’re made of money, our budget is hardly unlimited and for an extra bed it’d set you back about 200 euros a night. Besides you and Dazai are married now, what if you invite guests back to your room, how would you explain sleeping separately?”

Chuuya grumbled in reply glancing over at Dazai.

“Hello Dazai, looks like everything’s gone smoothly,” the president said with the rest of the agency crowded round in the background of the video call, seemingly invading his office when they heard the call ringing.

“Mostly sir,” Dazai smiled as he was sure that the agency would be able to hear Chuuya's half shouting in the background. Suddenly Atsushi pushed forward past the rest sniffling slightly.

“Dazai I thought we were closer than this, you didn’t invite me to your wedding and then went as far as to hide your marriage from me for a year.”

Dazai raised an eyebrow, stifling a laugh, the other agency members looking just as confused. It took Kyouka to speak up, “Akutagawa lied to him saying you and Nakahara are really married.”

“Wait what? You guys aren’t really-… I'm really going to kill him.”

The whole agency laughed as Atsushi left the room presumingly to kill Akutagawa.

“Come now Chuuya you're both adults, I'm sure something as insignificant as a single bed won't prove to be too much for the both of you to handle.” Mori went on, being slightly overshadowed by a noise coming from the background.

“Is that Akutagawa laughing?”

“Hm seems so, maybe that kid has finally lost it, he's just looking at his phone.”

“It was bound to happen, alright now back to the bed.”

“Chuuya this way it limits suspicions with the hotel, after all there’s a new theory that someone on the inside is helping the killer, this potentially being how he can get around unnoticed, so watch yourself.”

“Well that’s just great.”

“Have fuuun.” Mori called hanging up, leaving Chuuya with no real outcome.

“The ring's looking good, how did Chuuya take it?”

“I slipped it on him while he slept, it took him an hour to notice but was all worth it when he finally malfunctioned. How’d you get the sizes perfect?”

“I have my ways, I have treated you both after all.”

“I forgot you healed him after that dragon thingy fight.”

“He was so against it, I can't believe he could still walk after all those injuries and that’s not even the first time he's used that corruption form, how does he cope with all that pain?”

“It truly is something,” Dazai marvelled as he watched Chuuya hang up his own call and open the hotel door as there had seemingly been a knock. Leo entered alone struggling to pull with him a metal trolley holding their luggage.

“Alright I’ll keep you all updated, we’re going to search the grounds tomorrow to scope out security cameras and try to get our hands on the footage and probably hang out at the pool as a teaser to our grand debut as guests here.”

“All the best,” the president said his farewell on behalf of the group and ended the call, Dazai knew all the others had questions and Kunikida looked pissed so they’d need to have a proper debrief within the next couple days.

Chuuya came up behind him, “did that go ok?”

“Yer but there’s still a lot to discuss.”

“That can wait till tomorrow, Leo’s here with our suitcases.”

Dazai got up to help Leo to take them off the trolley but was promptly shoved out of the way by Chuuya who nonchalantly used his ability to float all the luggage to one corner, leaving Leo gobsmacked.

“Wow a real ability, they're so rare here, it must be so useful.”

“In London they're not as uncommon but there are certainly a lot more laws about them.”

“Not that the port mafia follow any of those laws”

“You’d know.”

“Ok I don’t know what this is but we’ve got a lot of work to do and I'm sure you both wouldn’t have been sent if you weren’t the most likely to succeed. Even though it's clear you don’t get along, you had me fooled, the single bed is a nice touch. But I'm relying on you both, I’ll find you guys at some point tomorrow, I’ll see myself out.”

As Leo exited the room pulling the trolley with him, Chuuya made his way over to the wardrobes, opening each one till her found a pile of extra pillows. Pulling them all down he crawled partially onto the rather large bed and pulled back the covers.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm building a wall,” Chuuya lay the pillows in the middle of the bed, dividing it in two, “I'm too tired for this now, we’ll come up with a better solution later on but these first few days are crucial to the investigation, I need you to be helpful which is the only reason you're not sleeping on the couch.” Chuuya pulled back to look at his handy work.

“Your side is bigger than mine.”

“How do you know that’s my side.”

“It used to be back when we-”

“Whatever just move the pillows over a bit, I'm getting out of these jeans.”

Chuuya turned his attention to his suitcase, flinging it open with little care using his ability to float the un-needed items momentarily out of the way. He found a pair of loose trousers and a t-shirt, he normally wouldn’t care with such things but there was no way he was sleeping in only fitted boxers while sharing a bed with Dazai. Turning back towards the bed to head to the door he assumed led to the ensuite, only to find Dazai already under the covers and practically asleep.

“Dazai get up you can't go to sleep in the clothes you were wearing all day and you should brush your teeth.”

“I took off my jeans,” Dazai grumbled clearly close to falling asleep.

“God you are so frustrating.”

“Nah you love me.”

Chuuya slammed the door shut as a reply, mentally preparing himself for Dazai while physically preparing for bed, hoping that this hotel was posh enough to have at least semi soundproof walls. The bathroom was just as beautiful as the room, having both a shower and bath with a large mirror stretching across the wall.

Now changed Chuuya reemerged into the dim room only to find Dazai asleep, or so he assumed when he didn’t move. Chuuya debated sleeping on the sofa himself but refrained when he thought of letting Dazai win and the back pain that would surely come with it. So instead he cautiously got in bed, knowing that if he woke him it’d mean an argument. The pillow wall holding strong as Chuuya pulled the covers up and sunk into the bed, it was comfy, proof of the cost of the mattress. Having forgotten to pull the curtains too Chuuya found the nights light illuminating the room slightly and in tow Dazai. He wondered how long it had been since Dazai had slept well, he always used to struggle as a kid, nowadays still seemingly always having bags under his eyes however much he played it off.

Why bother dwelling, it's not like he cared and besides they have bigger fish to fry than Dazais sleep schedule.

-

-

-

As soon as Chuuya began to stir, the light coming from the windows made it practically impossible to doze back off, he hadn’t yet opened his eyes but assumed that it wasn’t too early to be getting up. He peeled his eyes open seeing that he was cuddling the pillow that had once acted as his last line of defence against Dazai, who in which wasn’t beside him. Begrudgingly Chuuya sat himself up to gaze out across their large room, finding the man in question at the table, surrounded in paperwork with his back to him. Somehow he had managed to locate every available surface and spread his mess throughout.

As Chuuya rose from the bed he caught a look at the clock seeing that it was around 8am, they were probably the only guests who would be awake for at least a few more hours as who doesn’t sleep in on a holiday. Not that they could afford that luxury, they had work to do and Dazai was beating him to it. He made his way round the bed to take a peek at what he was currently working on, not worried about making his presence obvious because knowing Dazai he would’ve clocked that he was awake.

Spread out in front of him was information about other guests, very detailed notes accompanied each picture, some having their illegal activities written in red.

“I wish we had information on everyone in this hotel but alas we aren’t so lucky.”

Chuuya hummed in reply, looking over Dazai, his eyebags had decreased but surely he was still tired, he had changed clothes into an outfit you could wear to an office job even if he made it look casual, pairing well with the glasses that sat on his nose. Not many people knew about the fact that Dazai sometimes needs glasses when he's working, probably because he rarely works. But it was clear that he had dressed in a way to make a good first impression, they need to be buddy buddy with everyone to get into the inner circle of guests to find out who’s responsible.

“They serve breakfast till 10, wanna head down and grab a bite before we mingle at the pool.”

“How can I pass up free food, I’ll get dressed and then memorise this stuff too.”

“No need, I’ll fill you in as we go.”

Soon enough they were heading out, the mess being shoved to one corner and semi hidden under a blanket, as they exited they made sure to place the do not disturb sign on the door. Two seconds after stepping outside Dazai tripped and fumbled over a wicker basket.

“What’s that?” Chuuya asked while he snickered at the spectacle.

“oh it's the complimentary honey moon gift that manager mentioned about,” Dazai said reading the label on the side.

“Just chuck it in the room, I’ll be sure to look for wine in it later.”

After eventually finding the restaurant they made sure to keep up appearances, Dazai making them both Teas, him somehow still knowing how Chuuya likes it, while the other grabbed a selection of pastries. They sat at a table for two and Chuuya had to constantly remind himself to smile while they conversed, when others weren’t nearby they spoke about the case and safety precautions, while others were around they talk about how lovely the hotel is and how jealous their families would be.

At one point Chuuya clocked a couple of staff talking in hush while looking at them and another couple who must’ve been newcomers too, Chuuya in retaliation made a big show of stroking his gloved hand over Dazais' hand that he had rested on the table, using a finger to trail along his knuckles. Dazais' eyes grew wider for a split second before gathering what was going on.

Chuuya leaned in and whispered to Dazai, on the outside it looked cute and anyone would assume they were flirting.

“When we get back I'm burning these gloves.”

Dazais grin grew wider as he lifted Chuuya’s hand to his lips and pressed a kiss to the back of his gloved hand, Chuuya’s eye twitched but he managed to keep up the act, apparently well enough for a couple to approach them.

“Hiya there, you guys must be new to the hotel, we never forget a face, we just wanted to welcome you to our little community here and invite you to come meet the others at the pool later.”

“My, you are both so young, we could just gobble you up.”

“Nice to meet you, we'd love to get to know everyone as we’re going to be here for quite a while.”

“Oh how lovely, we can most certainly relate, we’ve never gone on a holiday that’s lasted any less than a month.”

“You're living the dream, I'm sure this will be the first of many trips for us, we’ll be in your care.”

“So polite, we might just steal you before the others fall in love with you too but that’s not very neighbourly so see you at the pool by midday yar.”

“We wouldn’t miss it,” Dazai gave one last friendly smile as they walked off.

“They seemed rather chipper,” Chuuya said having left all the talking to Dazai, “at least we got an invitation to meet everyone else, it makes our job a lot easier.”

“That was Mr and Mrs miller, they come here from America every few months to have sex with other couples.”

Chuuya practically choked on his drink.

“What?!”

“Yer they scope out new couples they can butter up and then convince to have a foursome with them.”

“You are too calm about them just trying that on us.”

“All we’ve gotta do is say no. Unless you want-”

“No no we are definitely telling them no.”

“Suit yourself- ow” Chuuya swatted Dazai in the arm as he got up to grab another drink, begrudgingly bringing Dazai back a matching glass of water.

“If you keep giving everyone the stink eye we’re going to get complaints.”

“Let’s finish up and go get ready, we need to see more of our surroundings and look for suspects, we’ve done nothing.”

“You’ve only been awake for an hour.”

-

-

-

“I just saw Leo, I'm pretty sure he's trying to discreetly take note of where all the security cameras are, maybe that kid’s not half bad.”

“But if he gets caught.”

“We’ll be here to come up with some bullshit to get him out of it, besides I think everyone here has worse things to worry about like a serial killer and their drug cartels.”

“Let’s just hurry up, blending in is fine and all but we have to actually complete the mission.”

“One second lets pop into reception.”

“Why?”

“I want to be able to set out the paper work and any evidence we collect without putting it away every time we leave but that means we can't have just anyone coming into our room.”

“Good point I suppose.”

“Hello there, we’re staying in room 624, I was hoping we could make a request.”

“Of course sir what is it that you need.”

“Well you see it's our honeymoon and I bet you can guess what we do in our room but you see my husband is rather embarrassed about not knowing who’s going in to clean it and change the sheets so we were hoping we could request just one member of staff do it. The boy that drove us here, what was his name Leon, Luke, something like that, well he was great and we’d like him to do it from now on, I'm sure that won't be a problem right?”

“Oh um, yes well I'm sure that can be done, I’ll um let Leo know that he was personally requested.”

“Fantastic welp we’re off back to our room. Ta ta.” Dazai wrapped his arm over Chuuya’s shoulders to drag him in tow, his mouth was wide open mortified.

“Before you say anything, it worked so no harm done.”

“I can't even look at you right now.”

Chuuya was going to give Dazai an earful in the lift but on the second floor someone else joined. Maybe they were just paranoid but it appeared that they were given a dirty look.

What the fuck is wrong with rich people, do they look down on just about anyone or maybe this one’s homophobic

Dazai keeping up the charade began to twirl a strand of Chuuya’s hair between his fingers, his arm still laying across Chuuya's shoulders but bent up so his hand could run through the red hair. What Chuuya didn’t know was that behind him Dazai was staring straight at the newcomer, after all that’s what he would’ve done if they were in a relationship. Luckily they arrived at their floor before the snobby guy could act up, clearly annoyed by the unwavering eye contact.

“God we’re so sorry that we were in the same lift as you and that you don’t have a private one, how dare we as guests be in the same building as you a guest,” Chuuya mocked when the doors shut again leaving them on their floor, “you can get off me now, I'm sure none of that was necessary, he definitely believed it. First you pissing me off and now rich assholes, I really hope that hamper has a bottle of wine.”

That was the first thing he checked when he entered the room, making it float to the edge of the bed and opening it up. There was a note wishing them a happy honeymoon and thanking them for staying at their hotel, Chuuya quickly threw that to one side. He found no wine but there was a bottle of champagne accompanied by two flute glasses, wasting no time he expertly removed the cork and poured two glasses.

“Are those both for you or can I have one without you biting off my hand.”

“Tch I suppose you can have one, I'm hoping there’s a pool bar,” Chuuya said as he continued to dig around in the giftbox. Soon there was a knock on the door, since Dazai made his way over Chuuya paid very little attention to it.

“Hey Leo how’s it going.”

“It was a nice touch to have me be the only one to clean your room, that way I can try to get a board in here for us to spread out the evidence. But they told me to give this to you both, I don’t know what it is,” the young man spew out in one breath.

Dazai took a little wrapped box from his hands, “I've located every security camera and the chief is going to come talk to you guys tomorrow morning and personally walk you through each crime scene. I don’t think you’ve been to any of the other floors but some of the rooms still have police tape across them. One level had 3 murders all near each other so they closed off the entire floor, as they originally thought the murders were confined to that one area. They were wrong as the next person was killed in a private hired game room that aren’t very well known.”

Dazai nodded along while Chuuya pulled out a box of chocolates and candles.

“We’ll have to get records of who’s hired those rooms, but it's a good start. We’re going to the pool as we were invited by some other guests so hopefully we can ‘befriend’ some of the other guests and get into one of the private rooms.”

“I wish I could accompany you.”

“Your job is just as important just not quite as fun, we don’t know if the murderer is a guest or a member of staff, while we get a list of guest suspect you do the same for members of staff we’ll meet back here at what 6/7pm.”

“We have to mingle for 6 or more hours, ugh this is gonna suck.”

“Come now Chuuya it's not all bad, if we keep this up, we’ll be getting a gift everyday.”

“Go and open it then,” and Dazai did just that.

“It's from the guy you apparently spoke to at reception. Why does the label say have fun?”

When Dazai didn’t say what it was Chuuya walked over as Leo peeked at the box Dazai had just unwrapped.

“Oh my god what the fuck. This is because you said…that.”

“Wow the French are unhinged. I didn’t know hotels could give these out.”

“I'm gonna go now.” Leo turned on his heals, slightly red in the face and exited the room in record timing.

“You can keep those and I’ll have the hamper.”

“No way, surely we can share both,” Dazai jest as he threw a box of condoms at Chuuya's head, him easily avoiding them as they fell on the bed next to the half-explored hamper.

“Come on lemme see what’s in there,” Dazai said as he moved the candles and condoms out of the way to see what other goodies they could find.

“Oh chocolate covered strawberries, bubble bath andddd furry handcuffs. What the fuck is wrong with this place.”

“We did tell them it was our honeymoon.”

Chuuya rubbed his face in dismay.

“Hey Chuuya I dare you that when we catch the killer you arrest him using these,” Dazai laughed as he swung the fluffy handcuffs round one finger,

“Bet you won't.”

Chapter Text

“What are you wearing?”

Dazai sarcastically did a little spin and bowed.

“Dazai you said you were ready, we’re going to a pool why are you fully clothed? Get your swim trunks and a baseball cap.”

“I never said I was planning on swimming.”

“Even so it's like 27°C why do you have long sleeves on?”

“Chuuya.”

“What?”

“My silly dumb little Chuuya. Do you think these bandages are waterproof.”

Oh

“Oh.”

“I'm used to being hot even back in the UK, it's fine.”

“This- this is going to be hard. You're gonna stick out like a sore thumb.”

Dazai seemed to ponder this, knowing that this would draw unwanted attention.

“I'm not swimming.”

“You don’t have to, that’ll be my job. Can your scrawny ass even swim?”

“If I have to.”

“That doesn’t fill me with confidence.”

Begrudgingly Dazai pulled off his long-sleeved t-shirt revealing neatly wrapped bandages trailing all the way up his arms and covering part of his torso.

“Is there anything left for them to actually cover?”

“Has Mori not given you scars too?” Dazai retaliated fidgeting with the ends, trying to get them tighter if it were even possible.

“There’s none around your neck anymore, that’s um good.”

Dazai chose not to reply, Chuuya contemplating if he'd actually made the man mad, annoying him was pretty much a constant thing but making him mad never happens. Dazai busied himself with changing into a loose-fitting shirt, he rolled up the sleeves ever so slightly and left a couple buttons undone at the top. Looking back at Chuuya for approval.

“The jeans Dazai.”

“I'm not swimming.”

“I know.”

Seeing that Dazai had caved and went to find shorts, Chuuya began his own preparations, finding his swimming trunks and heading into the toilet. Emerging slightly later with the shorts on and a t-shirt to wear on the way down to the pool.

“Chuuya.”

“Yer.”

“The gloves.”

It was his turn to feel defensive. It was rare that he didn’t wear the gloves even at his apartment back at home he wears them when he goes swimming.

“You know why I wear them.”

“What do you have to fear when I'm here.”

That smug bastard has a point

Chuuya's hand hovered over the base of the glove, toying with the fabric. Dazai put his hand around Chuuya's wrist and gestured with his eyes to proceed. He slowly but surely removed the gloves revealing pale untouched hands. Dazai removed his touch from Chuuya's skin, too quickly for his liking, Chuuya grabbed back his hand and placed it against his arm again, this time bracing himself as Dazai made sure to remove a finger at a time.

“There see, no glowing, nothing’s blowing up and your skin just as pale as always.”

Chuuya nodded and regrettable placed the gloves on the edge of the bed.

“Now we’re both uncomfortable.”

“Shut up dickhead.”

“Come on it's almost twelve, grab your stuff, we still need to find it.”

Placing a baseball cap on his head, balancing sunglasses on its rim and stuffing his phone and a bottle of suncream in his pocket, Chuuya followed Dazai outside, him holding a book and a pen.

Coming out of the aircon cooled building gave them each a blast of hot air to the face, Chuuya had considered just not wearing shoes but he was glad he did as it was hotter than he had expected, England had messed up his perception of weather. What else he didn’t expect was the shear amount of people, there was a mass murderer for Christ’s sake. There were families with children they’d obviously taken out of school, old people pottering around, plenty of couples and a few teens playing with daddy’s money. At least 40 people, just here, not that you’d think there were a lot as it hardly scratched the surface of what the pool could hold.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

“There’s still plenty of sun beds it must get a lot busier than this during proper summer time, lets grab some towels and mingle.”

“Fuckin yippee.”

They each collected a towel from a stand and Chuuya made a beeline for one of two bars located on one side of the large pool, Dazai looked away for two seconds and almost lost him. When he did catch up Chuuya already had a glass of red wine.

“Want anything?”

“Whiskey.”

Dazai glanced around spotting a few familiar faces, the couple from that morning and some other guests of interest.

“Alright lets go take a seat near the group that looks like you require a password to just talk to them. They're the only ones there it must be a private area, good thing we got our ticket in.”

The boys casually approached the general area, deliberately getting in the Millers line of sight.

“Sweety pies over here.” The woman cooed waving her hands as the people accompanying them looked displeased.

In a hushed voice a man badgered the couple quickly, thinking they had time before Dazai and Chuuya were in ear shot.

“Joan, Michael please stop inviting everyone you meet to come sit with us, you know what we talk about here.”

“Oh hush, we get bored, nothing better than some fresh meat.”

“And besides have you heard the rumours, those two love birds may not be so innocent.”

The fuck does that mean

“Hiya boys don’t be shy, go ahead and introduce yourselves.”

“Hi my names Dazai Cooper and this is my husband Chuuya, it's nice to meet you all.”

They got a couple of polite hellos and a few nods.

“Ignore this lot, they're all business no fun. Talking of fun it looks like you both only have one drink, that won't do, come along Dazai dear we’ll get our husbands drinks.”

Divide and conquer, smart but what were those supposed rumours, we’ll have to come up with something quick and then also find a way to fill each other in before they catch us out on a lie.

“Chuuya was it, I don’t think we've heard you say a word yet son, don’t let your partner do all the talking, come take a seat.”

Chuuya perched on the edge of a deck chair, pulling his sunglasses off his cap and to his eyes, ditching the hat entirely by placing it beside him.

“Sorry about that, I can't ever get him to shut up.”

The man chuckled, “sounds as if you’ve been married for years, god knows I can relate to that but I do love my Joan.”

Now was his chance to insert himself into their conversation but how does he persuade them that he's familiar with this stuff without giving out real information?

“You were talking business? Don’t let me stop you, I assure you I can keep up.”

“Who do you think you're fooling kid, you ain’t seen business like this ever before, you can however mind your business,” it was a new man that spoke up getting a glare from the other, he was put off by Chuuya's presence, this won't do.

“Now what would make you think that, surely not my age, that’s never been a problem for me before, besides how do you think I got my wealth at such age.”

A couple of the men shared looks, intrigued and seemingly understanding what Chuuya was putting down.

“Would you perhaps be interested in sharing ‘business strategies’?”

“I certainly wouldn’t be opposed to that but how do I know you can keep up?”

“oh pretty boy wants to play games, alright I've got proof for ya,” the unknown man pulled out a cooler, removing a false bottom and revealing bags and bags of various coloured drugs.

He's supplying to guests; I do know this man he's Mr Allard

Maybe the murderer is a vigilante of some kind, we should look into the victims’ backstories

The newly identified Mr Allard looked expectantly at Chuuya, his nose so far in the air the sun could blind him.

Maybe I can just switch some real details around and make this seem realistic.

“Looks like you're more than competent, very well. This is on the down low but I used to work for Dazais dad, the boss of a mafia specialised in smuggling artillery. Funnily enough that how we really met and fell in love. I unlike my husband know what it's like to have to work my way up the food chain.”

Eh good enough

“That’s actually kinda romantic and admirable,” Mr Miller commented while Mr Allard sat with his mouth wide open.

“You deal in weapons? That’s some hardcore shit kid, you don’t have anything on you ey?”

“I can have anything you imagine delivered in a matter of hours, I'm simply scoping out potential buyers. And you know, enjoying my honeymoon.”

Mr Allard jumped to his feet, holding out his hand, “names Hernandez, my wife and I would love to have you and your husband come to one of our dinners or join us at our table during one of the upcoming auctions.”

Chuuya too rose to his feet and shook his hand, “Auctions, how intriguing the hotel hadn’t mentioned such a thing.”

“The items sold are rather ‘unconventional’, the information isn’t released to your everyday guests but with me I can get you into any of our underground activities.”

“I’ll have to hold you to that.”

“oooo this is fun, what are you holding him to, I'm hoping a wall.”

“Joan don’t be crude.”

Dazai and Mrs Miller had arrived back with a round of drinks, Dazai in tow each hand containing a drink. Chuuya had to quickly tell Dazai what he'd figured out but more importantly update him on their new backstory.

“Sorry miss but the only person who can hold me against a wall is my dear husband,” Chuuya said taking both drinks from Dazais hands, placing them on a side table and pushing him down onto the inclined deck chair, then after crushing his self-worth to pieces he sat on Dazai’s lap. He laid diagonally on his chest as he wrapped one arm round Dazai’s shoulders, most of their company had turned their attention away, some to their own partners, the Millers getting far closer to each other than Dazai and Chuuya ever would.

He gave Dazai a peck on the cheek but instead of moving his face away he began to whisper very close into Dazais ear.

“Say anything and I’ll kill you. We’re in, I told them that your dad is a mafia boss dealing in illegal weapon smuggling and that I used to work there and that’s how we really fell in love. The man over there is Mr Allard, he's got enough drugs on him to kill everyone in France and told me that he can get us into any of the underground activities the hotel hosts, including an auction coming up.”

He pulled away and tried to distract himself from throwing up by playing with Dazai’s hair. No longer in his ear he continued at a normal volume.

“Talk about anything interesting while getting us drinks?”

It took a second for Dazai to register what just happened and take in all the information but he eventually caught up after a swig of his liquor. He rest his arm against Chuuya's legs, the cold glass touching his skin slightly.

“Nothing much, she asked about my phone wallpaper and explained to me the benefits of using a sex swing.”

“Aren’t they like 40?” Chuuya rhetorically inquired in a hushed voice and then went back to a normal volume, “what’s so special about your wallpaper?”

Dazai shifted, moving Chuuya back and forth as he reached for his phone and lighting the screen by pressing the side button. The image that displayed was of Chuuya asleep clinging tightly to a white pillow, his mouth opened slightly and his hair scruffy. It must have been taken this morning just before he woke up as the sun was shining on his face.

He swatted Dazai on the chest, “you took a picture of me asleep?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, it's just to keep up appearances. What’s your phone scene huh, default?” Dazai whispered in retaliation.

“And what if it is?”

They stared daggers at each other for a solid 30 seconds.

Chuuya whispered again, “I'm going to get up now.”

“Yes do that.”

Chuuya easily unwrapped his arm from Dazais neck and swivelled his legs round pushing off with the arm rests.

“Going for a dip Chuuya?”

“I was considering it Mrs Miller.”

“Enough of that pumpkin call me Joan. Dazai will you be going with.”

“Oh no, that’s not for me.”

“What a shame, you're still young and fit you should make the most of it.”

“I'm hoping to get him in the hot tub at some point.”

“I do recommend, especially late at night. Little tip, most people don’t know but the pool actually shuts at 10pm and the hot tub even later at 11pm, there’s literally no one around so you can both have some alone time, we sure have, if you catch my drift.”

I'm going to throw up. But that may actually work to our advantage if we want to keep an eye on the room windows, maybe the killer’s abseiling down, we should try to gain access to the roof

He smiled to her in a knowing way and took this as the perfect time to actually swim. There were several pool areas consisting of a bunch of different depths but the main one stretched so far he didn’t think Dazai would be able to see him if he swam to the opposite end, perfect. Chuuya pulled his phone out of his pocket and chucked it at Dazai with little to no warning, the man scrambled to catch it and look up to give him a glare but when he did, he was met by Chuuya's t-shirt being flung in his face. After pulling it off he was introduced to the sight of Chuuya's bare back, revealing a dragon tattoo travelling down the length of his spine. He had completely forgotten what he was originally going to say, instead trailing his eyes over Chuuya's skin. The Japanese dragon curled it way from the base of his spine to the top, fine lined in black ink. Near Chuuya's neck was a diagram of the moons cycle curving round it's head and dotted throughout were red cherry blossom flowers.

“My lad, close your mouth, it looks like you’ve never seen his tattoo before.”

Dazai gulped, “it gets me every time,” he laughed trying to compose himself, his eyes now wandering the other parts of his exposed skin. Looking over all the light scars left behind by the use of corruption. Dazai admired Chuuya's ability to be completely unbothered by the presence of his scars.

Dazai wasn’t the only one looking, Chuuya had quite a lot of attention on him mostly people their age which irked Dazai. A man in his mid-twenties was actually about to approach Chuuya, who was completely oblivious having sat on the edge of the pool and gotten in with no hesitation, leaving the man alone on the tiles.

With ease and elegance Chuuya dunked his head under the water and pushed off against the pool side, swimming forward using a front crawl at an impressive speed.

“Poor thing.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well I'm sure it's no secret to you but that little pumpkin is littered in scars.”

“I'm afraid that’s from the work he used to do with my father.”

There was little truth to that, in this fake backstory the father he was referring to was in reality Mori, and it killed Dazai every time he had to utter any word to do with a father.

“I hate to ask but are you guys not bothered by the murders that have happened here?”

His company looked unfazed.

Mr Allard grumbled under his breath about scaring off customers and some of the others, he had yet to be introduced to, just shrugged.

Rich people really are naive, thinking that they're untouchable

“The hotel has assured us that they're doing everything to catch the guy and you can't walk anywhere without there being security. Besides this person is clearly going after specific people, so if we just keep our heads down then we won't become a target.”

“Makes sense, after all you spoke to us because we’re new here and can't be the killer.”

“That’s correct but oh what a plot twist that would be, if it turned out you both were a romantic pair of killers.”

“Right back at ya,” Dazai jest but actually considered it as he watched Chuuya swim further towards the other end of the pool.

When he arrived at the edge Chuuya gave himself a moment to look out at the view, revealing a hill that led straight to the beach and ocean. Chuuya stayed there for a few minutes admiring the waves crashing with his arms hanging over the glass wall.

“You're not alone, I could watch this all day,” Chuuya turned his head to find a man a few feet away doing the same as him, he looked to be about 30 and had a heavy French accent.

“I've only ever been to a port, never a beach.”

“Oh wow I feel silly now as I get to see this view almost every day.”

“You're at this hotel that much?”

“Ha no I'm a surgeon at the hospital nearby, although I've found myself here more than usual.”

“That’s ironic you’d think you’d stay away from a place known to have an active murderer running around in.”

“Well actually that’s exactly why.”

Chuuya finally turned to the man cocking his eyebrow in surprise, everyone else here seems to pretend that nothing’s wrong but this man is here for that exact reason.

“You see I wish to help, I'm no detective or anything I can't catch the guy but with how no one’s doing anything about it there’s bound to be more people to be killed, I want to be able to prevent that.”

“By putting yourself in danger? I'm sorry sir but I can't see how you’d be much help even as a surgeon you can't help a corpse.”

“Actually one of the victims were found alive.”

“Really?”

“Yes but she unfortunately died in hospital 4 hours later as her injuries were fatal. You're foreign?”

“Yes English.”

“So you are well accustomed to ability users?”

This took Chuuya by surprise, it had seemed that everyone here ignored the existence of abilities just as much as the murders.

“Yes in the UK they are far more common.”

“Well you see, I have a blood duplicating ability, it makes my job a lot easier and I can save so many more people. The people I work with know but I never tell any of my patients as to not freak them out, they think it's not their blood when it really is.”

“That’s incredible but why are you telling me this.”

“Hm I don’t know, you openly talked about how unsafe this place is while everyone else stuck their heads in the sand. I hoped someone could understand my motives and not shun me for an unnatural ability I never asked for.”

Chuuya truly believed this man, at first he thought he'd found their killer but this man thinks he could be some sort of hero, stupid but noble. He also related to the man’s words so instead of comforting him he took a quick look around and used his ability to float some of the water up in front of them swirling it around and then quickly dropping it, not daring to do any more without his gloves or Dazai nearby. And if his suspicions were right there was no way Dazai was getting to him.

“You too?” Chuuya nodded as the doctor gawked in amazement.

“My name is Bruce.” The man hurriedly held out his hand that Chuuya took and shook.

“I'm Chuuya.”

“I better get going I start a shift in an hour and I better let you get back to your swim but if you find out anything please do come find me, my room is 209.”

“Will do, it was nice to meet you,” Chuuya said as the man swam the width of the pool to get out rather than the length, once the man was out of sight Chuuya did a couple laps of the width and then decided he wanted to reunited with his glass of wine, swimming back to where he'd left Dazai. Finding that a few people they were sat with were now standing in the pool still talking, Dazai however hadn’t moved from his chair. When he saw Chuuya swimming closer he got up pulling a towel with him.

Chuuya raised an eyebrow at him as he stepped out the pool, Dazai held each end of the towel open and smirked, after having a silent stand off with their eyes Chuuya turned his back to Dazai. He was then wrapped in both the towel and Dazai's arms, him lowering his head so that his lips were next to Chuuya's ear.

“You put on a lovely show for everyone, the tattoo had everyone gawking. What happened to not drawing unnecessary attention, how do you think that makes your husband feel, especially when he's not even told about it till a day before?”

“My husband should do more to find out information, instead of leaving all the hard work to me as you sunbathe. And my tattoo is none of your business.”

“Oh really because last time I checked, we defeated that dragon together which led to you falling asleep on me like a lap dog. Is that tattoo to commemorate the time we spent together?”

“You wish asshole and what do you mean ‘we’ you were asleep in a bubble while I was doing everything. The only thing it would commemorate is that I got to punch you in your stupid face.”

“Are you boys off already?”

“I'm afraid so, Chuuya's showed too much skin for me to sit still for much longer so we’re off back to our room.”

The more we hang out with these people the more Dazai implies we’re having sex

“Duty calls we certainly understand, go be young and horny.”

These people need new hobbies

If Dazai weren’t still holding onto me I'd use my ability to blow up my own head

After Chuuya grabbed his fuller wine glass and when they made it out of ear shot he spoke, “we can't keep spending an hour in the presence of other people and then darting off it'll look suspicious.”

“No one will suspect a thing, for all they know we’re roughhousing till the break of dawn.”

“Roughhousing? Just say banging you virgin.”

Chapter Text

“Put back on your t-shirt and let’s do a lap of the surroundings.”

“I'm dripping wet.”

“Well that ain’t my fault. You were the one complaining about mingling, we either go back or do this.”

“Dazai.”

“Come here you baby,” Dazai took his own towel and started to dry Chuuya's hair by rubbing it over his head, pulling it away after 30 second to admire his work. Chuuya's hair was sticking out in every direction and doubled in volume.

“See all better it's not perfect but it certainly is fluffy. Come along it'll finish drying in the heat.”

If I kill him I can just tell Mori it was the murderer

“Did you know that one of the victims were alive when discovered?” Chuuya changed the subject knowing that if it went on he'd just get pissed off.

“No actually I didn’t, did they manage to get her to describe the man?”

“What I'm assuming is that the answer is no as we are both still here. Besides she died shortly after.”

“We really need all the information on these victims, we’ve gone into this too blind. The police are keeping the information from us till we meet with their chief, we can't get properly started till we know what the motive is and who could be targeted next. You know what Mrs Miller said, if they keep their heads down, they’ll be fine, what sort of stupid shit is that.”

“You're annoyed.”

“Obviously.”

“It's just not much ruffles your feathers.”

“You mean besides you.”

Chuuya kicked out his foot trying to step of Dazai's foot, almost tripping them both up in the process.

“Funnily enough I just want to get this over and done with and no one’s helping themselves. Not the police, not the hotel and not the guests.”

“We kinda knew this going into it, that’s why they sent us.”

“And so far we’ve accomplished nothing.”

“Not that I'm not antsy as well but we can't do everything in a day, we've got ourselves into the underground activities, we have a meeting set with the chief and we have the hotel fooled. Next we can, I don’t know, order room service and get Leo to show us what he's got on the staff.”

“You're just hungry.”

“I was the one actually swimming and you're not?”

“I haven’t noticed. Is that another security camera?”

“Yup so they have some on the outside too, that'll back up some peoples alibies if we get the police to question some suspects when we whittle it down.”

“I wonder if Leo can get us access to the cameras.”

“Mori gave me one of those techy doohickies that transfers camera footage to a new device, if he can get into the security room he can transfer it and we can put it onto our computers or maybe even the tv.”

“That’s a start, let’s check out the other floors and then get him to our room to give him it.”

Both boys entered through a side door and made their way to a flight of stairs stopping at each floor to walk to the opposite end to the other set of stairs, zigzagging back and forth. They found nothing out of the ordinary till arriving at floor 4, they couldn’t even open the door as it was completely covered in police tape.

“Leo did say that they closed a whole floor, how this doesn’t put people off I will never know.”

“Wanna break in?”

“Chuuya absolutely not, that will get us arrested.”

“Oh no my hand slipped and cut the tape with my knife.”

“Don’t you dare.”

“Tch you're no fun anymore, you used to love using that little trinket of yours to lock pick every door we came across.”

“I am now a child of god, I do not commit such sins,” Dazai jest as he spun a metal wire between two fingers.

“Har har, seriously though how are we going to get a look at the crime scenes if the hotel won't let us without us revealing our covers and that’s if the hotel isn’t in on it.”

“We’ll just have to go straight through the police, we are supposedly meeting with the chief of police tomorrow, he has the authority to get us a look.”

“I still say we just bust in but fine we’ll give that a shot and if he says no, I'm blowing the door off.”

“You have a deal, although it likely won't be necessary I doubt it has any more security than just a locked door.”

Both boys continued up the stairs, going past their floor, to Chuuya's annoyance, to see if they could gain access to the roof. Finding themselves on the 10^th floor with no more stairs to climb and another locked door.

“There aren’t any security cameras are there? It would be hard to explain why we were up here?”

“See that mechanism there, when the door is opened the camera will be triggered, saves power and storage if it only records when someone attempts to access the roof.”

“Something else to look at, who’s tried to access the roof in the last 6 weeks?”

“We better get Leo on it then; it will take a while to sift through all the footage.”

“Finally, I can have a shower and get rid of the smell of chlorine.”

Both boys made it back to their room, seeing no one on their way as it was prime time for people to be out of the hotel and enjoying their holidays.

“Is there a menu or something?” Chuuya received his answer from Dazai flinging a cardboard booklet at his head, “Want anything?”

“Pick something I’ll like, I'm going to lay out all the suspect profiles.”

How the fuck will I know what he likes?

Chuuya grumbled but regrettable spotted a couple meals that Dazai would definitely order, he picked up the phone and placed a lunch order, hoping that he didn’t have to specify that they wanted Leo to deliver the food as there is no way he was repeating their excuse.

Not long passed till there was a knock on the door revealing Leo and a food cart.

“Leo we have something for you.”

“Funny you’d say that as I have something for you guys,” he pulled back the table cloth that covered most of the metal service trolly and pulled out several decently sized cork boards, underneath lay stands to rest them on, “this way we can look at the evidence in an orderly fashion and hopefully lead us towards the culprit.”

“This is fantastic,” Dazai practically skipped over to start setting up the displays straight away, laying out images of guests like a cliché murder board as Leo unloaded their food onto the table.

Meanwhile Chuuya was routing around in a case filled with tech and his gun till he found a USB.

“Ok look Leo this thingmajig will give us access to all the security camera footage, however we can't access it till someone’s plugged it into the main observation computers, it'll do the rest; I'm not even sure how it works but you are the only person who has any chance of getting in.”

“That’s awesome, we can finally see if anything was caught on the cameras and if the hotel is keeping anything from the police but oh wow does this suck. I'm sure I can get in but how long that'll take who knows.”

“Try your best, the sooner the better as we need time to go through all the footage.”

“Absolutely I’ll try to get it done as soon as… is that Mr Jefferson?”

Chuuya turned round to follow Leos eyes onto Dazai’s crime board, it was coming along quickly, Dazai pinning pictures all over with thumb tacks.

“Yes, he was included in a list of regular guests to keep an eye on. We have yet to meet him.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“How comes?”

“The man is, um well… a scumbag. I know that sounds harsh but I'm serious, this man is unbearable. He treats all members of staff like trash, acts as if he can have anything he wants as long as he flaunts his money and has a different woman with him every day. There's a rumour amongst the staff speculating that he's a pimp, and all the woman he brings in are actually being prostituted. I'm pretty sure most of the guests are assuming he’ll be killed next.”

“This would’ve been handy to know Leo.”

“Sorry it is just rumours and the killer doesn’t have a distinctive pattern so we don’t necessarily know who'll be next.”

“When your chief fills us in on the details we can decide that for ourselves. Maybe we should try to catch a glimpse at this Mr Jefferson.”

“After I get out of the shower and eat a quiche. According to the killer’s rough schedule we have 4 days.”

“He's not always at the hotel, he normally turns up for events but if not, the staff say he goes on the hunt for new woman.”

“We can afford to wait for a few days, maybe enjoy our holiday for hmm I dunno 5 days.”

“Bad Chuuya.”

“Whatever, I'm getting in the shower, enjoy your arts and crafts project.”

-

-

-

Setting up all the evidence took far longer than expected, hours had passed of them speculating potential escape routes, possible abilities and motives. They called Leo once more to their room, him bringing dinner, a white board and a list of every worker and their schedule.

It was entirely possible that the hotel was in on it, they couldn’t find out much about the owner but by the amount of illegal activities that goes on within, it was likely he could be turning a blind eye by being paid off.

Before they knew it they were falling asleep on the sofa, Chuuya waking up long enough to slap Dazai on the forehead and trudge over to the bed, Dazai following shortly after. An alarm going off at 8am was disheartening to them both as they only got about 4/5 hours of sleep but knew they had to meet with the chief.

“Good morning, you are both seated in room 4, please follow me.”

A waitress standing at the front desk led them to a row of side doors at the edge of the large well decorated restaurant. They gave each other a knowing look, readying themselves for anything that could come from this meeting. Walking through the door they were met with a large dinning table and a private selection of breakfast items on a separate table. The entire room would’ve been brightly lit by the large windows if they weren’t mostly covered by blinds, sitting in the middle of the room was an older gentleman with dark hair greying in certain areas. The man appeared tired and worn down, something that sleep alone wouldn’t be able to fix, there was worry and discontent. But when the boys entered he put on a weak smile and welcomed them in a thick French accent.

“Good morning boys it's nice to meet you, Leo has already spoken highly of you both. I am Dominique Bernard, the chief of police in this area of France. Please take a seat.”

Both boys sat down, Dazai looked rather sour, so Chuuya had to pick up the slack.

“It's nice to meet you Mr Bernard, I'm sorry we couldn’t have met under better conditions.”

“Indeed but you and your agencies have my thanks for sending more people to help. I understand that you have yet to be properly filled in on the situation.”

“Why is that? It's been making our job rather hard,” Dazai complained getting a glare from Chuuya.

“I understand the annoyance and I apologise that you both have to maintain your undercover identities even with the hotel. You see the only people who know about your real identities are myself, a few police including Leo and the hotel owner.”

“The owner knows?”

“Yes, she is the one that originally suggested the help of ability users from a different country, you see she grew up in England and is aware of your organisations.”

“That’s good to hear, we were afraid that the hotel may be in on it.”

“Well unfortunately she can't guarantee that a member of staff isn’t assisting with the murders, which is why you have to keep up appearances not just to fool the killer but also the staff and of course the guests.”

“Ok well let’s get started, enough stalling we’re here to help you so fill us in. I want all details about the victims and the crime scenes, we’d like to get a look at floor 4 and know what suspects you have,” Dazai listed as the chief seemed to hesitate.

“I'm afraid we've downplayed the problem this guy’s ability is giving us.”

“You have?”

"This man can not only get himself in without being seen but also take items with him,” the chief continued as he fished around in a folder.

“How is that anymore of a problem than it already is?”

“This sick fuck isn’t only a murderer but a nut job.”

A large pile of papers was laid out in front of them consisting of several folders given numbers, ranging from 1 to 6. Dazai reached for one folder at a time, spread out it's contents as the chief went into great detail about the crime scene and the victim.

1st victim – Darren spencer

Known alcoholic

Arrested twice – charged with child endangerment after beating his two children

Spouse – ex-wife, 8 year old daughter and 5 year old son - locations unknown

Age – 44

Location – Room 402

Crime scene description, images included – the man was found in the centre of his room within a circular cage placed on top of a mechanism that would spin him around known as a Whirligig, used to simulate disorientation and nausea. The room was covered in bodily fluids including vomit and urine, indicating that he had been within this contraption for hours. The fingers appear to have been crushed and broken, experts say it was done using a tool similar to a thumb screw. The mans liver had been cut out and placed in his hands, he was positioned in a pray position holding the organ still inside the cage.

Evidence found – besides the cage there was no biological or chemical evidence

Items found – one Amethyst gem found in the liver the man held

Chuuya went to bite into a jam tart but paused as he lay his eyes on the pictures, moving his lips back off the food and putting it to one side. The images showing the horrible scene the chief just described.

“This is why floor 4 is closed, you can't get these torture devices out without creating mass panic which could lead to the murderer slipping out in the chaos.”

“We have managed to keep most details away from the public. We were still hoping to find some evidence but nothing. Not a single finger print, no skin, no bodily fluids and not a single fucking hair.”

2nd victim – Margaret Price

Caught in previous hotels stealing expensive items from other guest’s rooms

Spouse – single

Age – 35

Location - Room 417

Crime scene description, images included – in the middle of a hotel room was the remains of the victim, a tower of body parts had been used to form a totem pole like display. The legs had been severed at the waist, the torso up was the base of the pillar, acting as supports for the legs to be placed on top and spread open, somehow staying up there like antlers, the skinless skull placed on the crotch between the two legs with the collar bones removed and placed atop like a crown. Sat in front was both arms balancing upright and holding the severed skin of the woman’s face, it having been covered in makeup that was stolen from other guests, evident from DNA found. Professionals have deduced that the limbs were severed using crocodile shears and the woman’s face was flayed alive likely using a scalpel or sharp kitchen knife

Evidence found – besides the makeup that belonged to other guests who all had alibi’s there was no biological or chemical evidence

Items found – one Citrine placed in the center of the collarbone on top of the skull

“This was the murder that you sent to our agency, we've seen these images before.”

“They don’t get any prettier the second time.”

The chief was struggling to look even with him having seen them hundreds of times, having to present them to the higher ups just to persuade them that the help of outsiders was needed.

3rd victim – Emily Hunt

2 past suicide attempts

Spouse – single

Age – 21

Location – Room 423

Crime scene description, images included – the victim was found laying flat on her bed, arms and legs positioned like she was in a coffin. Her ribs had been cut from the spine, opened and pulled back so as they were spread out across her, she was surrounded in a pool of her own blood. When found she was still breathing and was quickly rushed to hospital however died 3 hours later due to the drastic amount of blood she lost and the inability to put her ribs back to close the wound. This method is known as blood eagle to many historians.

Evidence found – unlike the other crime scene nothing was left behind including a gem, potentially meaning that this was done by a secondary murderer or maybe a copycat

“Copycat?!”

“At this point that mori fellow sent some of his men, they were the ones to discover the gems however we never found a gem on the 3^rd victim amongst the chaos of trying to save her life. So we had to assume that someone else why trying to get some credit of his own, which led to another reason to close floor 4, so far that was the only place the murders were happening, turns out that was just a coincidence.”

4th and 5th victims – Claire and Louis Rochford

A husband wife duo involved in scamming gamblers – Claire would get a job working at the chosen location and play as the dealer in casino card games, louis would act as a guest and win almost every round, making them enough money to move and live comfortable before getting caught, many police around the world know them but were yet to be caught

Spouse – married to each other for 8 years

Age – 48(f) and 52(m)

Location – private game round on ground floor 3

Crime scene description, images included – both bodies were found atop a large poker table that could fit up to 20 players. A wooden pole was added to the middle where both victims were forced to face away from each other with their hands tied behind and above them to the top of the wooden pole, known as strappedo. The joints in their shoulders had dislocated due to them both having ropes tied to their feet weighed down by a 50 kg weight soon causing them both to die meaning that they must have been up there for a long time.

Evidence found – besides the hanging device there was no biological or chemical evidence

Items found – one Emerald was found within a roulette attached to one end of the table and another was later found under the tongue of the male

“I didn’t realise there were several underground levels, there aren’t buttons on the elevator nor did we find stairs to access them.”

“How could he gain access then, surely it's one of the guests that know of its existence.”

“Not necessarily. That leads us onto the next and final victim.”

6th victim – Archie Taylor

Had been working with the Port Mafia for 3 years

Spouse – wife of 2 years and 5 year old son

Age – 31

Location – room 715, the room the port mafia members had set up all their equipment in

Crime scene description, images included – the man was found standing in the middle of the room (still don’t know how) wearing a metal frame that included a gag that was placed into the mouth and over the tongue covered in metal spikes, slashing the tongue every time the victim moved it. The cause of death was his stomach being slashed spilling his intestines out in front of him. Pictures were laid out around the man in circles, ones that the port mafia members had taken of all the guests and members of staff.

Items found – one Opal gem was found in the eye socket of the victim

“Looks like we need to get ourselves a gem book.”

Chapter Text

“He knew they were there, exactly where, even if they weren’t being very discrete how could one of them get murdered without any of the others being notified. I trained some of them myself, even with him having a gag in, he would’ve made other noises.”

“I don’t know, we've speculated about potential abilities he may have but nothing seems quite right. It could be like Lucy’s ability, maybe this man has his own Annes playroom, a room of his own control to do what he likes in and then drop out the victim still in the torture devices.”

“That still doesn’t explain how he travels around the hotel unnoticed, even lucy can only drop people back out a few feet away from the original entry point.”

“We’ll have to change our focus, for now let’s try to work out his motive. According to google maps there’s a very popular local gem business in town, wanna go on a date?”

“How convenient, you don’t think this is where he's getting his gems from do you?”

“If so we just have to check purchasing records to people.”

“Knowing our luck I'm sure it won't be that easy.”

“Stop being pessimistic and put on something nice.”

“Oi all of my clothes are nice.”

Dazai gave him an unimpressed look, having to quickly side step to avoid a swing at his head.

“I dress better than you, slimy mackerels don’t have good fashion sense.”

With that both boys made an extra attempt to look good but casual, Chuuya opting for a black sleeveless turtle neck with a loose white shirt half buttoned up, while Dazai wore a loose shirt and a just as loose long brown coat. They grabbed a few essentials including their phones and wallets and made their way out of their room.

“Pst, link your arm with mine.”

“Why?”

“We’re going on a date at least make it look like it.”

“We’re the only ones in the lift.”

“And we’re heading into reception and out into town.”

“Tch fine, next time you're linking your arm in mine.”

“I'd have to walk around hunched over.”

Chuuya swatted him in the arm before begrudgingly linking his arm with Dazai’s. They passed through reception to the front sliding doors, heading out into the warm air and beginning the walk into town. Chuuya noticed the Millers off to one side, they’d clocked onto them and began to gush as they watched the boys walk, pretending not to see them Chuuya put on a fake smile and rubbed his linked hand up and down Dazai's arm. Chuuya would surely have to bribe Dazai when they were back in the UK to never tell a soul about anything that’d happened here.

They took their time to scroll through the town using google maps to guide their way towards their intended destination. They passed local flower shops, bookshops, boutiques and restaurants, making note of anything that was worth coming back to at a different date. They passed other couples both locals and tourists, keeping up their little charade the entire time.

They had drastically underestimated how far away the shop was, the nice walk was turning into a are we there yet. By now the heat had begun to get to both boys, Dazai had long taken off his jacket, having it hooked over his free arm, both of his shirt sleeves had been rolled up. Chuuya had remover his own shirt that once had draped over his shoulders and instead tied it around his waist, returning his arm to Dazai's after a short time apart.

Finally they came across the wanted shop, a beautifully rustic building with a hand painted sign, the window displays were filled with jewellery and large geodes. When Dazai pushed the door open wind chimes indicated their entry, revealing rows of glass shelves filled with gems and stones. A couple other people were browsing the store but besides that it wasn’t busy, the boys split up, genuinely looking at the products the shop offered.

Dazai found a gem encyclopedia and tucked it under one arm and continued to browse through some jewellery till Chuuya came up behind him.

“So how are we going to go about this? We can't exactly just demand for a list of customers.”

Dazai hummed in reply, still preoccupied with a table covered in small gems all individually prices.  

“I'm not sure if it's even worth trying to tiptoe around the subject or just come straight out with the fact that we’re investigating the murders. Look, they do have similar items, its entirely possible he brought them from here,” Dazai said as he nodded his head down at the multicoloured gems.

“There’s no telling whether they’ll believe us or not, so far I can only see one person who I assume works here, that old lady next to the till.”

“Hang back for the second and let me talk to her, we don't want to spook her,” Chuuya looked displeased but wondered off once again. Dazai making a beeline for the counter at the far end of the store.

“Good morning, will that be all?”

“I'm afraid not, sorry to suddenly bombard you but I am sure you have heard about the current murders taken place at hotel Hermitage, I was hoping you could give me a moment of your time to answer a couple of my questions,” Dazai said as he discretely pulled out a detective ID and gave the woman a quick look.

“Oh my, of course, anything to help.”

“Would you have records of someone who may have recently brought an Amethyst, Citrine, two Emeralds and an Opel? Potentially a week apart each time?”

“I keep a record of everyone who buys products in person in this here book but I'm afraid my son recently persuaded me to start online selling, so if it was brought from our website it's all done automatically and people aren’t required to include many details beside a shipping address, I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Is there any way I could keep a copy of your physical book?”

“I photocopy every page just in case, this business is very precious to me and this book is proof of my accomplishments, let me grab the copy.”

“Thank you ma’am,” while the woman rummaged in a shelf under the counter Dazai's eyes wandered to a display set out besides him, unable to help himself as he picked up an item of jewellery. The woman re-emerged from underneath with a pile of papers.

“That’s a Sapphire dear, the vibrant blue colour comes from it being allochromatic, it means that it gained it's colouring from its impurities. Beautiful isn’t it, they exist in a pure colourless form until it's given its colour by absorbing what’s around it. It's funny how impurities can make something so stunning.”

Dazai's eyes made their way over to Chuuya who was currently admiring a cat carved into a piece of obsidian.

“You're right about that,” Dazai placed the gem onto the counter, “I’ll take this too please.”

The elderly woman gave him a knowing look and proceeded to scan his items and place them and the purchasing records into a paper bag with a warm smile shone at him and Chuuya in the distance, “My pleasure dear, was there anything else you wanted to ask me?”

“What will this book tell me?”

“That’s a good one, it goes into details about each gems looks, believed abilities, what they symbolise and what they can tell you about a person.”

“Perfect I think that’s all, thank you for your assistance.”

“Not at all, I hope you all the best to catch the person responsible for all of those terrible deaths.”

Dazai made his way towards the exit passing Chuuya on his way, looping his arm in Dazai’s without any prompting.

“Did we get what we needed?”

“A bit of a hit or miss I'm afraid, we can only know after going through a stack of paperwork.”

“Great, well I know what we’re doing when we get back.”

“Want to take a different route on the way back?”

“It took us an hour to get here do we really want to make it any longer?”

Dazai shrugged and began to lead them in the opposite direction in which they came, much to Chuuya's annoyance. Using their looped arms Chuuya brought them both to a stop, with Dazai as his balance he lifted up one leg behind him using Dazai to support his weight as he re-adjusted one of his shoes, pulling it off to tap out a stone and then sliding it back on. When finished he placed back down his foot, not moving too far from his new found position smushed up against Dazai.

“There’s no way I was walking back with that still in my shoe, it was annoying me for the last 20 minutes.”

Dazai chuckled, seemingly not fazed by the closer proximity they both shared. They continued to walk aimlessly in a general ish direction, only half trying to find their way back, talking amongst themselves in a hushed voice.

“Chuuya?”

Both men turned round at the French laced voice that just called out.

“Bruce?”

“Hi, I didn’t think it was you for a second there, I didn’t think I'd see you around here.”

“Hi, yer we’re here shopping, how comes you're here?”

“Remember how I talked about the hospital I work in, well it's just round the corner.”

“Wow, I didn’t realise just how far we've walked,” Chuuya exclaimed looking over at Dazai.

“Sorry for interrupting, it was just nice to see a familiar face.”

“Oh please it's no problem at all-”

“A familiar face? We've been here 3 days, how do you both know each other?”

“Oh excuse my rudeness, I say familiar but we only really just met at the pool yesterday. My name is Bruce I'm a local surgeon and you are?” Bruce explained quickly, holding out his hand to Dazai.

The two similar height men shook hands, “I'm Dazai, Chuuya's husband.”

“Husband? I wasn’t aware, you both seem rather young.”

Dazai turned his nose up but before he could answer in a rather unkind manner Chuuya butt in, “not in our eyes, this idiot couldn’t wait to put a collar on me, even if it is ring sized.”

Bruce looked slightly concerned and Chuuya could’ve kicked himself for forgetting other people aren’t accustomed to their back-and-forth banter.

“This is the only hospital nearby, was this the one that murder victim was rushed to before unfortunately passing,” Chuuya was grateful for the change in topic but wished Dazai was more tactful about it, bringing up the murder was very out of the blue.

Bruce recovered quickly, welcoming the new conversation topic, even if morbid.

“Yes, the poor thing was only in here for a few hours before passing, the injuries she sustained were traumatic.”

Chuuya recognised a look in Dazais eyes and knew to go along with whatever he was about to say next.

“Would you like to show us around?”

“Around the hospital?”

“I'd love to see where you work, I told Dazai all about your noble morals.” That he did not, he just went with what Dazai was saying, hopefully this wouldn’t come to bite him later on, it had just slipped his mind.

“Well in that case, I'm afraid I don’t have long left of my lunch break but I can certainly show you around and introduce you to a couple of my colleagues.”

“That’d be great, lead the way.”

Bruce began to walk in a different direction Chuuya promptly following and Dazai trailing behind, after 5 minutes they came out of the tight nit streets revealing a large white building surrounded in a car park. As they were being led to the entrance Dazai got Chuuya's attention.

“You seemed awfully buddy buddy with him, you wouldn’t want passerby’s to think you're cheating on me.”

“Remember that’s our job, butter people up and get information. Why are we going to the hospital anyway, wasn’t this girl’s death potentially a copycat, surely that isn’t our priority, we can deal with the copy after catching the original.”

“I just want to make sure of something.”

“If you're suspecting Bruce I wouldn’t, he seems like a decent person.”

“We were all decent people once.”

“Not us.”

“So this is reception, I work in the east wing where we perform all of our surgeries so if you follow me, I can show you my office and introduce you to my colleagues.”

Bruce led them through a few corridors and a flight of stairs, dodging bustling employees and sick patients.

“Here is my office, ignore the mess,” Bruce pushed open a side door revealing a room full of paperwork and a desk, a whiteboard covering one wall with a schedule planned out by the hour.

“This here is the main operating room, I spend more time in here than I do at my house,” he chuckled and continued down the hall.

“And this is Gabriella, she's an intern with little English but she likes to meet new people. Gabriella viens ici un instant,” Bruce becommed to the girl, “je veux que tu dises bonjour à mes amis ici, j'ai rencontré Chuuya à l'hôtel dont je t'ai parlé, il partage mon point de vue.”

“Gabriella come here for a moment. I want you to say hello to my friends here, I met Chuuya at the hotel I told you about, he shares my views.”

“Enchantée.”    “It's nice to meet you.”

“C’est un plaisir de vous rencontre. Tu as quel âge?”

“Pleased to meet you, how old are you?”

The young lady, Bruce and Chuuya were all taken aback at Dazai speaking fluent French.

Damn I completely forgot he could speak French, well this is just great, now I can't police what he says

“J'ai dix-neuf ans. Tu étudies le français depuis quand?”

“I'm 19 years old. How long have you studied French?”

“J’étudie le français depuis sept ans.”

“I have studied for seven years.”

“Dazai, je ne savais pas’ que tu parlais français.”

“Dazai I didn't know you spoke French.”

“Je ne le fais pas souvent car mon cher Chuuya ne peut pas participer.”

“I don’t often as my dear Chuuya cant join in”

“Yes you're right, sorry Chuuya.”

“Hm oh, no problem.”

“Anyways, as you can see here, there is currently a surgery underway, this woman’s having her hip replaced, on average it will take us about 3 hours in total including sterilising ourselves. Dr Richards is the one doing the surgery, we work closely together. Oh, and look here it's Jeanne,” he pointed out a woman sitting in a break room alone.

“She was the first responder called to the scene after Miss Emily was found, she accompanied the poor thing all the way to the hospital, never leaving her side once,” he explained before entering the room.

“You don’t say.”

“Jeanne, I have some guests to introduce you to.”

“Actually would you mind if we had a moment of her time?”

“Dazai what do you mean?” Bruce asked looking over at Chuuya who hadn't yet said anything on the matter.

“I just wish to ask her a question.”

“Any question you have I can surely answer.”

“I'm afraid not.”

When Bruce didn’t move to leave and stood his ground at the confusing request Dazai gave up, instead making a beeline for the woman sitting at one of the tables.

“What did you take from her.”

“Excuse me sir?”

“The young girl who was attacked and brought here, you were with her the entire time, what did you take from her?”

“I don’t know what you're talking about.”

Dazai begun to raise his voice, as Bruce rushed towards them.

“Don’t lie to me, the girl had something, likely in her hands, you found it and you took it, what was it?”

Chuuya saw the look on Bruce’s face, “Dazai calm down.”

Dazai instead grabbed each of her shoulders, tears were streaming down her face at the sudden confrontation, his volume rising.

“That girl died with you watching and instead you stole from her.”

“Please, I can't give it back. It was for my children.”

“I don’t want it back just confess in an official report at a later date that you took it. What. Was. It?”

“It was a diamond. A real one, she was clutching it in her hands, I couldn’t help myself, my children, I can hardly support them without working two jobs please sir.”

Instantly Dazai backed off and walked out of the room, he got what he needed.

“Chuuya. I don’t like your husband.”

“Yer me neither.”

Chuuya apologised to them both and rushed out to catch up to Dazai. Pulling on his arm to bring him to a stop when he found him in an empty hall heading towards the exit.

“What was that all about? Did you really need to be so harsh, you just started shouting at her out of nowhere.”

“Don’t you see, this means that Emily had a gem. There is no copycat. That woman could’ve jeopardised the whole mission, she stole something that was likely worth hundreds, there was no way she would’ve given up that information unless I scared her into it.”

“You scared all of us.”

“Come now Chuuya, you don’t scare so easily.”

“And you don’t shout.”

“So many more people could have died if we turned our attention away from the main killer trying to find a non-existent copycat.”

“I know but…”

“I’ll apologise to Bruce when we next see him. And I know I should’ve told you what I was planning but I knew the only way to get her to confess you wouldn’t have approved of.”

Chuuya huffed.

“Will you join me for the rest of our date as we potter home to find out a murderers motives.”

“How romantic,” Chuuya replied sarcastically but slowly removed his gloves and wrapped his arm around Dazai's, resting his bare hand on his bicep. A silent declaration of his trust.

-

-

-

Back at the hotel it was now early in the afternoon, they had both grabbed a crepe from a food cart on their way back so opted to skip lunch and instead head back to the room. Dazai quickly setting himself up at the sofa, looking out at the crime board as he added a sticky note under Emily’s name - Diamond -

“That poor girl.”

“None of these people are related. How is he picking them?”

“Don’t you have that book from the store, do you think it's more about the gems than we thought?”

“That’s definitely possible, that’s why I got a copy of all the in-store purchases. If the gems are such a big part, he may want to pick them out in person meaning buying them in person. But whether he buys them a day before each murder, all at once at the beginning of his murder spree or he was planning this months in advance, we’re going to have to go through this carefully. We can't rule out ones that brought other gems as well as it may be ones he's planning on using in the future, which could help us warn potential targets.”

Dazai explained while he pulled out the book he brought and the wad of paper copies that provided a date, name and items for each sale.

“Soooo you read the book and I’ll look at the purchasing logs?”

“We’re gonna be here for hours.”

Chapter Text

“Victim 1 was given an amethyst; he was a known alcoholic and a child abuser.”

Dazai was standing in front of the murder board, frantically scribbling on post it notes and waving his arms around to where he wanted Chuuya's eyes to focus.

“The way he was tortured was using a whirligig, almost recreating the affects he inflicts on himself by drinking heavily, and a thumb crusher, like he's being punished for the harm he'd inflicted on his kids. An amethyst symbolises protection against evil and cures insomnia. The word it's deprived from, Amethystos, means literally not drunk, arguable something you'd give an alcoholic to ‘help’.”

“Alright so what?”

“Victim 2 was given Citrine; she was guilty of stealing expensive things as she couldn’t afford them herself, right? The Chinese philosopher Feng Shui believed that Citrine’s created wealth. It is apparently a healing crystal that brings prosperity, something she wanted. But her limbs were removed like when people who stole used to have their hands cut off, and the killer deliberately covered her skin in makeup she'd stolen from other guests.”

Chuuya had called down to the bar hours ago for a couple bottles of wine and thanks to Dazai's rambling he was about to finish his third glass. He waved one hand from his position on the sofa for him to continue, pinching his nose as he tried to take in the information.

“Victim 3 was given a Diamond, this was no copycat but it was different than all the others. Diamonds are the most expensive gem out there, they're supposed to give a user strength for battles ahead and the Greek believed that they are splintered stars. This was given to her as an apology. Some cultures see suicide as a sin and he could’ve felt obligated to kill her after he potentially found out about her failed past attempts. He believed that she had a hard life and gave her wings like an angel by spreading her ribs, I don’t think he meant for her to survive so long. Especially with how the body was positioned, it was like she was ready to be buried straight away,” Dazai continued pointing one hand to the picture of the girl’s body with an expectant look, arms lied straight and crossed over at her torso, it was going to be hard for Chuuya to sleep tonight with these new images dotted around everywhere.

“Victims 4 and 5 were given emeralds, they represent intuition and foresight, which is exactly what the people they played against thought they had as he was so good at gambling but actually it was his wife giving him signals. They were tied up facing away from each other unable to see the other give them signs of comfort before they died, the emerald related to the Greek goddess of love. One emerald was placed under the man’s tongue which people believe gives the ability to see the future.”

“So the gems are a massive part of each murder?” Dazai nodded, excited at how fast Chuuya was catching up.

“Finally, victim 6 was found with an Opel, believed to hold supernatural abilities and a symbol of truth. The killer knew they were there for a long time, showing that they are aware that an ability group was looking into him and that this was a warning, that he knows the truth and we will eventually be punished for lying just like the sixth victim.”

“Wow thanks for that edge lord.”

“I'm willing to bet on it.”

Chuuya rolled his eyes and studied the filled cork boards.

“So in the last 6 hours we’ve deduced that what? We have a vigilante? And his hearts in the right place? The fuck, he's torturing and slowly killing people.”

“Yes yes of course but if he does have some sort of god complex then we can find who he's going to pass judgement on next.”

“What you mean like that asshole Leo mentioned.”

“Yes exactly like him but how we go about warning him without blowing our cover I don’t know.”

“Looks like we’re gonna need that invite to the auction.”

“According to that note in our gift basket there’s a party tomorrow.”

“So, game plan?”

“Mingle at the party, get invited to the auction and then based on how the auction goes, get close to Mr Jefferson. Well I say party but really I mean a sit down dinner and a lot of alcohol, they have a casino that most people then move to.”

“Sounds right up my alley, talking about alcohol I'm going to fuckin bed.”

“What a light weight.”

Chuuya scoffed in disgust “lightweight? Hardly, I'd like to see you drink more than one whiskey and then we’ll see who’s the light weight. I'm getting in the bath.”

Dazai hummed a reply, not looking up from the purchasing logs he was busying himself with, they ended up not splitting the work and instead decided it was better using two heads on each thing to ensure they didn’t over look anything.

Chuuya busied himself with filling up the bath, still amazed that both it and a shower were in one bathroom. When filled he got in, balancing the half empty wine glass on one side, taking a moment to relax and thing about the days they'd already spent here and the ones to come. He spent a good hour in there, luckily getting out before he fell asleep, unluckily however realising that in his haste he completely forgot a spare change of clothes. After considering just not leaving the bathroom till morning he finally wrapped most of him in a towel and pocked his head out of the bathroom door.

“Dazai can you get me a pair of shorts please, actually and a t-shirt.”

“Tut tut, you're supposed to be an adult and yet you still rely on your owner to help you get dressed, what a silly dog.”

“Yer yer asshole I'm cold hurry up.”

Chuuya watched as Dazai unwillingly got up from the spot he hadn’t moved from in the entire hour Chuuya was in the bath, rummaging around in a draw and pulling out any old clothes and lobbed them in Chuuya's general direction. Chuuya getting dressed into them in record timing so fast that when he flung open the door Dazai hadn’t made it back to his spot yet, instead stood near the bathroom door raising an eyebrow at Chuuya's exaggerated display.

“I'm tired dickhead, I'm going to bed,” Chuuya began to walk towards the bed before Dazai grabbed his wrist, “what do you want now?”

“Can you empty it.”

“Huh empty what?” Chuuya asked turning round to find Dazai's eyes attached to the bathtub he forgot to unplug, or maybe he did but the plug got sucked back in, he couldn’t remember.

“What the fuck, do it yourself?”

“Chuuya,” Dazai's grip loosened but his fingers began to fidget against his skin, “please can you empty the bath tub.”

Chuuya took a second longer to look at Dazai, watching as his eyes didn’t leave the still water and seeing an emotion he wasn’t used to.

“Yer alright I’ll, um empty the water,” he walked back towards the bathroom, Dazai's hand still gripping onto him until it slipped off as he refused to move his feet. Chuuya lent over the bath and pulled the plug out, not moving till the water was almost completely gone to stay on the safe side.

“You good?”

Dazai hummed a reply once again, seemingly snapping out of the trance and trudging back to his spot on the sofa, continuing where he left off, carefully reading through the gem store's receipts.

Well that was fuckin weird, eh that’s a tomorrow problem

Chuuya climbed in bed and looked over at Dazai's back, “Dazai.”

“Right sorry,” Dazai lent over and flipped the bedroom light switch off, leaving only the small lamp besides him to light up one side of the room.

“That’s not what I was asking. Are you not coming to bed?”

“Is Chuuya feeling clingy?” he chuckled without turning round, “nah I'm gonna stay up a little longer and work on this.”

“You're always such a pain when you're tired,” Chuuya grumbled under his breath as he laid down to go asleep.

-

-

-

Chuuya woke once again not finding Dazai beside him, having built a pillow wall for nothing when in his delirious state he realised one side of the bed was untouched. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and found Dazai where he'd left him, sitting on the sofa somehow surrounded in even more paperwork.

And once again Chuuya found himself approaching Dazai from behind, half hoping to find him asleep but to no luck.

“When are you going to shower your hair's getting greasy,” Chuuya said breaking the silence as he played with a piece of Dazai's hair between two fingers, dramatically wiping it on his shoulder when he walked round the front of the sofa to join him.

He chuckled lightly, “I suppose it's about time, especially with the dinner party tonight.”

Chuuya observed the dark rings under his eyes and the excessive amount of notes Dazai had jotted down everywhere.

“Find anything new?”

“They get a lot of customers, I underestimated how long this was going to take but I think we should ask Leo for the Chief’s number.”

“Mmm alright, now get your stinky arse in the shower and I’ll call down to Leo, want something for breakfast?”

“A coffee.”

“And?”

“Another coffee.”

“This is gonna be a long day,” Chuuya sighed, waiting till Dazai trudged into the bathroom before picking up the phone and placing an order.

Twenty ish minutes later Leo had arrived, Chuuya was mid tiding up Dazai's mess, trying not to get his notes jumbled up.

“Good morning Chuuya, is Dazai not here?”

“He's in the shower, he should be out soon if you just place the stuff down on the table thank you.”

“How’s the investigation coming along?” Leo asked as he turned round to look at the corkboards, his mouth falling slightly open as his eyes trailed over the various notes and new information. “oh wow I can't believe how far you guys have come in just a few days, those last people your boss sent only managed to find the gems not figure out their correlation.”

“That is why they sent us but at the moment this is all just theories. Actually can we have the chiefs number please.”

“Oh yer I probably should’ve given it to you already, my bad,” Leo scribbled a number on one of the many post it notes littered around the room, “Hey wait you put that the third victim is the same killer, I thought they didn’t find a gem on her so it was presumed to be a copycat?”

“That’s thanks to Dazai’s ability to stick his nose into everyone’s business.”

“Where was the diamon-” Leo was cut off by the bathroom door being slid open, Dazai coming out wrapped in only a towel.

“Dazai the fuck are you doing, Leo turn around save yourself from this unsightly mackerel.”

“I smelt coffee. Oh Leo's here, sup.”

“God put on some clothes, oh that reminds me, Leo have you managed to get the security footage?”

“Not yet, it's well guarded,” he explained his back now to both men, slowly creeping towards the door.

“Alright then no time to waste, we’ll update you on our progress again later.”

Chuuya watched as Leo scrambled to get out the door and then turned back to look at Dazai, one hand held the towel nonchalantly while the other fumbled with a roll of bandages, trying to untuck one side but instead dropping the entire thing, it rolled away leaving a trail as Dazai still held onto the end.

“My god you're useless,” Chuuya spat as he bent down to pick up the runaway bandages, Dazai letting go of his end and instead going for the coffee pot, Chuuya had ordered the whole thing knowing that he'd need it, but still swat his hand away from the it.

“Dazai dry off, I’ll pour you a cup of coffee and then you can tell me why we needed the chief’s number,” Chuuya listed as he continued to roll up the bandages on autopilot.

He complied, heading back into the bathroom with a change of clothes, coming out shortly, dressed with a smaller towel draped over his head, when he bent over to grab the mug of coffee it began to slip off.

“Come here you imbecile,” pulling Dazai down Chuuya grabbed the towel and frantically rubbed it over his hair, making it an absolute mess but was no longer dripping down onto his head.

“There now we’re even,” Chuuya looked up at Dazai’s frizzy hair with a shit eating grin.

“Not for long chibi, just you wait.”

“Tch, you don’t let me have anything, now get on with it why did we need the chiefs number?”

“Because we need to check in on this owner.”

“The owner? Wasn’t she the one who requested us?”

“According to the chief yes but I first need to make sure that I'm right.”

“Right about what?”

“Look here,” Dazai walked back over to the desk and pulled out a specific piece of paper from the many he had been reading.

“Apparently someone named Hanna Barnes brought our exact items. The chief never told us the owners name but I read the hotel website after our meeting and there was a section all about the owner who’s originally from England named Hanna Barnes.”

“But the dates say that each one was brought a day after the murder.”

“That can easily be faked, if a rich hotel owner comes in to buy gems but asks for the dates to be changed you'd be compelled to do it especially if then paid extra. And this answers the question about how the killer could afford to buy such expensive gems.”

“There’s no diamond though, do you think that was brought somewhere else?”

“It's highly likely she could’ve gone to a diamond specific shop.”

“Ok well what are we waiting for then, text the chief.”

-good morning Chief Bernard, it's Dazai and Chuuya, we are requesting that you set a meeting up with the hotel owner, immediately if possible, it's about time we meet her –

- Good morning boys, I don’t know what this I about but if you're suspecting her I wouldn’t but if you deem it fit, I will call her now and get you a meeting half an hour from now, that’s if she's in of course-

- thank you sir I'm afraid this is necessary, we will await your reply-

­“God I can't imagine you saying all this polite shit out loud.”

“That’s just because I don’t say polite shit to you, I’ll have you know that I am a very well respected man back at home.”

Chuuya snorted at this, “the kids you are supposedly mentoring don’t even respect you, all the tiger does is roll his eyes at you.”

-she has accepted your request for a meeting, enter the elevator and hit the highest button and enter the code 6636, a member of staff will escort you to her office. Please know that she is a nice person, just ask her honestly the questions you need answered-

“We’re in.”

“What are we waiting for then?”

“Probably you to get dressed, Chuuya you're still in pyjamas.”

-

-

-

After punching in the code the lift began to rise, dropping them off at the top floor, waiting for them was a member of staff who wordlessly led them down a hallway into a large office. The back and left walls were made almost entirely of windows with the other having a floor to ceiling bookshelf, at the back of the room sat a young woman who could only be a few years older than them. She was using a three monitor computer however when hearing them enter, she clicked a button and they all lowered into the desk. The lady wore a forest green suit that complimented her blonde hair and blue eyes.

“I was wondering how long it would take for you both to wish to meet me.”

“We have some questions regarding our investigation.”

“I'm sure you do, I'm pleased with how diligently you’ve been working to catch this sick man causing problems in my hotel.”

“I'm surprised you care, considering how many other illegal activities are going on under your roof.”

“Do you know how hard it is to stand out from your competition, especially as a woman I am looked down on, for the sake of my family I decided to ‘look outside the box’. I started underground auctions and kinkier strip clubs sure but I don’t approve of the amount of drugs floating around this place. I'd deal with it if I could but the problem is well rooted.”

“That brings us to our first question, 5 days ago, you went to the local gem shop and brought the exact gem that was found at the last crime scene. And this isn’t the first time, according to this after each murder you buy the exact same gem. We wish to know if that really was 5 days ago or potentially 6 weeks ago.”

“You're asking if I'm the murderer?”

“Yer pretty much.”

She gave a small smile and slid sideways in her wheeled office desk, revealing behind her the exact gems they were just speaking of, all except a diamond were laid out on the window sill, glinting in the sun on little see-through stands.

The boys looked between themselves and back at the woman waiting for her explanation.

“I brought the gems as a tribute to those poor people that met their end in my hotel.”

She could definitely be telling the truth, all the gems are still sealed in evidence bags back at the police station

“Against popular beliefs I don’t support everything that happens here, especially not the murders which is exactly why I had to discreetly call to your agencies through the police. But I'm certainly not against ability users, that is until they're killing off my guests, it's why I trusted Fukazawa’s judgement in just sending the two of you, I had wished for a much larger team.”

“So it was you who called to us.”

“Yes, unfortunately I had to go through that Mori fellow first, he was the only one I could get contact details for as he has staff positioned around the city.”

The boys shared a look, Mori clearly has a bigger operation going on here than they were informed.

“What was your thinking behind me being the killer?”

“I didn’t think you were the killer but instead wanting to clean up your hotel by hiring someone else to kill your targets.”

“Why would you say that?”

“We believe that this killer may be some sort of vigilante having so far only killed people who had committed some sort of ‘sin’ or rather in most cases crimes.”

“Interesting, does this mean that he can somehow access criminal records?”

“That is a good point yes, we will have to investigate how they're getting this information, maybe that’s why there’s roughly a week between each kill.”

“So have I been cleared of suspicion.”

“For now.”

The woman chuckled and waved her hand lightly, “then what are you waiting for, go catch me a killer, anything you need let me know, although probably don’t let anyone know you're meeting with me, unfortunately we still don’t know who to trust, after all I'm still suspicious of my staff.”

“Does that mean that you can give us access to the security cameras?”

“I would’ve assumed that police intern would’ve given it to you by now.”

“Um no not yet, according to him it's taking him a while to sneak in.”

“Very well, I don’t mind making your life a little easier,” she waved her hand to a member of her staff who walked off and collected a computer handing it to Chuuya who began to walk back towards the large door, Dazai following before turning round one last time.

“Oh and by the way, you're missing one.”

The woman looked over puzzled

“The girl, Emily hunt, she was also a victim, she was given a diamond that we found at the hospital she was rushed to, there is no copycat.”

“Poor thing,” Hanna solemnly said as she reached up to her necklace and pulled it off, laying it down next to the other gems on her window sill.

“She deserves this more than I do.”

Both boys then found themselves back in the lift taking them to their floor.

“She has a good point you know.”

Dazai hummed telling Chuuya to continue.

“How does the killer know who to go for next, is he inserting himself into their groups until they give up some incriminating information, it's not hard we know from experience. Maybe we should consider a member of the police, it's not unheard of, they can get any criminal record they need with little suspicions.”

“You're right but I don’t know how we can go about investigating the police, we can't do it ourselves and can't exactly ask Leo to do it.”

“Speaking of, we should tell him not to bother with the security footage.”

“Yer I should start watching that as soon as possible, back to the gems, I wonder if he picks a gem first or the person.”

“You think he might be looking for a specific crime to match a gem he's picked in advance?”

“Or he observes, finds a crime and then buys a gem.”

“God this sucks, there are so many unknowns.”

Dazai nodded as he pushed open their hotel room and instantly went over to pick up a piece of paper, writing at the top in bold letters – SUSPECTS.

“So we have……. Fuck Dazai I don’t know, we need to get out there more, meet more people.”

“You're right, we’ll make a point of finding the Millers at tonight’s dinner, knowing them they’ll introduce us to others but speaking of them they could certainly be the ones doing it,” he said writing their names on the list, “they’ve been staying at the hotel for the entire duration of the murders and are very openly friendly, people will tell them their illegal activities and then the Millers, knowing the hotel layout like the back of their hands, can get around unnoticed.”

“Right yes, that could apply to any of the staff too, they can overhear conversation when serving and can have access to a spare key to get into rooms, killing after all the abuse they get and then stealing their items, it would mean that the gems are less apart of it than we thought, maybe throwing people off thinking its one of the rich assholes doing it.”

“Yes that’s true,” Dazai said adding hotel staff to the list, “with that being said it could also be a member of the police force, we don’t want to believe it but it would make it easy for them to walk around without being questioned and they can access peoples criminal records.”

Chuuya nodded, plugging their new computer on charge as Dazai continued.

“Then of course there’s Bruce.”

“Dazai, Bruce is not a suspect.”

“Oh yes he is.”

“No, no he is not, what is your problem with him, walk me through your reasoning.”

“Works as a surgeon so not only has the funds to afford the gems but also the knowledge and skills to perform the torture techniques such as separating the 2^nd victims’ skin from her face. He seemed very quick to talk to you about the murders and we know that the murderer knows people were sent, you said he'd spent a long time in the hotel so he could have been scouting out potential victims, heck maybe you're next.”

“I hate when you make sense.”

“You'd think you'd be used to it by now.”

“You'd think you'd stop pissing me off by now, whatever I'm calling Leo.”

“You know you love meeeee.”

Chapter Text

“You're not seriously going to watch all 6 weeks worth of security footage, of all the different cameras only on x1.25 speed. You're gonna be here 12 weeks if you keep this up and I'm not gonna wait around for ya.”

“We can't afford to miss anything and besides if I don’t sleep it'll cut the time in half.”

“Dazai you crazy fool.”

“You're welcome to help me.”

“I was planning to bastard but I doubt we’ll miss anything by speeding it up slightly.”

“Stop pestering me, surely you have something better to be doing before tonight’s party, know what you're wearing yet?” Dazai asked, his eyes never moving from the computer screen, flicking back and forth at every movement on the video.

“Hm no, I suppose we should co-ordinate our outfits, you going in a suit?”

“Yer.”

“Colour?”

“Um I dunno, navy blue?”

“That'll do, I’ll wear a maroon one. I wonder if there’s an iron in here.”

“Seriously Chuuya.”

“We can't both look like hobos Dazai.”

“A wrinkled shirt is not going to make me look like a hobo.”

“Nope can't find one I'm getting Leo to bring one up.” Dazai sighed at Chuuya's impulsiveness, knowing full well that he likely only looked in two places before deciding they must not have one, but instead he let him call knowing that they needed Leo to come up anyway. Dazai continued to busy himself with the footage while Chuuya muttered in the background about tie colours, he was currently watching footage from a week ago, this particular camera was positioned by the front entrance showing many guests entering and exiting the premises.

Soon enough Leo arrived along with an iron and ironing board.

“Would you like me to iron your clothes?”

“Oh heavens no Leo, remember with us you don’t have to pretend to be a member of the hotel staff, we know you're a cop in training.”

Leo smiled gratefully, “you know I've kinda forgotten that recently, although I'm used to ironing if you'd like me to do it, I used to do it for my mum.”

“No, no really I can do it myself,” Chuuya explained while effortlessly setting up the ironing board, Dazai knew Chuuya was well experienced using one having not only seen one when he'd broken into his apartment but also was well aware that every shirt Chuuya ever wore at the mafia was wrinkle free, here would be no exception.

Seeing that Chuuya really wouldn’t be needing his help, Leo began to wander round to where Dazai sat at their table.

“What are you looking at Dazai, not getting ready for the party too?”

“It's hours away but oh, that reminds me Leo, fantastic news, we managed to get access to the security cameras, you no longer need to worry about trying to sneak in and blowing your cover.”

“You got access? How?”

“Our friends back home managed to get us approved access. But don’t worry you still have plenty that you can do for us, while I'm sifting through all the footage you can be giving us names of members of staff who may be accomplices.”

“Surely I can help, I let you down trying to get it, let me watch it, you have more important things to be doing, here let me take over, I can bring it to my room.”

“No really, we can't risk drawing attention to you.”

“It's alright I’ll just watch it in here then.”

“Sorry Leo but Dazai's right we can't have you in here for too long or it'll raise suspicion.”

“So far I've done nothing and I can't help but think that you guys don’t take me serious, going behind my back to get the security footage when I said that I could do it.”

“We aren’t underestimating you Leo, it's just that we’re on a time crunch and we have no idea when or who the killer will go for next, it was just taking you a little longer to get the footage than we could afford.”

“I demand a larger part in this, I want to be informed on everything you find out and any suspects you may have,” Leo demanded before storming out of the room.

“Looks like none of the youth respects you, look what you’ve done now, you’ve gone and pissed him off.”

“At some point I will prove to you that Atsushi respects me but I don’t know why Leo got so defensive all of a sudden.”

“The only thing we've asked him to do besides bring us up lunch, we’ve done without him, I get it.”

“Surely he should be on the same page, catch the killer by any means necessary.”

“You did keep from him that we’ve been talking to the owner and she was the one to give us the footage.”

“Unfortunately he seems to also be looking out for himself, he said it as soon as we met him, this case will give him the reputation he needs to advance further in the police, if he knew that we had the support of the owner he may want her to pull strings with the police based on his performance. We don’t want to be pit against each other in a race to who can catch the killer first, he could get himself killed.”

“Aww so you do care,” Chuuya cooed as he pinched Dazai's cheek.

“Get off of me and make yourself useful, start watching some footage.”

-

-

-

“God is that what the top of your head looks like.”

“Not that you'd know, unlike you I have the constant misfortune of looking at your vibrant head.”

Chuuya kicked Dazai lazily under the table, for the past 6 hours they’d been mostly nonstop watching security footage, making note of any suspicious activity including drug deals and prostitution.

“If I have to watch the Millers sneak into another room to make out I may just carve out my own eyeballs, I might do that regardless if it means we can stop watching this boring footag- Dazai!”

“Huh what?” Dazai asked his head darting up from his own laptop.

“The meal starts in less than an hour.”

“Okay?”

“We have to get ready!”

“An hour’s plenty.”

“For a fancy dinner? I think the fuck not, remember we have to find the place and then get seats near the Millers and mingle beforehand to insert us into the inner circle.”

“Welp when you put it that way.”

Both boys jumped up from their seats and began to frantically get ready, Chuuya laying out each piece of his outfit before starting to undress while Dazai went round the room removing one item and then putting on the new item, it somehow being the quicker technique. Dazai had his suit trousers and shirt on before Chuuya had even started, seeing this Chuuya pulled off his t-shirt hastily but stopped to turn around when Dazai called him.

“What do you want Dazai? How are you already mostly dressed?”

“As your husband I thought it was about time for me to buy you something.”

“The fuck, why bother?”

“Keeping up appearances, now stop complaining and go stand in front of the mirror,” Chuuya did sceptically walk over to the full-length mirror hanging up on one wall, as Dazai removed something from a gift bag. He came up behind Chuuya, with him watching, Dazai lifted his hands up to Chuuya's neck and wrapped a new choker around it, a velvet black band with a dangling tear shaped blue gem was clasped around his skin. Dazai lowered his hands back down but didn’t move from behind him as he watched Chuuya in the mirror admire the new neck piece.

“It's beautiful.”

“It is.”

Dazai's eyes now wandered over Chuuya's bare back, this was the first time he'd seen Chuuya's tattoo up close, it too was beautiful. He used one finger to trace down Chuuya's back, starting at the dragon’s head, twisting down it's body and ending at its tail, causing Chuuya to shiver slightly. He spun round on one foot, now face to face with Dazai, where Dazai had once been looking at the tattoo he now was looking at Chuuya's eyes.

“Thank you.”

“It was about time I brought my dog a new collar.”

“Try all you want to hide it but this was you being nice,” Chuuya smirked at Dazai as he frowned down at him before being hit in the arm, “and stop touching me.”

“It's not my fault the slug got a tramp stamp.”

Chuuya's jaw dropped.

“It's not a- it doesn’t even look like - Dazai you prat get dressed.”

“I'm not the one standing here shirtless.”

“Get out of my way then dickhead,” Chuuya pushed Dazai out of the way with the back of his arm, walking over to his ironed outfit and started to get dressed, meanwhile Dazai put on his waistcoat and decided to style his hair to one side.

Chuuya now mostly dressed in his maroon suit went to get his matching tie, not before Dazai could scoop it up and fling a different one at him.

“What are you doing now idiot?”

“Let’s wear each other’s ties.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Why would we?”

“It's like a cute couples thing, I’ll wear the maroon one and you wear the navy blue one”

“If this is your idea of cute couple things then whoever dates you is gonna be bored as hell.”

“Ahh come on, live a little.”

“Fine just stop whining and hurry up and finish getting ready.”

“Yippee.”

Chuuya glared over at Dazai as he began to do up the navy blue tie around his neck, making sure to keep a few of the top shirt buttons undone so that his new chocker could still be seen.

“Alright I'm ready, you got everything?”

“You're not wearing your gloves?”

“Are you going off somewhere without me?”

Dazai raised an eyebrow confused, “no I don’t think so?”

“Then I don’t need my gloves.”

Chuuya turned to scoop up his phone and wallet before he could see Dazai's face, feeling a little embarrassed himself after pretty much admitting that he trusted Dazai. It had always been an unspoken fact between them, it was evident every time he used corruption but in such a casual setting to admit that in general he trusted Dazai was a big leap.

“You ready Dazai? We actually have to find it, I'm pretty sure it's not in the same place that we had breakfast.”

“Yer yer I'm coming.”

Both boys adventured around the bottom floor before they caught up to a crowd of well-dressed individuals all lining up to enter a large hall, they joined the fast-moving line and quickly became able to see inside. It was indeed the right place, a large hall with a grand staircase in the middle leading up to a balcony like second floor, wrapping the outer wall where thy could look down at the other tables, a large chandelier sat centre of the ceiling, likely worth millions. A live orchestra was playing beside the staircase, a piano and violins constantly being heard through the room by the musicians.  

“God I knew this place was fancy but this is just excessive.”

“You freaking out?”

“No! Just still not used to all this shit, Mori took me on a couple of fancy meals with clients before realising I wasn’t cut out for it.”

“I used to hate those, it's like he used me as a moral shield, you can't assassinate a mafia boss with a kid around.”

“This won't be like that. We do have a job to do though and seeing this place makes me realise just how many people are still staying at this god damn hotel.”

“Welcome gentlemen, what is your room number?”

“624.”

“Splendid, please follow me to your table, your presence has been requested by the Allard's, do you accept the invite to their table or would you like a separate one?”

Both boys looked at each other as if they were actually pondering the question.

“I suppose it would be nice to have some company,” Chuuya said to Dazai, playing the part while Dazai said yes to the man.

They were then led through the restaurant by the man, many people were still milling around, having conversations at other tables as the dinner party hadn’t technically started yet. Walking to their table they passed by the Millers who were currently chatting with some other guests, whether they were sitting there or not they didn’t know. Soon they arrived at one of the larger rectangle tables that could easily fit 12 people, there Mr Allard and presumingly his wife sat in the middle of the table surrounded by other couples they had not yet met.

“Chuuya, Dazai, it's great of you to join us.”

“Thank you for the invite to your table.”

“I thought it was about time you met my wife and business partners.”

Both men took a seat next to each other diagonally from the Allard’s, the seats beside the Allard’s were filled and opposite there were peoples belongings saving the seats.

“You might of seen Joan and Michael on your way over, they are sitting with us but seemingly know everyone and will likely be preoccupied in conversation till the menus are passed out. For now allow me to introduce you to the table, everyone this is Dazai and Chuuya Cooper the ones I told you about dealing in the big shit.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“This is my wife, Alice and this is Mr and Mrs Pam my trusted partners, they help me distribute supplies.”

“Our son works here, it's easy intel on potential buyers.”

“Jackson here owns properties around the town where he sets up his marijuana farms but then stays at the hotel to avoid suspicion.”

“That’s smart.”

“Indeed, and finally we have Diana and Noah, they're in charge of organising the underground gambling that most guests love to partake in, it's far more entertaining than the casino in this place, you'll have to come along one time.”

“That sounds right up our alley, excuse me for asking but how do the Millers fit into your little group?”

“Unknown to most, they hire out a private room to fill full of prostitutes and clients, creating a sort of sex dungeon, they film videos to sell. Not really our thing but there is far too much competition here so we’ve had to band together, others will know you guys mean business just from you sitting here with us.”

Well that’s a surprise, they're not as innocent as they try to seem

At this a waiting came round placing down a card menu to each guest, giving the boys the distraction to quickly talk to each other.

“This is a lot of new potential targets, there is no way of knowing who’s going to be killed next, this whole place is corrupt.”

“You're right this is a problem but if we keep getting invited to places maybe we can convince people to, I don’t know, be safer? We can also keep an eye on who’s causing the most problems and not being secretive about it, to narrow down who’s going to be at the top of the killers list.”

“We need an invite to that auction and we need to find that Mr Jefferson.”

“Well if it isn’t our favourite little boys, how are you both doing?”

“Hello Joan, Michael, I hope you are both well.”

“Oh how polite, you know how to treat a woman,” Mrs Miller gushed as she and her husband sat down besides the boys, everyone now having menus.

Chuuya decided to busy himself with looking at the set menu choices, there were four options for each starter, main and dessert.

“The fuck is a croquette?”

“It's like a lump of mash fried.”

“Ok and what’s risotto?”

“It's a rice dish, where’s that, I'm not at mains yet gimme a second.”

“Vol-au-vent? The fuck.”

“Didn’t you grow up around Mori, surely there were loads of posh meals?”

“I didn’t do much eating back then.”

“You could do with eating more now.”

“Mahi mahi?”

“It's a type of fish, Jesus Christ just let me pick something for your picky arse.”

Chuuya trailed his eyes over the menu, pointing out and explaining a dish from each section to Dazai who seemed pleased with each choice, he then turned his attention onto deciding his own meal.

“So have you boys been up to anything nice lately, besides the obvious, wink wink, we haven’t seen you much the last couple of days.”

“Just trying to find stuff to do, we’re not used to having so much time on our hands.”

“If you're willing to accept recommendations we could introduce you both to things we do to pass the time.”

Please don’t be talking about sex, please don’t be talking about sex.

“Do you boys like gambling?”

Phew

“I've certainly dabbled.”

“That’s wonderful, you can try your luck after dinner, we all have a bit of a tradition of heading down to the casino after a dinner party.”

They're clearly trying to gage whether they should invite us to the more illegal activities

“I may be a bit rusty but I'd gladly join you, that is as long as my husband allows it.”

“As long as you don’t cry to me after you lose.”

“Looks like I have permission and how could I lose with my sexy husband cheering me on.”

Luckily before Chuuya had time to gag the waiters came round to take peoples orders, everyone taking it in turns to read out their complete meal orders and a drink choice, Chuuya naturally going for wine while Dazai got a gin and tonic.

“You have great taste Chuuya, how well do you know your wines.”

“Thank you Mrs Allard, I'd like to say I am well educated in the subject.”

“Please call me Alice dear.”

“And please call me anytime you want, I love a man who can hold his liquor.”

“Joan please leave the poor kids alone.”

“Oh hush I'm simple seeing if I've found my newest drinking buddies.”

“Buddy I'm afraid, Dazai doesn’t have nearly as high a tolerance as I do.”

“Would you not join us for an alcohol tasting workshop, they hold it here one evening a week.”

“I'm sure it won't be that bad,” Dazai attempted to defend himself as Chuuya scoffed a laugh.

“I’ll count that as you're both attending, it's three days from now, starts at 8pm in hall 5 on bottom floor 2.”

“Damn lemme jot that down, there’s no way I'm missing this.”

“So, you guys aren’t used to relaxing, no?”

“Afraid not, in our line of work there is seemingly always something that needs our supervision.”

The waiters arrived with everyone starters, the group ate as they continued to converse.

“I still can't believe how young you both are, dealing with such a serious business.”

“We’re not used to anything different; I was brought up around the business and Chuuya fell into the work at a young age after not really being given a choice.”

“Ain’t that the truth.”

“But I'm sure he wouldn’t change a thing,” Dazai jest with the table as he bumped his shoulder into Chuuya, who rolled his eyes.

“It's surely no secret that you both have a substantial amount of money, you both must have great taste.”

“I guess so, what are you getting at?”

Hurry up and just ask, stop beating around the bush

“You see, there’s an auction coming up, it's kept under wrap to most but we all believe that we should use our influence to get you both in. It's for the most prestigious of guests with the best taste, all manner of things are sold There, items you could never buy elsewhere.”

“It certainly sounds intriguing, I remember you mentioning it before, when is it?”

“Ha-ha well actually it's tomorrow, we wanted to ensure there was space for you both before officially asking, it is a very popular event, some are on the waiting list for years.”

“Well in that case we’d be fools to not accept, maybe we can find some more souvenirs, I haven’t treated my husband nearly enough this trip.”

“Please don’t.”

“What you don’t like your necklace.”

“It's a choker and yes I like it but it feels weird when you buy me things out of the blue”

“I was like that at the beginning of our relationship but trust me you'll start to enjoy them and then expect them,” Mrs Miller said as she kissed her husband on the cheek.

When the mains came out everyone started having their own individual conversations, mostly about how good the food was.

“What did you get?”

“Short rib with the portobello mash.”

“Bla bla bla lemme try some.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Come on just a lil nibble.”

Dazai bent over the table bringing his mouth to the plate, Chuuya having no choice, begrudgingly lifted his fork from said plate and into Dazai’s mouth. He raised his head back up to chew, seemingly really enjoying it.

Absentmindedly Chuuya reached over pushing a part of Dazai's hair back to the side he'd decided to style it to after it had come loose.

“Gosh it feels like I'm watching a romance film, have you both ever considered being actors or models? You could get quite a bit of money by just acting out a few things together, we can be your coaches, we’ve tried every position and we know what sells,” Mrs Miller asked raising her eyebrows up and down in their direction.

“I'm afraid what happens in our bedroom must stay in the bedroom.”

“What a shame, I would’ve loved to watch you both go at it, we have so many toys you could’ve tried out.”

Many people at the table choked on whatever was currently in their mouths, including Chuuya who wished to do nothing more than stab himself through the skull with his steak knife, all turning to look at the middle-aged woman with their mouths open.

Mr Allard squeezed the bridge of his nose, “Jesus Christ Joan, this is why we are hesitant to invite you to join us for dinner.”

As Mr Allard and Mrs Miller began to bicker, Chuuya snuck a look at Dazai who was smirking his way, leaning to his ear to whisper.

“Maybe for the sake of the mission we should accept”

Luckily over the sound of arguing, the table couldn’t hear the kick he gave Dazai or the little yelp that escaped his mouth.

“Keep that up and we’re getting a divorce.”

Chapter Text

“Come now you old men, stop complaining, going to a casino is the perfect way to end a night. We’re supposed to be showing Chuuya and Dazai the ropes.”

“Darling slow down, we all just ate a three-course meal.”

“And now we’re all about to take shots, no excuses let’s go.”

The dinner had ended half an hour ago, they’d stayed at the table a little longer still chatting amongst themselves before Mrs Miller got bored and demanded that they all went to the casino to blow their money. She led the way through the hotel and down a set of spiral glass stairs in the middle of a shop strip, who knew there were luxury brand shops inside of hotels. On the floor down they found themselves in a new wide-open area, the stairs led them to the entrance to the larger than expected casino.

Even with the lack of windows the room was incredible bright, lights hanging overhead and spotlights lining every wall, there was a section of slot machines, a large row of tables for games like poker or blackjack and in the centre of it all a large circular bar offering service 360degrees, the entire place was very crowded, assumingly because they let anyone gamble here not only hotel guests.

“Wow.”

“Damn right, now who likes vodka?”

“Jesus we’re fucked.”

“I'm sure it won't be all that bad.”

“Dazai, how are we supposed to look for potential victims and suspects while sloshed and it's not like we can refuse the drinks otherwise we could be kicked out from their inner circle and we won't get invites to any more events.”

“A couple drinks won't hurt and besides we can scope out the area as we integrate ourselves into their group. Who knows what they may confess when they're drunk.”

“Or what you'll confess when your drunk.”

“You have such little faith in me, I'm not going to get plastered after a bit of vodka and reveal our loveless marriage.”

“Famous last words,” Chuuya grumbled as he followed Dazai and the rest of their group towards the bar, Mrs Miller was already coercing most of the group to take shots of sambuca before asking the bar for shots of tequila.

Even with Mr Allard’s hard exterior he was more than happy to neck the shots, now needing very little persuasion, seemingly he was getting into the mood and wasn’t as against partying now that they were in the busy casino. Music was being blasted from the speakers and the sound of voices echoed through the wide hall.

“You boys, quickly take these and then we can all go and get some chips,” Mrs Miller called to them, holding out two shots, when they accepted them, she reached to the bar and picked up another two and placing these ones into their free hands, before skipping off towards the casino cage.

“This is gonna suck.”

“Have you actually ever taken a shot before?”

“I made the mistake of going to a bar once with Yosano, boy can that woman drink, it's very impressive but I almost died, I vowed never again.”

“And yet you sounded so nonchalant a second ago,” Chuuya smirked over at Dazai as he shot the first drink, smoothly tilting his head back and hardly flinching as he swallowed and looked back at Dazai expectantly. The man having not taken his eyes off Chuuya, swallowed harshly but lifted his own drink to his lips and rapidly emptied the contents into his mouth and then his stomach, he gaged slightly causing Chuuya to snicker.

“I'm fine thanks for asking.”

“Whatever you say pussy, just try to keep up,” Chuuya antagonised as he downed the second shot and started to walk towards their group, hearing Dazai behind him cough as he took the next drink and jogged slightly to keep up.

“Here we are boys, to start you off it'll be our treat as we were the ones to drag you along, and to apologise for my wife’s insistence on getting you both plastered,” Mr Miller said as he gave Dazai a handful of chips, “the reds are €5, the greens €25, the blacks €100, that purple one is €500 and the ones my wife is running away with are €1000s.”

“Thank you, sir that is very generous of you.”

“Nonsense, now let’s go catch up to my menace of a wife and see what game she's picked first,” Mr Miller led and nodded his head to the others who were clearly used to Mrs Miller’s antics as they followed along no questions asked.

The group arrived at a blackjack table that had just finished a game, the others who decided to play quickly took their seats beside Mrs Miller who had seemingly already started playing, Mr Miller hovering behind her.

“Either of you boys wanna join in?”

“I suppose there’s no harm,” Dazai said taking a seat on one of the end stools, Chuuya already rolling his eyes and decided to simple spectate the first few rounds.

Everyone placed down a small ish bet to test the waters, Dazai placing a green chip before the dealer gave two face up cards to each player and himself one face up one face down card. Dazai had a 3 and a 5, this being no where close enough to 21, when it was his turn he decided to hit gaining a 7. The dealer revealed that he had a 6 and a 7 meaning he only needed a card higher than 3 to beat Dazai’s, some others at the table had cards with slightly higher values but so far people had only chosen to stand or gone bust seeing as no one had blackjack yet.

The dealer turned his final card revealing another 6, meaning that Dazai and everyone but one had lost their bets to the dealer, one man had luckily gotten 20. People were seemingly having fun regardless so a new round began, Dazai betting once more a single green chip, this time getting a 9 and a 6 but for some reason he decided to stand, this time the dealer got in total 17, meaning that Dazai lost once again. Next round he got an 8 and 7, he hit and got another 8, losing before the dealer even revealed his cards.

It was no big deal, they lost a bit of money that wasn’t even theirs to begin with, it did become a problem when Dazai kept betting. Chuuya perched his forearm on Dazai's shoulder, leaning against him as he watched intensely, finding it increasingly funny every time Dazai lost.

Is this dickhead already drunk or does he just not know how to play? This is so unlike him

As if reading his mind, Mrs Miller waved down a waiter and ordered 2 Yager bombs for each person, them somehow arriving within two minutes. Dazai practically guzzling them as soon as they were passed to him, Chuuya was mildly amused by the display thinking that Dazai was starting to lose his composure.

After everyone had downed their drinks they upped the stakes next round, everyone including Dazai increasing the amount of money they bet, Dazai now pushing forward a black token worth €100. It went about as well as the last three games, Dazai losing once again.

“Alright enough of this, swap with me dumbass, it's my turn.”

“Oh so the shrimp thinks he has better luck than me or are you just bored of watching?”

“Just pass me a black chip.”

“Wow no mucking about, alright here you go.”

The dealer laid out a new set of cards, Chuuya having an 8 and 5, he liked his odds even with the dealer having a 9, this had put others off, most standing to play it safe in case the dealer got 21, Chuuya decided to completely disregard this and hit. The table was amused at his move, watching as the dealer gave him another 8. He didn’t even have time to count how much he had before the rest of the table and Dazai went wild, whooping as Chuuya had managed to double the money he put in as he got blackjack.

“Looks like my cute little husband is a natural.”

“You just sucked at it.”

“Did not,” Dazai pouted wrapping his arms around Chuuya's neck from behind, leaning on him as Chuuya was still sat at the table.

“I'm bored of this lets move to the next table,” before anyone could protest Mrs Miller shot up from the table and skipped off to the next section, “come on let’s play Roulette.”

The group walked up to one of the busiest areas, a mixture of cheers and boos could be heard as many different games of roulette happened across many different tables.

“Oh, actually I absolutely love roulette here, they let you throw in the ball when they spin the wheel, it's not technically allowed according to the rule books but it's a special little thing that Hermitage hotel does,” Mr Allard grinned getting out some of his own chips.

“I understand the premise of roulette but again I've never actually played.”

“Wow you guys life sucks.”

“Joan please.”

“Shush it's no problem, I'm here to help them.”

The group gathered around a table, having to make sure not to bump into anyone else enjoying different games, they took turns placing down their bets.

“I’ll keep it safe and place a bet on the outside on odds,”

 Dazai explained his thinking to Chuuya as he placed a 50 chip on the outer area of the table over the text saying odd. Mr Allard was the first one to throw in the ball after the croupier had built up enough speed, Chuuya half thought that the ball would bounce straight out and hit someone in the head but instead it easily spun round the wheel before landing on number 15. No one won big, most playing it safe by betting on a colour or like Dazai on odd who had just won another 50 chip which he was far too smug about. Things were getting more seriously as many of the gentlemen including Chuuya and Dazai removed their suit jackets, laying them over the back of some nearby chairs.

Next it was Mrs Miller's turn to spin, bets already in place she threw in the ball, once again it landing perfectly and spun into the number 29. Dazai haven bet on red lost this round, luckily once again only betting two greens, Mrs Miller on the other hand bet on 6 numbers having won a nice amount as 29 was one of those numbers, in her excitement she ordered even more shots, Jack Daniel's arriving by the end of the next round.

Chuuya tugged on Dazai's arm as he reached for a shot, “Ey douchebag maybe you should slow down a bit, you're already becoming unbearable.”

“What sort of owner would I be if I was beaten by my dog and besides I'm still perfectly fine,” he scoffed as he necked the shot, he definitely wasn’t fine as he struggled to keep the burning liquid down.

If I had known he was going to end up like this I wouldn’t have provoked him into drinking so much

“Stop being boooooring, show your husband a real show,” Mrs Miller booed as Dazai went to place down another 50 on even.

“Oh is that a challenge, you’re on. How bout I use this pretty little purple chip and place it on 2,” Dazai boasted as he placed the chip onto the black square, all the while Chuuya shook his head as he contemplated stepping in and stopping him.

Before he could, Mrs Miller pushed them both towards the roulette wheel, evidently it was their turn to drop in the ball.

Dazai pulled Chuuya closer to him by wrapping an arm around his waist.

“Kiss the ball baby.”

Note to self – never let Dazai take shots ever again

Even with his inner monologue screaming bloody murder, Chuuya kissed the top of Dazai's cupped hands, he'd be lying if he said he didn’t feel that rush of adrenaline and anticipation as the wheel was spun and Dazai threw down the ball. It bounced around before settling into the black space with the number 2 written beside it. Chuuya began to jump up and down with joy as Dazai and the rest of the group cheered, he turned and kissed Dazai on the cheek while making a mwa sound.

Note to self – never let yourself take shots ever again

“How’d you know.” Chuuya jest as he realised they’d just won 35x their original bet, other guests cheering for them as well.

“Double black has never let me down before.”

Chuuya decided to ignore the double meaning as they were handed €17,500 worth of chips, still being pat on the back by the group while Mrs Miller was looking around to find someone to order celebratory drinks from.

“I feel kind of bad, would you like some sir, it was your chip that won,” Chuuya said to Mr Miller as Dazai was also looking around but for the next thing to bet on with his new found money.

“Oh nonsense son, it was you and your husband’s luck that won not our chip.”

Chuuya sheepishly thanked him as he watched Dazai semi skip semi trip his way to a slot machine.

“Can you use chips on a slot machine?”

“Here you can, yes, but I see that could become a problem if you leave Dazai unsupervised for too long.”

Chuuya chuckled watching as Dazai tried to get his lanky legs to work long enough to get him on the stool in front of the bright flashing machine blasting sound effects and music.

“I did say he was a lightweight but he can be so competitive.”

“I'm sure he’ll be fine long enough for you to help me grab some proper drinks. Come along Chuuya, I'm sick of shots,” Mrs Miller whined as she pulled on Chuuya's arm, them both being a similar height it was easy to follow along, it being his turn to receive a sheepish look from Mr Miller, silently apologising for his wife’s behaviour.

“Oh Chuuya darling it's so fun to have you and Dazai here, you little things make me feel so young, you should come here every year, oh please tell me you'll come every year.”

Chuuya chuckled nervously, “I'm afraid that’s up to my husband but it is lovely here and I'm sure these next couple weeks will be eventful.”

“Boo I dread the day you both leave, do you have a set date?”

“No it's really down to… how we’re feeling, we could end up staying as little as another week or possible three, we have yet to decide.”

Mrs Miller sniffled slightly while pouting his way, them both leaning against the bar, seconds later she recovered from her moochie mood and ordered three bottles of campaign.

“I think your husbands in trouble.”

“Huh,” Chuuya looked round to where Mrs Miller pointed, finding Dazai still sitting at a slot machine however now there was a dolled up woman in a cocktail dress twirling a piece of hair as she stroked Dazai's shoulder, her saying something to him while he appeared mostly uninterested, glancing at her occasionally and giving small comments.

“I can't leave this idiot alone for two minutes,” he grumbled giving Mrs Miller a look.

“Go dear, I can manage.”

Chuuya came up on the opposite side of Dazai, the other preoccupied by the blonde woman in her mid 20s, she was saying something about how for the proper price she could teach him how to please a woman as she went to try and squeeze between the machine and his chest to sit on his lap, annoying the people sitting nearby.

“The only person he needs to please is me doll, scram,” Chuuya fumed getting slightly up in her face. She puffed out her cheeks and grumbled about him being a whore but she did leave with little fuss.

“Hubby to the rescue,” Dazai cooed, his attention now completely off of the slot machine.

“Don’t get used to it.”

“Come sit.”

“There's nowhere to sit Dazai.”

“I can think of somewhere.”

He gentle tugged Chuuya closer to him with a hand on the small of Chuuya's back and patted his knee.

“I will put your head straight through this machine.”

“They're all loooooking,” Dazai purred, knowing he’d won, Chuuya haven forgotten that this machine was still relatively close to the rest of the group.

“God I hate you, why even keep up this dumb charade, they're all just as sloshed as you are thanks to Mrs Miller's,” Chuuya complained moving in between Dazai's legs and perching on one knee, Dazai’s hand still on his back, there was very little space between him and the machine but they made it work smoothly, trying to convince everyone that this comes naturally to them.

“I think she's trying to get us drunk to have sex with them.”

“I think her plan back fired as she's well past gone, which the same could be said about you.”

“Pft, me drunk? Noooope, speaking of the Millers, they really aren’t innocent and far more observant than we thought.”

“What do you mean?”

“As we were walking past them earlier, I heard Mrs Miller talking about us to the people at that table.”

“Why is that a problem, the plan was for them to introduce us to more people.”

“The problem is that she was telling them that she'd never seen us kiss and considering we were on our honeymoon she thought we’d be rather affectionate even in public.”

Shit

“Shit Dazai.”

“Kiss me while everyone’s looking.”

Chuuya could already feel his cheeks reddening from both annoyance and embarrassment, putting his hands against Dazai's chest as if he would spring at him at any moment.

“The killer is going to be on high alert especially since Mori’s men, this is one of the places where he's picked his victims, maybe we’ll be next with the sin of homosexuality.”

“That is not funny.”

“Ok then we need to not be picked next and blend in, no one has seen us kiss and all we’re going to achieve is being caught out by the other guests, they already have suspicions, I can feel their eyes on us right now, it could turn out to be that one or several of them are the killers.”

“No, please no.”

“Trust me dumbass I don’t wanna either,” he pushed Chuuya's hair to one side and looked down at his lips, “now come ere.”

Dazai moved his hand from Chuuya's hair to cup his cheek, pulling him closer to his face, Chuuya begrudgingly putting up very little resistance. Their lips connected, briefly at first, the warmth left just as quickly as it came, them both pulling away only for an instance. Chuuya barely had time to open his eyes again before their lips reunited, this time there was no peck, their lips were locked moving against each other. Chuuya's arms were now around Dazai as if he had always expected it to turn out this way, it was if they were made for this, both knowing full well neither of them had the experience for it to be feeling this good. Dazai lent further into it, Chuuya's back hitting the machine that he melts into, it holding his weight so that he could accept the full force of Dazai’s lips, even with them tasting so heavily of alcohol Chuuya never backed away. Dazai had his hands on the back of Chuuya's waist, supporting him further while his back arched as there was no where else for him to go as Dazai had run out of leg, his hands were moving, slowly lifting Chuuya's shirt up, coming into contact with the smallest amount of skin. Chuuya's own hands were also moving, his however in Dazai's hair, the hair that had once been styled to one side, now it stood up on end. Their lips continued to overlap, sloppy sounds could only be heard by them as the loud sounds of the machines blocked out most of it to any bystanders, it's not like they were the first ever to make out in a casino, in fact there were probably ten other people doing the same thing. Soon enough they both needed to breath, breaking free of the others lips, panting heavy hot air on the other, eyes staring back at each other.

“Think it worked?”

“Heck Chuuya even I'm starting to believe we’re married, they're totally going to buy it,” Dazai puffed as he moved off Chuuya, bringing him up with him by the hands still at his back. On his ascent back up to sitting, he caught a glance of Mrs Miller squealing to her husband like a fan girl, his attention turned to Dazai’s now scruffy hair, sheepishly patting a piece down.

“I think you were right Chuuya.”

“Huh?”

“I'm plastered, don’t let me drink anything else or I might do something stupid like suggest we kiss again.”

“Trust me I won't let another drop of alcohol touch your lips,” Chuuya promised, looking down at Dazai's red lips before looking away just as quickly, “I think we’ve achieved our objective, we’re in the auction, we can leave now.”

Dazai pouted, still showing signs of being some what out of it from the alcohol. Chuuya got up off of Dazai's leg and squeezed out from the machine, pulling Dazai up with him before he put in another chip, having so far won nothing.

“Can't we just stay a little longer, how are we going to come up with an excuse to leave.”

“Don’t worry, I'm sure they’ve come up with one for us already,” Chuuya cringed as they approached the table they had once been at.

“Thank you for the lovely evening but it's about time me and my husband retire for the night.”

“If you say so,” Mrs Miller giggled, Mr Miller on the other hand wished them a pleasant night as chuuya grabbed both of their suit jackets.

“We’ll see you all at the auction tomorrow,” Chuuya bid farewell, turning round to find Dazai chugging a flute of campaign, hitting him on the arm and cursing him out, placing it back down before Dazai could finish the whole thing.

They began to wobble out of the large hall, Chuuya was fine as even after all of those shots his high tolerance to alcohol kept him from getting drunk, Dazai was the reason they were stumbling, him having flung himself over Chuuya and was protesting their early exit by refusing to walk.

“You stupidly tall dumbass, move those lanky legs of yours so that we can go to sleep.”

“Noooo, carry me.”

“There’s no way in hell I'm carrying you.”

“The dog will kiss me but not carry me, talk bout double standards, obey your master,” Dazai stopped moving entirely now, his legs dangling out from under him. If they weren’t in a public area, Chuuya would’ve hit him, however he settled on just dropping him, they had just made it to the elevator and Chuuya took this as a chance to lose the leech.

“Chuuya doesn’t love me,” Dazai whaled as he climbed up to his feet using the handlebars.

“Damn right,” Chuuya huffed, refusing to amuse drunk Dazai’s blabbering, even when it led to more problems.

He had risen completely now, back to his annoying height that towered over Chuuya, using this advantage to spring his trap and back Chuuya into a corner.

“Don’t lie to me, I've always been able to tell.”

Chuuya maintained his composure, even with Dazai's bad breath once again very close to his face, “don’t flatter yourself, you’re as drunk as a Uni student, you don’t know shit.”

“I know that you're pretty,” Dazai giggled adding insult to injury by booping Chuuya on the nose.

“Ok I've heard enough, straight to bed and hopefully you won't get to drink for the rest of this insufferable trip.”

He grabbed Dazai's wrist and tugged him along behind him now that the lift doors were open, clomping down the hall, Dazai bumping into Chuuya almost every step as he kept tripping over his feet. Finally, they made it into their room where Chuuya could let out a sigh of relief, at least in the privacy of their room he could punch Dazai if he did anything else stupid. However he never got the chance to do anything else stupid as Chuuya pulled him away from the murder board he apparently thought he could add to and pushed him down onto the bed. Grumbling the whole time, Dazai pulled off his suit jacket, his waist coat and started to kick off his shoes.

“Was the time?” Dazai slurred as he stared at the clock with no prevail.

“Believe it or not 3am, which means we are both going to sleep right now and that we are both going to forget everything with the help of a lay in.”

“Chuuya would like that wouldn’t he?”

“Like what?”

“If I forgot all about our kiss but I'm not drunk, so I’mmm gonna rememberrrr.” Dazai taunted.

“Not when I clobber you in your sleep with an iron.”

Chapter Text

For the first time since arriving in France, Chuuya woke up with Dazai still next to him, more accurately he was under him. Dazai was face first in his pillow with his arm draped right over Chuuya's back and one of his legs somehow hooked over Chuuya's waist. The pillow wall had failed him and how Dazai could breathe he had no idea. It took no time at all for the memories of last night to come flooding back.

He's finally done it

I’m going to kill myself

That drunk fucking idiot made me kiss him

In front of everyone

I kissed him

Dazai

Chuuya could’ve screamed right there and then, used his ability to bring the entire building crashing down and bury him and everyone who witnessed last night’s mistakes under the rubble.

Please forget please forget please forget

He silently prayed for himself and Dazai to be hit by an ability that wiped their memories, that or a brick.

Maybe if I induce amnesia by repeatable hitting him over the head

He lifted himself up, still trapped by Dazai's long limbs, looking over at him and his messy hair that he was half responsible for.

Or just smother him in his sleep now before he even wakes up

Using the bare minimum of contact, Chuuya lifted up Dazai's arm as if it were dog shit and dropped it off beside him.

I bet I could get Leo to play along and help me hide his body if I promise to get him promoted

Chuuya pulled his legs off the bed and stepped on a bunch of multicoloured chips that had seemingly fallen out of his pockets as he'd pulled his jacket and trousers off the night before.

Damn I forgot all about these chips, maybe I can pay someone to kill Dazai…………...nah where’s the fun in that, if he's gonna die I'm gonna be the one to do it

Chuuya contemplated why he was even sneaking around, it's not like he cared if Dazai woke up, although if he did wake up it would mean they’d have to talk. He needed the rest anyway Chuuya decided as he remembered the last few days he'd failed to see Dazai sleep for very long. It was 10am so they could afford to sleep a little longer especially if it meant Dazai wouldn’t be grouchy all day.

To kill some time Chuuya decided to get in the shower, hoping to get rid of the stench of booze, it's not like he could stand around all day staring at Dazai's annoying mug. He took himself and a change of clothes into the large ensuite, hoping to enjoy the peace and quiet for at least an hour.

Roughly half an hour later a device hidden somewhere in the mess of their room started ringing, it went off for at least a minute before Dazai even started to stir. In an incredible groggy state, he pulled himself out of bed when he realised that Chuuya wasn’t going to pick it up, clocking that he was in the shower from the back ground sound of water pattering from the closed door. With his eyes half open he rummaged around in a legit pile of paper work and pulled out his phone, clicking the answer button to just shut it up, forgetting to look who was calling him, or rather facetiming.

“Dazai you buffoon, how dare you keep me waiting for so long, if it was much longer I would’ve assumed you had been killed.”

“Kunikida please lower your voice.”

“I will do no such thing, we haven’t heard a thing from you, you promised you'd call and then you take 5 minutes to answer what are we supposed to think,” Kunikida screeched his face incredible close to the screen, Dazai seeing pretty much only his forehead, He cringed as his headache grew with Kunikida’s volume.

“I've been meaning to call and look I'm fine so there’s really no problem here.”

“Hardly I bet you’ve been mucking around this entire time, you better not be using this as a chance to flirt with woman every chance you get you obnoxious womaniser.”

Dazai was bored by his rant simple waving him off, “now now Kunikida I'm a married man now, that life is behind me.”

“Cut that crap out, you're undercover start acting like it, we need an update now.”

“We? Surely this can wait till the pm is with you guys.”

“Why do you think I called dumbass, to give you some warning as they're all here in the meeting room as neither of you have contacted them.”

“Ahhhh well yer it's been a crazy couple of nights.”

“I knew it, your horny ass is flocking to any woman in your sight, may I remind you that this is an extremely important case with the agencies rep on the line.”

“May I remind you that you’ve never actually seen me with any woman.”

“That’s even worse you should treat woman right and at the very least date them if you plan on using them for your own advantage. Don’t make me bring up that poor waiter in the café below, she can't even do her job without you trying to convince her to die with you.”

“You think so little of me”

“No I've simple learnt from experience, I feel bad for Nakahara, speaking of where is that poor soul, don’t tell me he's killed himself before you, not that I'd blame him.”

“He's in the shower”

“Hopefully washing off the sweat from a long night of banging,” Yosano cackled as she appeared behind Kunikida who attempted to bat her away.

“Why would you say such a thing?”

“They’ve got to keep up with their cover, how else to persuade people they're married.”

“I keep forgetting about that, Nakahara has definitely killed himself.”

“I've told you guys he's in the shower now can I please go, my head is killing me and I want to go back to sleep before Chuuya gets out and inevitable gets mad.”

“Omg they were totally fucking.”

“Yosano if you have nothing else to add please leave me to shout at Dazai.”

“Oh right the president and Mori want to talk to him.”

“I suppose I'm fine with them shouting at him.”

“I don’t think my head can deal with anymore shouting.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve been drinking, I swear to god if your drunk ass reveals your covers I will fly over there and strangle you.”

“I'm sure I wasn’t even that bad, now the president is waiting, mush boy.”

Dazai watched as Kunikida walked through the office to the meeting room still grumbling and propped up the phone in front of the two seated men.

“Dazai it's good to see you, are you both ok?”

“Yes sir, sorry for the lack of updates I've been rather preoccupied with the case.”

“As long as you're making progress, you are, correct?”

Dazai walked the older men through all the information they’d found out and the some sort of alliance they had with the chief of police and the hotel owner, he went into detail about the potential significance of the gems and the upcoming events they were going to attend.

“See I did say you two would be the best for this job, Chuuya is..?”

“Showering, he's fine I assure you, we have an invitation to an underground auction tonight, there is more sketchy activity happening here than we were originally aware of.”

“An auction, interesting, you hoping to find our killer?”

“Mori don’t be so dense, it won't be that easy, we’re hoping for results however with how careful the killers been it's unlikely it will be obvious. But speaking of, we may have a problem.”

“And that is?”

“We’re attending an auction as a known rich couple, it would look suspicious if we left empty handed and not bid on anything.”

“Meaning you want the port mafia to fund your spending spree, I suppose we could spare some cash, allow yourself to assume you have a 100k budget.”

“Strange of you being a good sport Mori.”

“Well you do make a good point, we can't have your covers being revealed.”

Dazai hummed, hating to agree and refusing to ever thank Mori.

“Welp I better get going, murderers to catch and a fake husband to tend to,” Dazai bid farewell as he could no longer hear the noise of water in the background.

“Stay safe.”

Dazai quickly hung up the call, his head throbbing even though he was relieved that he got Mori to give them money to keep up the charade, it had dawned on him yesterday but he could see no other way around it but asking the pm for help. He was lucky that he'd thought of this, how embarrassing would it have been if they had no money to bet with, he'd have to take Mrs Miller up on her offer and become a porn star

Just as he was placing his phone down and considering going back to bed, the bathroom door was pushed open, Chuuya walking out before stopping in his tracks and visibly jumping when he almost walked straight into Dazai.

“Oh my god Dazai,” he bellowed as he clutched his heart, his hair was wet as it dripped down onto his fitted t-shirt that defined his toned body, “I didn’t know you were awake you scared me.”

“That’s unlike you.”

“You're the one creeping around, I would’ve thought you'd be dead after last night.”

“What, trying to avoid me? But seriously my head’s killing me.”

“That’s what you get for being baited into downing shot after shot.”

Dazai shrugged nonchalantly and made his way back over to the bed, propping on the edge and rubbing his temples, “that was your fault for calling me a lightweight.”

“And all you achieved was proving me right.”

Chuuya watched as Dazai groaned and began to rummage around in a side draw looking for any type of pill to take.

“I'm surprised how relaxed you are.”

“What part of my head’s killing me did you not understand.”

“That’s obviously not what I'm talking about, I had to scrub my mouth for like 5 minutes.”

Dazai cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Were the shots that bad? What did the Miller's make us drink?”

Chuuya stared at Dazai blankly, blinking slowly as if he were trying to figure something out.

“What’s up with you?”

Oh

“Nothing much, I'm surprised you're not exactly freaking out as well.”

Maybe just maybe

“What’s that, I don’t really remember much from last night.”

Praise Jesus fuckin hallelujah

He could’ve jumped for joy and danced the jig, did this mean that Dazai didn’t remember them kissing?

“We got drunk and won a bunch of money, not that we've changed it from chips yet.”

“Oh awesome, that means we can go back and make new acquaintances, get into a new group and continue to look for anyone suspicious.”

“I still don’t know why we don’t just break into everyone’s room and just look for evidence,” Chuuya complained as he helped Dazai in his search for paracetamol seeing as he knew exactly where it was, “the quicker we can get this mission over the better, in fact I don’t want to talk to the Miller's ever again.”

“They're not all that bad, I don’t know how long we can reject their advances, they're quite persuasive,” Chuuya glared at him passing over two pills, knowing that he shouldn’t give Dazai access to the whole packet, “and besides we need to follow PACE rules or any evidence found will be void as it was obtained illegally.”

“Ok fine, so what now?”

“For now we can only try to prevent the next death as we are approaching our first deadline, we’re assuming that the next person to die is going to be Mr Jefferson.”

“He is the most likely candidate, but Leo said he's only here sometimes how do we know if he's even in the building.”

“We have access to the security footage, I’ll watch past footage of this morning and yesterday while you watch the live footage, if he enters, we should know if he's the next target or not.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Chuuya agreed as he picked up a laptop and took himself off to the opposite side of the room, half hoping that if he kept to himself it would keep Dazai from remembering the events from last night.

For the next 3 hours the only sound that filled the room was what came from the security footage they watched, finally Chuuya piped up, “I've got him, he's coming in now, Leo was right he's got a woman on either arm, what a scum bag.”

“They're hot though,” Dazai said as he came up beside Chuuya, “wonder if they're into suicidal men.”

Chuuya glared and kicked Dazai in the leg, “ow, so you’re the jealous type ey?”

“Am not,” Chuuya retaliated scooting further away from Dazai, “so we know he's likely going to be attending the auction tonight, what then? It's not like we can just run up to him and go oi you fat fuck guess who’s gonna die next.”

“Although that’s not a bad idea we should try to warn him discreetly, we have to try to find a way to accidently get acquainted with him and not tip off the murderer. Seemingly I'm still hungover as nothing’s coming to mind at the moment, we can't ask the Miller's just in case they turn out to be the killers.”

“You're still hungover because you’ve drunk and eaten nothing.”

“Shouldn’t my husband be taking care of me in my time of need.”

“Cut that shit out.”

“Ooh feisty today, what a change in attitude and here I was thinking that you were only short tempered when you wore your hat.”

“You have no idea how lucky you are, I'd be wearing my hat if I could fucking find it, I swear to you if I had the time to find it, I'd wear it to bed just to spite you.”

“Oh how I’ll miss seeing the top of your head when I give it back,” Dazai dramatized as he lent over and kissed the top of Chuuya's head, smirking as Chuuya jumped out of his seat pushing Dazai back.

“I knew it, where the fuck is my hat Dazai,” Chuuya squealed as Dazai literally fell to the floor laughing, clutching at his sides as he rolled around.

“I can't believe- ha – that it's taken you – wheeze – this long to figure it out,” he spluttered trying to catch his breath through laughs.

“Dazai you absolute dickhead I thought you'd grown out of this obsession with stealing my hat, it's been years, I thought I had just misplaced it in the room somewhere,” Chuuya fumed as he pressed his foot onto Dazai's chest, “go and get it now.”

It took Dazai another minute to cease laughing before spreading his arms out beside him and panting, Chuuya pressing his foot down harder.

“Oh my precious little Chuuya, you'll have to remove this for me to retrieve it for you,” Dazai smirked as he wrapped a wrist around Chuuya's ankle and moved his hand under his trouser leg to connect with his skin.

“I should cave in your ribs.”

Dazai moved his thumb back and forth smiling up at Chuuya with his big goofy grin, “yer but you won't.”

“Ugh whatever get up now and get my hat, I'm wearing it 24/7 now,” Chuuya removed his foot quickly yanking Dazai's hand away. Dazai dramatically groaned as he got up from the floor and plodded over to the wardrobe closest to the balcony, moving the curtains flapping in the wind from the open door and revealed Chuuya's hat from behind the piece of furniture. Chuuya would’ve thought it had been crushed after being shoved behind the wooden storage but Dazai revealed it to be in perfect condition.

“See you're so dramatic it's fine,” Dazai explained lifting the hat up in all it's glory.

As if they were apart of a romantic comedy film the wind picked up and snatched the hat straight from in between Dazai's fingers and elegantly flew straight out of the window and began to float down as if it were laughing at them both.

There was a second of silence as both men looked at each other with their eyes wide open, Dazai's arm still raised with his hand now empty. As if Chuuya were snapped from a trance his features turned harsh, items surrounded him glowed a dark red and started to float, Chuuya too being ingulfed in the harsh light as his hair stood on end and he began to lift off the floor.

He then pounced towards the balcony, ready to jump over the railings and float down to catch his hat, before he could do this however Dazai leapt at him wrapping his arms around Chuuya's middle, the glow instantly disappearing and items fell back to the ground.

“Chuuya no you can't.”

“Let go Dazai.”

“You'll blow our cover.”

“This is all your fault.”

“Yes, it is I know but please let’s just run down and grab it,” Dazai looked up into Chuuya's scowl, him trying to pry Dazai off from around him, “it'll be there I promise, please just calm down.”

Chuuya took one deep breath before taking off to their door and out of their room, he ran straight past the lift and instead made a beeline towards the stairs, hearing Dazai behind him before jumping down three velvet steps at a time. After making it to the bottom of the winding stairs Chuuya ran out a side door, hoping that it wasn’t a fire exit but not caring enough to stop and check.

He emerged into the afternoon sun, hot and sticky, checking to see what side of the building he had to run to, luckily he had emerged on the side he needed and quickly began to scan his eyes over his green surroundings.

The wind wasn’t that strong and it's not blowing now so hopefully it hasn’t been swpt out of the hotel grounds

Chuuya jogged around the area, looking in bushes and out over tennis courts, not yet seeing any sign of his precious hat even after a good five minutes of searching, the area didn’t have many places the hat would be hidden from vision.

Chuuya could feel his blood boil all over again, a few rocks started to rattle around him as the red glow threatened to return, in his haste he had ran out of the room without his gloves, he was infuriated, what if his hat was bent or scratched?

…. What if he never found it?

Chuuya's throat began to close as he watched the red light creep it's way around his body.

The crimson glow around him evaporated when he felt a hand placed on his own and another placing something on his head from behind.

His hand reached up and found the brim of his hat, he pulled it off his head to look it over in relief.

“Seriously I'm sorry Chuuya.”

Chuuya didn’t say anything for a moment, simple staring at the hat and feeling the contact of Dazai's hand, “did anyone see?”

Dazai sighed and smiled apologetically, “no you're alright.”

They stayed like that for a moment before Chuuya placed the hat back on his head and slowly removed his hand from Dazai's keeping it close enough to check and see if the overwhelming emotion would creep back through his ability.

“I was far too hungover for this.”

“Once again, it was your own fault.”

“Mm, let’s head back up, we’re both still in pyjamas.”

Chuuya was so emotionally exhausted he couldn’t even feel embarrassed.

“We should start planning how we’re going to deal with this auction.”

“And more importantly what to wear.”

“No, you can't wear the same thing as yesterday.”

“I wasn’t going to say that.”

“Yes you were.”

-

-

-

After a few hours of learning names and faces to potential attendees at this auction, the boys both got dressed into black suits. Since they weren’t actually aware of where the auction was being held they made their way down to reception to hopefully find someone to tag along with. Luckily that wasn’t too hard, it may be a very exclusive event but that didn’t mean it wasn’t popular, they found many fancy dressed people all heading to a private room. They entered through two large doors similar to others they'd seen and found themselves waiting in a queue to enter.

The room was set out similarly to the hall they'd ate at yesterday, a balcony wrapping the room and many elegant tables littered the floor, there was a wide stage at the right side of the room draped in a red curtain and a large bar at another.

Everyone already inside had a number paddle which was seemingly what everyone was currently queueing up for, when it was their turn they gave over their names and Dazai was handed a paddle.

They began to mingle, seeing as the auction wasn’t starting for another hour, they assumed they should make their faces more well known amongst the underground world of this hotel.

They both began by heading over to the busy bar, Dazai facing the bar and ordering while Chuuya lent his back against it and looked out across the room.

Dazai placed one arm across his chest at the other side of Chuuya, coming closer to whisper in his ear, them still facing opposite directions.

“Do you see him yet?”

“No not yet but this place is huge, maybe we should look upstairs too.”

Dazai hummed a reply as the bartended brought over their drinks, Dazai not moving from his close proximity to Chuuya, which regrettable made him think of the last time they were this close, Chuuya wishing he could take his useless brain out of his skull.

Now armed with alcohol both boys adventured out into the hall, quickly finding Mrs Miller due to her rather loud conversation. She spotted them quickly and waved them over, gushing about them to her friends she introduced one by one, Dazai already knowing all of them from his on-going research into the current residents.

“These are my newest favourite people, Chuuya and Dazai,” Mrs Miller introduced while doing jazz hands, clearly she had already been drinking.

Both boys exchanged pleasantries and shook hands where needed, Dazai flipping a switch and turning into the attentive husband he was pretending to be, snaking one arm round Chuuya's waist. Chuuya once again being reminded of last night, jumped slightly at the sudden contact, Dazai turned his head towards his ear.

“What are you so tense for, love?” he pulled away to marvel at Chuuya's slightly flushed and annoyed face, Dazai smirked and continued, “what’s suddenly changed for you to get so squirmy when I touch you?”

Chuuya was about to deny Dazai's question profusely before they were approached by Mr Miller, “boys it's nice to see you, Chuuya I have someone who’d like to meet you if you'd like.”

“Oh of course,” Chuuya said half revelling in the fact that he could escape Dazai but also looking at him for approval in case he'd deduced out this was a terrible idea, Dazai gave him a knowing look telling him to go on.

It dawned on Chuuya that this was only the second time they hadn’t been together in the last 5 days, ew.

Chuuya was led over to a young woman, likely around his age, who had a matching set of ginger hair.

“Kiera this is the young man I was talking about.”

“Hi there, nice to meet you,” the woman shook his hand, Mr Miller directed the conversation for a little, filled with small talk before getting to the point.

“Alice here has been a star in a few of our movies.”

“Oh, um, interesting,” this had caught Chuuya off guard.

Why does everything with them have to involve sex, one conversation that’s all I want

“This is kind of embarrassing to admit but the second you walked through the door,”

Oh shit, please no

“I couldn’t help but notice how well kept your hair is, it's no secret that we have similar hair but yours looks healthier than mine has ever been and my boss encouraged me to ask you for any pointers.”

Thank god I thought she was about to ask me to join her in an adult film where they were both related or something

Chuuya chuckled, “why thank you, you understand something my idiotic husband never will, that you need to use more than 2in1.” Chuuya went on to list a few tips as the girl intently listened, clearly mentally jotting down notes.

“Who is your boss anyway, have we met?”

“He's a business partner of mine but you have yet to meet him,” Mr Miller confirmed as Kiera pointed to a table in the distance.

Chuuya looked over to find Mr Jefferson, a round man cackling amongst a group of men a few women dolled up sitting on their laps.

Of course the porn addicts would be working with a pimp

“He likes it when our hair is soft, hence him allowing me to come over and ask.”

Chuuya was ready to march right over to that scum bag and deck him square in the face, he against better judgement refrained from doing so.

“You'll have to introduce us at some point,” Chuuya continued as he looked over the table, eyes landing on someone he seemingly recognised.

On the seat right beside Mr Jefferson Chuuya found a man that he was certain worked for the port mafia, in fact they'd attended the same meetings before, not very often but enough for him to look familiar.

Why is one of Mori’s top men here, oh no, he could unintentionally reveal who we work for and that we’re not actually here on holiday, I have to talk to Dazai

Simultaneously Dazai was having a conversation with Mrs Miller, the woman was most definitely tipsy but was still very much aware unlike she had been the night before.

“I'm assuming things got rather steamy last night.”

“When isn’t it”

“Ha true it's the first time I've ever seen you both like that though.”

“Well yes but what was different about last night than all the others?”

“The way you were both all over each other, we weren’t surprised when you excused yourselves early.”

“I may have drunk a bit too much, care to go into just a tad bit more detail”

“oh my don’t tell me you forgot, well allow me to fill you in. He was on your lap, his hands in your hair and you both sucking each other’s faces off, nothing unusual, for a second there we thought you both may have been asexual or something but we just want you both to know that you shouldn’t feel uncomfortable to kiss in front of us, I have a gay cousin in Germany, really we aren’t homophobic in the slightest, in fact you should really join us in one of our more steamy events,”

Dazai was only half listening, his brain had seemingly exploded half way through Mrs Miller's little rant.

Images rushed back into his head, ones he had thought were a dream, the phantom feeling of hands in his hair.

“Really?”

“Oh my, this information seems to be new to you, look I don’t remember much either but I wasn’t drunk enough to forget you both making out 5 feet away from us but did you forget like, everything? No wonder your husbands seems madder than usual.”

“I should probably go and apologise.”

“I assure you drunk sex is sometimes the best but eh you do you.”

Dazai rose from the table, saving himself and Chuuya seats by placing the paddle between both chairs, he went off into the direction he'd thought Chuuya had gone, finding not only one ginger blob but two.

“Excuse me can I borrow my husband for a little chat please, do you know where the restrooms are?”

Kiera trying to be helpful answered Dazai even though they hadn’t yet been introduced, “the main toilets are through that door and that one over there but – if you're looking for a more private place then I'd suggest that door there, it takes you into a corridor full of unused offices.”

Are all these people horny as fuck?

“Perfect,” without giving Chuuya a chance, Dazai steered them towards the last door the woman had mentioned that was tucked in one corner almost unnoticeable, exiting into a very dimly lit hall, when the doors shut almost all of the background noise was lost.

“Good thing you pulled us away, I need to tell you something, there’s a man-”

Chuuya could see in his face that something was different, as soon as they got into the empty hallway Dazai blurted out,

“WE KISSED??!!”

Chapter Text

“WE KISSED??!!”

Chuuya stared blankly at Dazai before he took off running, Dazai was stunned for a moment not expecting Chuuya to bolt but he quickly chased after him, his leg length advantage meant that he caught up quickly, short distances Dazai would always win but if it came to long distance running Chuuya would leave him in the dust.

He grabbed onto Chuuya's hand and pulled him into a side room he assumed was an unused office, caring very little to check if it was empty.

They stumbled into the dark room, the only light coming from a window on one side that let in the moons glow, Dazai dragged Chuuya until they were fully in the room and the door had closed behind them. Chuuya felt his back hit against a floor to ceiling bookcase on the right side which prompted Dazai to stop pushing and instead facing him dead on.

“Chuuya.”

“What do you want me to say, yes Dazai we kissed.”

“And you weren’t planning on mentioning this?”

“Why the fuck would I?”

“Why the fuck would we kiss?!”

Both boys began to raise there voices, the heat of the moment causing them to forget all about the large group of people gathered down the hall.

“If you didn’t get black out drunk you would remember that it was your idea since ‘the Miller's were catching on’.”

“No wonder you were so snappy today, you're pissed.”

“What does it matter, you don’t remember and I'm doing everything in my power to forget, let’s just leave it at that.”

“Sorry to disappoint but I sure do remember.”

“Don’t fuck around dumbass I know you're just saying that to piss me off.”

“Nope, I remember you on my lap, your hands in my hair and your lips-”

“Shut the fuck up,” Dazai smirked down at Chuuya, doing the exact opposite of what he asked.

“I had my hands under your shirt with your back arched-” Chuuya clamped his hands over Dazai's mouth, easily done as Dazai was towering over still trapping him against the wall in case he ran again.

“Were you lying all morning to mess with me? You remembered this entire time!” Dazai used one hand to pull Chuuya's hands down.

“Bzz wrong again, I thought it was a dream until Mrs Miller confirmed otherwise.”

It was Chuuya's turn to smirk as he looked dead into Dazai's eyes and lifted up a cocky eyebrow, “you dream of me kissing you?”

Stunned, Dazai took a step back, “don’t change my words, I simple thought it was a very bizarre nightmare, in fact it's the first time you’ve appeared in my dreams without me killing you. Besides, that was a pretty lame excuse.”

“What?”

“The Miller's, really? Plastered Mrs Miller and stoic Mr Miller were suspicious of our relationship, next time all you have to do is ask.”

“It was your suggestion moron, you clearly haven’t remembered everything.”

“Oh please, you think I haven’t noticed you looking at my luscious lips all day, feeling withdrawal, ask nicely and I might give my little bitch another smooch as you enjoyed it so much the first time.”

The room was suddenly engulfed in the familiar red glow of Chuuya's ability, he swung at Dazai's face with little to no warning, him somehow managing to dodge the close ranged attack barely. The surrounding items in the room started to shake in place, the desk in particular making quite some noise as it shook from side to side as Chuuya got ready to send another first Dazai's way. This time Dazai took a big step back, causing the momentum of Chuuya's fist to fling him forward, losing his footing slightly which Dazai took advantage of, grabbing Chuuya's wrist and pushing his entire body back against the wall.

“Shhh Chuuya you're being too loud.”

The once floating contents of the unknown room dropped back to the floor, “it's fine who the fuck will hear us out here and who the fuck are you calling a bitch.”

“Chuuya, Dazai, was that you guys, are you alright?” a voice called from outside, it was quiet meaning that it must be at the end of the corridor by the door they'd entered through. The voice belonged to Mrs Miller who was surely being followed by her husband and maybe even a couple of her friends.

“Shit look at what you’ve done.”

“What’s the problem?”

“The problem is look at this place, you’ve knocked books off the shelves and things off the desk how will we explain this? Actually how the fuck are we going to explain why we came all the way out here?”

“You're supposed to be the smart one, figure something out,” both boys quickly spoke in hushed voices, knowing that the unwanted guests were closing in.

“It's Mrs Miller right, she probably thinks we’re in here making out or worse.”

“Have you learnt nothing dickhead.”

“What else are we going to do, we can't blow our cover we’re nowhere near catching the killer.”

“Oh stop being a baby, come here,” Chuuya begun to ruffled up Dazai's hair slightly.

“Well that doesn’t look believable at all, we've been in here almost ten minutes.”

“And how else would you make it look like we’ve been making out?”

“Dazai, Chuuya, it's not long left till the auction starts.”

Chuuya watched as Dazai contemplated for a second, then seemingly coming up with something, he grabbed both of Chuuya's shoulders and looked him in the eyes.

“Chuuya please don’t kill me.”

“What, why-”

The next thing Chuuya knew was Dazai's hand bolting towards his tie, loosening it with ease and leaning his head down, before Chuuya could react he felt warm lips press against his neck. He let out a small gasp as Dazai began to move his lips in a kissing motion.

“D-Dazai?” there was a catch in Chuuya's voice as he felt Dazai begin to suck, it was a weird sensation that he wasn’t used to however it wasn’t exactly unpleasant.

As Dazai increased the pressure on his skin, Chuuya grabbed a fistful of Dazai's suit, feeling his face flush at the suction on his neck.

“That’s enough.”

“Are they here yet?”

“What? No not yet I can hear them a bit further down the hall.”

“Then it's not enough,” Chuuya felt himself get pushed into a new direction, after a couple of steps his back connected with the office desk, Dazai's head dipping back down to a new section of his neck on the opposite side. The heat of his lips once again connected with his neck, this time Dazai licked around the area causing Chuuya to shiver and hold onto the desk behind him with both hands, while Dazai's hands stabilsised his head with a hand on his cheek.

Chuuya was well aware that this was an act as Dazai dramatically swept items off of the desk, pushing them away as he pushed Chuuya further onto the table, along with the approaching noise of Mrs Miller who’s loudness worked to their advantage.

“Boys are you in there?”

The final touch, Dazai unbuttoned a couple of Chuuya's buttons revealing his collarbone which he latched onto, a noise releasing from Chuuya's throat that he'd never heard before, he clasped a hand over his mouth refusing any more moans from coming out. Dazai nibbled across the bone and sucked creating yet another mark as the door behind them was opened revealing a couple figures standing in the dim light of the hallway.

“Hate to interrupt, and trust me I want nothing more than to watch you both go at it, but I'd hate if we all missed the auction.”

Dazai lifted himself away from Chuuya's nape and turned to look at Mrs Miller and Kiera who had promptly turned around as soon as she saw what they'd been doing, considering she was a sex worker it was somewhat unusual for her to turn away with a shy blush.

“Sorry about that, I'm sure you know that sometimes you just can't help yourself.”

“Oh trust me I get it, any who since you're both now aware we’ll see you back in the hall”

“See you in a minute,” Dazai gave a polite reply, relieved that they had them convinced, he knew that if they had faked anything Mrs Miller would’ve sniffed it out since her whole job revolves around the act of lust.

“You said you were bad at acting but they ate that up, the noises were a great touch chuu-” Dazai's eyes finally lay back on Chuuya who was now practically laying on the desk, the top half of his shirt was unbuttoned and three red and purple blotches now littered his pale skin, his face just as red as he pant in the hot room. Dazai gulped harshly eyes wide in surprise, he hadn’t been able to see this view without the dim light coming from the hallway, Mrs Miller having left open the door like a mother.

Dazai still didn’t move from in between Chuuya's legs until Chuuya had caught his breath finally briefly looking at Dazai after having covered his eyes with his forearm.

“Get the fuck off me.”

Dazai scrambled back as he watched Chuuya pull himself off the table, the glow of the hallway lighting him up just enough to look over Chuuya's disheveled body.

“I … don’t know what that was, I didn’t intend to – I've never done it before so I didn’t know – I thought you were faking.”

Dazai continued to watch as Chuuya took himself over to a mirror on one wall, looking over the hickeys before buttoning back up his shirt and tying his tie, pushing his hair back to a neat style all in silence.

Chuuya was avoiding looking at Dazai and continued to do so by going around the room and levitating all the items that had fallen over back to their rightful places.

His chest burnt, two emotions, one he was accustomed with, rage, the other, something he had never felt, a need to continue what was started, and if he ever felt that again he would have to kill himself because clearly he wasn’t thinking straight.

Pushing his emotions down as much as he could, he thanked himself for wearing his gloves, finally turning round to Dazai.

“Your life depends on whether they can be seen.”

“The shirt covers them now but tomorrow hey maybe your new chocker will hide um some of it?”

“Bold of you to assume you’re gonna to make it to the end of tonight.”

“Ok it's fair to say I didn’t exactly think that through,” Dazai straightened Chuuya's tie closing the gap between them, “but hey at least I didn’t kiss you this time.”

“And you never will again.”

“I really wish that were the case, the slug sure is slimy but to keep up appearances we must do what’s necessary and I will go as far as necessary to bring this monster to justice even if it means sleeping with-”

“Oh shut up.”

“Actually why did you want to talk?”

Chuuya's mouth fell open, “oh god you moron I completely forgot, augh I could punch you, there’s a man with Mr Jefferson who works for Mori, he could reveal everything, he knows our real identities.”

“That’s… really not good. Can we call Mori?”

“There’s no time, the auctions starting.”

“Then we’ll have to lay it on thick.”

“What?”

“Come on lets go, no time to waste.”

“But we haven’t solved our problem,” Chuuya called after Dazai who didn’t turn back, with one last deep breath to forget the feeling of Dazai's lips on his neck, Chuuya followed his out.

They both emerged back into the large hall together, the lights had been dimmed and people were starting to take their seats, they made their way through the growing crowds until they found their way back to their saved seats at the Miller's table. The large round table fit them, people they had already been introduced to and even new comers, casual conversation batted from person to person, Dazai using his customer service voice to charm his way into the conversation with no suspicion. Chuuya not yet perfecting this skill made do with just listening in, now trying to forget about two Dazai annoyances rather than just one.

The lights soon dimmed entirely, signalling the start of the auction, the red curtain was pulled back revealing a flamboyant man who introduced himself as Tommy, seemingly a well-known man as everyone started to woop and cheer before he explained the rules of the auction.

“To bid on something raise your paddle which will bid €5000 but if you wish to raise the amount higher than this, call out the desired amount. Each item will be shown while I explain its significance, please do not call out until I start the bid on that item and please no arguing. Now shall we begin.” The man waved his hand beside him as a skimpy dressed lady pranced out holding a covered item, placing it down on a table centre stage and pulling off the red silk revealing the first item.

“Starting off with a banger, we have an Egyptian artifact that is rumoured to be created by an ability user which turns people into the owner’s slaves, this is if you can figure out how to use it, it's a gamble that could yield high rewards, let’s start at €100,000.”

Chuuya looked over to Dazai with a disgusted face, “they can't be foreal, right?” he whispered in Dazai's general direction as many people around them began to frantically bid, the price raising dramatically in seconds.

“You'd be surprised the amount of items that come from ability users, you remember the whole reason why Atsushi was targeted by the port mafia was because supposedly he could lead people to some special book, who knows what is rumours and what’s not.”

“I can't think of any other examples though.”

“At one point Mori wanted to fund a project to see if he could weaponize my ability.”

Chuuya frowned in disbelief, “that’s not even possible.”

“€957,000 going once, going twice… sold to the gentlemen with the number 63,” Chuuya had barely had time to turn back around to the stage before his head was whipped back to stare at Dazai with his mouth open.

“Who has that amount of money to spend on a hunch?”

Mrs Miller giggled quietly at Chuuya's rushed gasp having caught her attention, “don’t worry not everything is based off of folklore.”

“The next item is a diamond necklace coming all the way from Rome which has been rumoured to be worn by the queen of England and Michael Jackson.”

Chuuya raised an eyebrow to Mrs Miller, “ok that’s a bad example but just wait they have some delightful items.”

The next few items consisted of military weapons smuggled from different countries and a holiday home in Antarctica shown through pictures on a screen that was wheeled out, all being sold for very large amounts of money.

At one point a fight did in fact break out over a painting of a woman who would interact with you, created by a speculated ability user known as Banksy, a couple of men both wanted it to tell the painted woman to do some questionable things, until an art enthusiast managed to snag it for almost €10 million which had Chuuya choking on his drink.

“There seems to be a lot of items that involve abilities, is this place rather accepting of it or just like to buy their items?”

“Bit of a mix to be fair, as people here come from all over the world, some just like to own supernatural like things while others really don’t have a problem with ability users, I'm sure there’s some in this very room.”

This time the curtains at the back of the stage were pulled apart as a large tank was driven forward and began to spin round in a circle where it stopped on a platform, the curtains closing behind it as the man explained the weapons the tank had and what speed it could reach. With every new item came a brand new price range, never knowing if it would sell for €50,000 or €50 million, the tank having just sold for €30 million.

Once sold, the tank was replaced with a sports car, “this bad boy is a Bugatti La Voiture Noire, collectors will know that this is a must have, do I have any takers for €5 million?”

For this particular item Mr Miller joined in on the bidding, Mrs Miller egging him on when the price increased to €20 million and them finally winning the back and forth, them sharing a passionate kiss when Tommy moved onto the next item, they weren’t the first, many couples were celebrating their purchases with rather enthusiastic PDA. Thus reminding Dazai to appear as a doting husband and wrapped an arm over Chuuya's shoulder who luckily refrained from shoving him off and decking him in the face when Dazai began to play with his hair.

“Let’s bring out a smaller item shall we, here we have a religious chalice from Spain.”

That sold for €30,000

“Here’s a box of cigars rumoured to once belong to Arnold Schwarzenegger”

That sold for €192,000

“This pot may look underwhelming but it contains tablets made of ground down gold that will make your urine sparkle when you pee.”

Mr Jefferson brought that for €54,000, Chuuya shivering at the thought of what he'd need that for.

Next there was a suit of armour, a plane, a handgun and a cool looking jacket all going for a variety of prices, Chuuya was now only half interested as the amount of crazy shit up for sale seemed never ending, each item taking close to 15 minutes as Tommy insisted on giving each item a detailed description.

“Next ladies and gentlemen we have a Kawasaki Ninja H2R motorbike, this bad boy wasn’t even manufactured for public road use but here we have a Mirror Coated Matt Spark Black with a Liquid-cooled 4-stroke In-Line Four with Supercharger engine.”

Chuuya was practically drooling, suddenly sitting up to goggle at the bike that was brought up through a hole in the stage floor onto the jet-black marble floor, spinning around on a pedestal.

Dazai smiled fondly at Chuuya's fanboy behaviour.

“It has a 14,000 rpm and Brembo Brakes, now that everyone’s gotten a look let’s start the bidding at €50,000.”

A couple of people raised their paddles and the price rose to €60,000, Dazai took a look around before lifting his arm off of Chuuya's shoulders who gave him a brief annoyed look before returning his eyes to the shiny bike.

Dazai nonchalantly reached for their paddle and raised it before Chuuya knew what was happening.

“To the gentleman in the back €65,000, will anyone go €70,000.”

Chuuya's mouth was wide open as he watched Dazai's hand lower for the time being.

“The fuck are you doing?” Chuuya whispered through clenched teeth.

“My dear husband has never looked at me the way you look at that bike.”

“€75,000 going once-”

“Don’t you dare.”

Dazai's hand raised again, revealing his paddle to the stage.

“We have €80,000 will anyone go €85,000?”

There was only one person left bidding besides Dazai, he hesitated before raising his own paddle.

“Dazai this is your chance to back out.”

Dazai smirked and squeezed Chuuya's worried cheeks with his free hand, “nah.”

He raised his paddle one last time, “€90,000 going once, going twice…. Sold to paddle number 24.”

Chapter Text

Everyone around their table congratulated Dazai on his purchase while Chuuya stayed frozen with his mouth open, unable to grasp the fact that Dazai had just brought him a €95,000 motorbike with money they definitely didn’t have.

The auction continued for another hour, bizarre items being sold left and right, while Chuuya sat in a daze, after it had registered in his brain he lent down to rest his head on Dazai's shoulder, making a mental note to berate him thoroughly later.

“Thank you everyone for joining us for another auction, as always we don’t know when the next one will be as acquiring these items are far from easy but we will keep everyone updated. If everyone who purchased an item please stays, you'll either be given your item now or the larger ones will be arranged with you to be delivered to a particular location or picked up from one of our private garages or warehouses.”

“Welp that’s our cue, up you get love, lets go get your present.”

Chuuya grumbled raising his head, “you're an absolute fool.”

“Not happy with your gift,” Dazai held out his arm for Chuuya to loop his arm through.

Begrudgingly he did, “you, are, an, absolute, fool.”

“You keep saying that darling but surely you should be thanking me.”

“I might faint.”

“Come closer to me then dearest I’ll catch you.”

 “Tone it down a bit,” Chuuya whispered into his ear, “and maybe I won't kill you.”

“So no kisses to thank me?”

“You should be asking for more than kisses,” Mrs Miller cackled as she walked past them, her too clinging onto her own husband’s arm.

“I ought to put you down that’s for sure.”

“What’s the big deal, you like the bike yes?”

“Yes Dazai of course I like the bike it is quite literally the best thing that’s come from this hotel but that is not the point. You're forgetting that this is all an act, we aren’t rich, we aren’t married and we don’t buy each other gifts,” Chuuya berated through grit teeth.

“No time like the present.”

“God you are insufferable, answer the question.”

“I have my ways, even you don’t know all my secrets.”

“Uh huh,” Chuuya rolled his eyes but continued to stride along with his arm linked in Dazai's, “you're soooo mysterious.”

Both boys followed the crowd to a back room where people were either being handed their items or staff were assisting them with moving them to their rooms. Some, like the Miller's, were told that their vehicles were in a garage at the side of the hotel.

When it was Chuuya and Dazai's turn, they were handed two sets of keys after Dazai had put in his details for payment (which were actually Mori’s), one set of keys opened their designated garage while the other were the keys to the bike, Dazai handing these ones over to Chuuya who began to look over them in awe, delicately turning them around in his hand like they were precious.

“It's rare that we see new faces around here, planning on staying long.”

“Thinking about sticking around till the end of the month, that’s if we don’t get bored.”

“I wouldn’t say this place is boring, heck that’s why I'm still hanging around, the mystery of who will die next is quite thrilling.”

Is everyone in this place a sadist?

Tommy cocked an eyebrow at Chuuya who was still admiring the glossy black keys.

“Heh you'd think I never buy him things with the way he stares at them.”

“Eh as long as I get paid, buy him as many gifts as ya like.”

“Riiight well thanks and see you around,” Dazai bid farewell, steering Chuuya in the direction of a new hall, Mrs Miller already insisting that they attended the after party.

This turning out to be more like a club than they had been expecting, the room was dark with flashing coloured lights illuminating different areas, loud music blasting as people did one of four things, danced, drunk, drugs or sex or as close as you could get to it without removing clothes.

“Stick those in your pocket, don’t want to lose them.”

Both men walked over to the bar, each grabbing a drink and trying to find an area where someone wouldn’t knock them out of their hands.

“Do we really need to be here?”

“We still haven’t figured out a way to get closer to Mr Jefferson and either warn him or arrest him.”

“They're over there, Dazai the mafia member is right next to him, there’s no way he won't recognise me and then come up and talk, our cover will be fucked. We were literally in the same meeting a month ago, he's in charge of off shore operations, his names Jake or maybe Jack.”

“We’re using our real first names so if we make it believable, he could really think that we got married and are here just enjoying ourselves on our honeymoon.”

“That’s impossible, anyone who’s ever seen us together would never believe such a thing.”

“How often has he seen us together?”

“Not much I suppose but I know what your thinking.”

“Look Chuuya, I'm sure you're glad that I had forgotten and for a moment I too enjoyed the ignorance but we have to keep this up.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, I'm not kissing you Dazai, I know you just want to tease me when we’re back in London but this is going too far. Just gonna boast to the notebook geek that you’re not only a womaniser but also managed to get me to kiss you whenever you called, well it ends here.”

“Chuuya no no, this is for the mission, if that mafia member believes that we aren’t here on our honeymoon everything comes to an end when he reveals our true identities to his friends, including the very man we believe to be murdered next or be funding the murders.”

“This still doesn’t fix our problem of not being able to warn Mr Jefferson.”

“As you can see loads of people are nonchalantly around him, all conveniently making out. We've done it once already, how hard will it be to do it a second, we go up and literally sit next to him on that sofa to make out.”

It looked as if Chuuya was going to scream bloody murder, his face practically twitching in annoyance. He abruptly turned on the spot and made his way back over to the bar, by the time Dazai followed he had already ordered a second drink having just downed his first. As Dazai came up beside him thinking it was a good idea if he too got some alcohol in his system, Chuuya grabbed his wrist.

“No shots.”

“I want to forget again.”

“Nope I swore I'd never let you take shots again while we still had to keep up this stupid cover.”

“Is whiskey ok, we have to at the very least act drunk to make it seem like it were a coincidence that we ended up by him.”

Chuuya rubbed the bridge of his forehead and through gritted teeth grumbled, “fine, while you're at it get me another, it's going to be once again a long night.”

Seeming satisfied with the amount of drinks they'd chugged in the last half an hour, they walked away from the bar.

“This is far too obvious we can't just walk over to him,” Chuuya had to shout over the loud music blasting from several speakers but even then he wasn’t sure if Dazai could hear him.

Turns out Dazai had heard him as his solution to their problem was to pull Chuuya closer to him by his waist, swaying his hips as he began to somewhat dance.

“Dance with me Chuuya.”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“Don’t be a buzz kill,” Dazai began to sway back and forth in time with the music, forcing Chuuya to move with him.

“This isn’t dancing.”

“You just had to ask,” Dazai grinned moving away from Chuuya and releasing his waist so that he would instead use his hands to perform the cringiest thing Chuuya had ever seen, he wanted to run away right then from the second-hand embarrassment as Dazai began to wave his hands and spin his body around as he so called danced.

“Nope nooo stop that, go back to before,” Chuuya forced Dazai to stop by looping his arms around his neck bringing him back towards his body, he moved them both in the direction of where Mr Jefferson and the mafia man were sitting, surrounded in woman who surely were paid to be there and worked for Mr Jefferson, they stayed there for a few minutes to ensure they looked nonchalant.

“A little closer and we’ll spring our trap, are you thinking what I'm thinking.”

Chuuya used one of his hands behind Dazai's neck to push his head down to look at him, “this better work.”

“Do you trust me?”

“No matter how stupid your plans are, have I ever not followed them.”

“Please don’t bite me.”

Dazai almost silently begged as he turned around and pulled Chuuya with him by the small of his back, taking a seat on the opposite end of the sofa Mr Jefferson and a couple of woman were occupying alone and pulled Chuuya onto his lap who sat propped up on his knees.

Knowing that eyes were now on them they closed the gap, their lips colliding like they were long lost lovers, Chuuya's hands easily finding their way into Dazai's hair as Dazai took control of the kiss, pulling Chuuya in with both hands cupping his waist and back. Chuuya sat taller than Dazai which was definitely a different experience, kissing down into his lips both moving rhythmically, their lips parting as Chuuya gasped when Dazai's hand connected with skin. He had slowly been working his hands under Chuuya's shirt and now began to move his slender fingers up his sides and back, tickling in a way that made Chuuya hot rather than want to laugh.

Even with his eyes closed Chuuya knew he had everyone else’s attention; they were far from the only ones who were making out but no one had gotten this close to Mr Jefferson like an unspoken rule they'd broken. With their lips now disconnected Dazai went for Chuuya's neck once again, which he'd never admit but Chuuya wasn’t unhappy with this development. With his mouth open as he pant he rest his cheek against Dazai's forehead while the other nipped at the thin skin, his eyes locked with Mr Jeffersons who was currently ignoring the mostly naked woman around him and instead was looking intently at Chuuya.

Remember act drunk, act high, get their attention and make them believe

Chuuya wiggled his fingers like a wave towards Mr Jefferson who smirked, Chuuya could’ve thrown up but he knew that this is what they wanted, his attention was drawn back to Dazai when he nibbled on Chuuya's ear lobe, breathing into his ear and whispered with a hot voice, “they believe you’re a slut, you’re playing your part well but I'm sure you can be louder than that,” Dazai teased as he licked the helix of Chuuya's ear, pulling Chuuya's head back to his lips with one hand at the base of his hair.

Unfortunately they got more into it, Chuuya momentarily forgetting why they even started this as he readjusted on Dazai's lap, disconnecting from his lips for a moment to move his legs so that one was either side of Dazai's as he straddled him bringing his lips back, biting on his bottom lip as Dazai watched him, running his hands up and down Chuuya's legs, pausing to squeeze his thighs.

With this new position their chests were pressed together, Chuuya was leaning his arms on the back of the sofa as his lips smashed into Dazai's, both fighting for dominance as their kiss deepened and got progressively wetter.

It only dawned on Chuuya to stop pressing their bodies together when he felt his and Dazai's crotches grow in warmth and size, Chuuya suddenly pulling back to stare at Dazai with wide eyes.

“Is the alcohol starting to wear off? I can help with that or of course if you want something stronger?”

Both boys turned to find Mr Jefferson staring straight at them, while the mafia man did everything he could to hide his face, seemingly he believed their act and didn’t want them to recognise him from ‘work’.

“It's probably the drugs that have him tweaking, not that I mind, he gets so clingy.”

Getting his attention was where the plan mostly ended, Dazai was going rogue while he indirectly encouraged Chuuya to pretend that he was off his rocker.

“Saw you with Hernandez, he's both a great partner and a competitor. Looks like your plaything likes his products.”

Well that’s just great, he thinks I'm what? A prostitute? Dazai's personal sex toy? I can hear Dazai screaming at me to go along with it god I bet he's loving this

“Pretty little thing isn’t he,” Dazai used Chuuya's hair to pull his head back to kiss along his neck, causing stifled noises to escape Chuuya's mouth, for all Dazai knew this was an act but Chuuya still hated the fact that they were being watched.

How they were going to discreetly tell Mr Jefferson to not get murdered he didn’t know but instead noticed the way Mr Jefferson was looking at him instead of Dazai who was the one conversing.

“Is he for sale?”

Dazai pulled away from Chuuya's neck, clearly just as shoked as Chuuya but doing very well to hide it.

“I've got plenty of whores here, all of them for sale if you want to do a little swap.”

“Hm I dunno, this one’s awfully sensitive,” Dazai bucked his hip up, causing Chuuya to lift slightly and slide back to resting chest to chest with a little gasp, Chuuya could now rest has head on Dazai's shoulder, hidden from view so that he could whisper in his ear.

“You're getting rather into this but I swear to you if that man touches me I'm crushing his windpipe.”

“I'm not into men but yours looks rather slutty, look I have some unique merch, you into teenagers, pregnant woman, I can knock them out if you want ha as if half of them aren’t already high out of their minds.”

“Never mind get me in a room with him I'm gonna make this fucker bleed.”

Dazai chuckled and turned his head to the side, kissing Chuuya on the cheek before saying, “I'm just going to reject him, we can come up with something else.”

Dazai started to turn his head back round before Chuuya cupped it stopping him in his tracks, “Dazai, get me in a room with him and I’ll warn the prick and then we can be done with this, if he dies we know it's not him and I'm sure no one will be sad.”

“I'm not happy about this.”

“I won't let him do anything.”

Dazai turned to Mr Jefferson, “got a private room? You have 10 minutes.”

The man grinned, oozing such disgusting intent, “that’s plenty.”

Dazai began to rise from his seat bringing Chuuya forward with him, delicately removing one leg at a time from either side of Dazai's lap until his feet were on the floor and Dazai was standing close at his full height.

“My husband will surely explain his rules when you get in, if he can talk.”

Chuuya hadn’t yet decided how he was planning on warning Mr Jefferson and how he was going to stop the man from pouncing him.

“Oh husband ay, look mate I ain’t gay but lucky this thing has a slutty waist otherwise I'd have you both removed for doing such disgusting things in front of me.”

Dazai raised an eyebrow but continued to follow and lead Chuuya with him to a side door in a new area of the hall that was less busy.

“Here we are, can this whore even hear me, knowing Hernandez’s stuff he might be completely out of it.”

“Who knows, just don’t give him anything else, he's still plenty horny with this stuff.”

“Aye you got it.”

Chuuya's body was practically engulfed in the larger man as he draped an arm around his shoulders and dragged him into the room, Chuuya catching one last look at Dazai's scowling face before entering a basic room, likely meant for meetings on any normal day. Mr Jefferson stopped moving Chuuya leaving him dazed in the middle of the room while he flopped down onto the large sofa in the middle of the room.

He snapped his fingers trying to gain Chuuya's attention, who lazily looked over at him, some would believe he were just stoned but he was in fact fighting against his dignity to continue to pretend to be high, “strip for me pretty boy, let’s see some skin.”

Chuuya bit into the side of his mouth to stop him from hurling every swearword in his vocabulary, keeping his face neutral he began to unbutton his shirt that was already untucked thanks to Dazai getting handsy.

Keep it up, you can do it, just slip him the note to scare him into thinking he's a target

The shirt slid off of his shoulders while he mentally screamed at himself.

Look somewhat ‘seductive’ whatever the fuck that is, hood your eyelids, run your hands over your chest, god it's colder in here than in that hall, thank god it's dim if the lights were on I'd have blown the cover already by him noticing me pulling a face

Mr Jefferson started to unbuckle his belt and pulled down his trousers to reveal his boxers, using his palm to push his clothed dick back and forth.

I'm going to throw up

“Give us a spin,” Chuuya slowly spun around rubbing his hands up his own body, “good boy,” Mr Jefferson was now fully beating his meat with no shame.

“A tattoo? It's rather large to be a tramp stamp, well plenty of room to shoot a load on.”

Keep it together Chuuya you're a port mafia executive, you’ve been on loads of undercover missions this is just like all of them

“Come ‘ere pretty boy and take some of this, all my ladies take it, I tell people it's safe not that the affects will every really wear off, nothings better than a sex toy with a mushy brain,” he cackled, pulling out a bag of pills.

Chuuya's eye twitched as he grew closer, how does he get out of this? When he was in arm length of Mr Jefferson he reached out and pulled Chuuya the last distance by his arse, groping it in the process.

“I'd think you were a woman with that much meat on ya ass,” Chuuya was in between Mr Jefferson's legs, if nothing more happened then he could manage but there was no way this creepy, teenage selling pimp was going to just jack off at the sight of his bare chest and a single squeeze of his arse.

“Come now off with the rest of these pesky clothes, you know what, don’t bother I won't last much longer, kneel baby girl.”

Before Chuuya knew what was happening he was pushed so his knees were on the floor and he was face to face with Mr Jefferson's fully exposed dick, rapidly being pumped by his own hand, Mr Jefferson watching him intently as he panted harshly, a hand sneaking down and pinching one of Chuuya's nipples, "open your mouth sissy."

He snapped, faster than the speed of sound Chuuya had pulled his concealed knife out of his concealed ankle holster and stabbed it into the sofa right in front of Mr Jefferson's dick, the movement in front of him had stopped, the man looking down in shock at how close a knife had just appeared next to his cock, both hands shooting up beside him.

Chuuya rose to his feet, his face red hot with rage, pulling the knife effortless out of the sofa and holding it against the man’s throat.

“Listen here you disgusting pig, I want nothing more than for you to be the murderers next victim or better yet for me to cut off your dick and drive it down your own throat but I don’t want my honeymoon to be dampened by another death, so you and your scumbag business is going to get the fuck out of this building or I will personally beg the murderer to torture you and shove a gem up your arse.”

“You whore, who do you think you're talking to, just fucking wait till I get my men in here, I'm a close friend of a mafia executive he’ll send an army of men to come and kill you,” Mr Jefferson spat after recovering from his initial shock and realising Chuuya wasn’t a doped up twink to fuck with.

Chuuya had enough of using words and instead decided to deck the man square in his face.

“You misbehaving cocksleeve all you're good for is riding my dick like a little bitch, I'm untouchable, no murderer can get close to me.”

This earned him another fist straight to the nose, it breaking on impact and spraying blood over both his shirt and Chuuya's still bare chest, screamed out in pain, “you could’ve been my property I could’ve sculpted you into something beautiful, something your so called husband could never do. once you were drugged up I could've taken you home. You could’ve been fucked by me every night and become a slave to my dick like every other female I've ever sold- AGGGHHHH.”

Chuuya had plunged the tip of his knife into the head of his dick, red ozzing from where white normally would.

“You're gonna regret that, I hit the panic button about 50 seconds ago, meaning you have about 10 left to live,” Mr Jefferson chocked out through gritted teeth.

He was right, a single moment later the door burst open and in flew the mafia man they had noticed before, followed by a couple of subordinated Chuuya also kinda recognised.

The mafia man however didn’t move any further, eyes wide as he stared at Chuuya.

“What are you waiting for you fool? Shoot this cum slut.”

The man didn’t move and continued to stare in disbelief at Chuuya, someone that ranked much higher than him in the mafia, before seemingly making up his mind on what he was going to do, he bowed at Chuuya with his subordinates rushing to copy the movement before hurrying back out of the room just as quick as they had burst in.

“Where are you going Jack come back here and protect me, we had a deal you fucker.”

Chuuya lifted a finger up to his lips signalling to the man to keep quiet about what he'd just seen, with one last bow in Chuuya's direction Jack slowly shut the door behind him, leaving both men in silence, Chuuya smirked and lifted his fist for another blow.

A few minutes later Chuuya had decided that he’d had enough fun beating this man to a pulp and backed away from the bloody and bruised man.

“Now do us all a favour and don’t get killed and if you tell anyone about this or if I even see you again, I will bring your life crumbling down, understand?” the man let out a pained noise as Chuuya crossed the room to retrieve his discarded shirt and tie.

Chuuya pulled open the door to find Dazai leaning against the wall right beside the door, his eyes closed but his signature smirk plastering his face, at the noise he walked over to the doorway and draped his suit jacket over Chuuya's shoulders.

“Come along darling I think we've had enough fun for one night,” he turned his attention to the man sat in the room and called in, “I hope the 10 minutes were worth it.”

He steered them towards a side exit.

“Tch, you knew I was going to punch him.”

“I was counting on it, you can be quite intimidating when you're mad and a simple note in his pocket wasn’t going to cut it.”

“I hope he dies next.”

“Now that’s not very detective of you.”

“You forget, I'm no detective and just because we’re doing another stupid fucking mission together does not mean we are on the same side, I am a member of the mafia it's nothing unusual for me to hope someone dies.”

Dazai shrugged.

“Remind me why we warned that guy?”

“It should throw the killer off and buy us more time, he sticks to a strict plan of stalking for a week and then killing, if we change his target he won't have the necessary equipment or gem.”

“If this killer doesn’t do it then I’ll take the role as a vigilante myself and finish off what I started.”

“He must’ve really annoyed you.”

“Of course he did Dazai, for starters he *gag* wanted to cum on my tattoo.”

“I told you it was a tramp stamp - ow.”

Chapter Text

“I hope we don’t get a water bill because I’m gonna need three showers from just looking at that pigs dick.”

“You saved a life tonight.”

“Yer by sending him to a hospital.”

“Aww see you do care.”

Chuuya huffed but continued to stride forward, “what's the rush little one?”

“I think I might actually be sick.”

“The all-powerful Chuuya is defeated by male genitals.”

Chuuya visibly shook, looking a little pale.

“Shrimp I was joking, don’t actually throw up.”

“It was terrible Dazai, the way he looked at me, I could tell that if it weren’t me, horrid things would’ve happened in that room.”

“But it was you and you're fine.”

“But if it wasn’t. Think of all those girls who are still in his grasps being abused every day.”

“It almost sounds like you want him to die.”

Chuuya never turned to look at Dazai instead continued at a fast pace to their room, quickly letting himself in and rushing to the bathroom, not quite repulsed enough to physically be sick but his skin was burning up. He hurriedly ran the tap to splash cold water against his skin, not looking up as he heard the door he had flung open close and Dazai approach the bathroom, hovering in the doorway not knowing what to do besides watch Chuuya continuously splash water on his face before leaning against the sink with both arms on either side.

“I did say we could’ve come up with something else, any other plan.”

“By then it would’ve been too late, hopefully we’ve thrown off the killer.”

“Or we've found him,” Chuuya briefly gave Dazai a side eye, “depending on who’s killed next we could maybe move Mr Jefferson to the top of the suspect list.”

“You mean if I'm killed next.”

“Well yer but that way we’d catch the killer as they'd be coming for you, especially if he's not working alone.”

“Why don’t we do that then, make ourselves targets, get this god awful thing over and done with.”

“There is no guarantee that it will work and we'd only have one shot as by drawing so much attention to ourselves the likelyhood of our covers being blown is very high so that plan has a high risk of failing. Especially if we don’t draw the killer to us but other guests who wish to kill off other rivals.”

Chuuya made a gagging noise.

“What did I say?”

“I imagined his dick again.”

Dazai let out a loud surprised laugh at the absurd sentence, Chuuya not having as much fun, frantically started to drink water from the tap, gurgled it and spit it back out.

Dazai still not knowing what to do, busied himself by talking, “according to the killers schedule, tomorrow is the last day before he strikes again, these next couple of days are crucial, we have to look out for anything suspicious and suspect everyone. Hopefully we were right in thinking that Mr Jefferson would be the next target and either brought us some time or will cause the killer to panic and become sloppy.”

Now Chuuya began scrubbing his tongue vigorously with his toothbrush, squeezing his eyes shut as Dazai continued to ramble, “Obviously we don’t want someone to die but if there is a fresh crime scene we can actually collect our own evidence and potentially nip this all in the bud by finding something the police are missing.”

“Now it sounds like you want him to die.”

“Well it looks like you're trying to drown yourself.”

“If it will erase these images from my head I welcome death with open arms.”

“Not before me you don’t, I haven’t been trying to kill myself for years just for you to steal suicide away from me, it's my thing.”

Chuuya rolled his eyes as he wiped his face with the hand towel and made his way to exit the bathroom before being blocked by Dazai.

“Did you listen to what I said, we need rest, that is unless you're actually going to vomit in which you can sleep on the sofa, I’ll put up with a slug that hogs the covers but I will not tolerate a queasy slug.”

“You must be drunk if you think I'm the one that steals the covers, you practically wrap yourself in them,” Chuuya complained half-heartedly batting Dazai's arm from blocking the doorway and making a beeline for the bed.

With his mind racing from the events that had occurred only half an hour ago, Chuuya shut his eyes, forgetting entirely about reconstructing his pillow wall until the bed dipped slightly beside him as Dazai climbed in. Even with exhaustion chipping away at him, Chuuya's mind never let up, everything suddenly coming crashing down, the reality of there being so many lives on the line and them having sole responsibility of catching the killer. But it wasn’t only that, this entire hotel was full of sadists and sociopaths, even after they catch the killer how could they just leave without dealing with the rest of the scum residing in this place. What was he thinking, he was a member of the mafia, what does he care about what goes on here? But he got a taste of it himself, what it felt like to be nothing but a piece of meat that belonged to someone, is that how all those poor women felt every time they were around Mr Jefferson, feeling like there was no escape, what if Mr Jefferson had expected him to fight back and countered him, would he be made into a toy, belonging to that disgusting man for the rest of his life?

“Would you have come in?”

Chuuya almost couldn’t help himself from voicing the quiet concern out loud, he had no idea how much time had passed but surely Dazai was asleep, this was stupid.

“If I had thought anything had gone wrong,” Dazai's voice made Chuuya jump, “no matter how small,” Chuuya turned to look at Dazai, “I would’ve put a stop to the whole thing,” it was too dark to see but Chuuya knew they were looking at each other, “but you're Chuuya, a wielder of gravity, the brawns of this operation, you're untouchable.”

“But here I'm not, I’m a tool to catch the killer, a pawn unable to use my abilities without completely blowing our cover.”

“And that’s why, I, the brains of this operation, have the job of planning ahead to ensure that you don’t have to worry about such trivial things, just focus on who to punch and when.”

“If only it were that simple.”

“Sleep now you silly slug and have happy dreams of wrinkly old men penises.”

Chuuya punched Dazai in the arm, something he wouldn’t have been able to do if he had constructed his wall of pillows, and rolled over to distance himself from Dazai's laughing.

-

-

-

The next morning Chuuya woke up alone, pealing his eyes open to find Dazai on the sofa at the opposite side of the room, it made Chuuya feel bad, he wasn’t waking up early to piece together their murder board but if Dazai needed his help he should wake him up too, not slink off at who knows what time to then be annoying all day because he's tired.

Chuuya sighed as he glanced at the clock seeing that it was 10am.

Maybe I should start setting an alarm

He crawled out of bed, paying very little attention to the growing theories on the cork boards, Dazai would end up rambling about them sooner or later no need to read them himself.

“Oi greasy, I'm getting in the shower and then it's your turn, no excuses.”

Dazai didn’t acknowledge Chuuya much besides a sigh of his own. It didn’t take long for Chuuya to wash himself down, being thorough to remove the sweat produced from the annoyingly hot Europe sun. When finished he roughly dried himself off and chucked on his boxers, knowing full well Dazai wouldn’t have moved meaning it was safe to go and find a t-shirt.

He was right, Dazai's head was buried in a pile of paper work, his glasses on the tip of his nose as he looked down at more random guest files, Chuuya opened the wardrobe and rummaged around for a little before pulling out a t-shirt he assumed was his, one thing he had to get used to while sharing a room with Dazai was that things weren’t going to be organised and it would be lucky if he could find anything in the clutter they had accumulated.

“Getting rather bold, aren’t we?”

Chuuya turned to Dazai, shirt in hand, to find the brunette leaning over the back of the sofa and wiggling his eyebrows at him, Chuuya retaliated by flinging the small towel around his neck straight at Dazai's head, knocking off his glasses and causing the other to giggle like a little girl as he scrambled to catch them as they fell off his nose.

“You'd think we were married.”

“Don’t act like an idiot, we've seen each other shirtless plenty, you're not forgetting about all those bloody missions are you?”

“I'm the victim here.”

“Victim?”

“My poor innocent eyes have been subjected once again to Chuuya's bare skin, flaunting his slutty tattoo.”

Chuuya rolled his eyes, maybe I should’ve just told him about the tattoo in the first place at least then he wouldn’t have made such a big deal about it and brought it up every chance he got, Chuuya complained to himself as he pulled the white t-shirt over his head and turned to the mirror to put his choker back on.

“And now you're dressing yourself in my clothes, I don’t feel safe in the same room, I'm going to sleep with Leo from now on.”

“Ugh what do you want moron, me shirtless or not, make up your mind,” Chuuya threw back off the t-shirt.

“Ahhh nooo my eyes, put it back on it's not like I'm using it.”

“Speaking of, is that the same shirt you wore last night? There’s no way you're getting out of showering now.”

Before Dazai could begin his dramatic baby act, there was a knock on the door, Dazai climbing off of the sofa and made his way over to the door while Chuuya quickly put the rather baggy t-shirt back on.

“Oh look it's Leo,” Dazai pulled open the door, “Leo we were meaning to talk to you, it's been a while since you’ve come to the ro- who’s she?”

“This lady was waiting downstairs for you both, when you didn’t answer the phone, I was sent up to escort her to you.”

“Dazai you didn’t tell me there was a call, I was only in the shower for like twenty minutes.”

“Actually there were several but I was busy.”

Chuuya shook his head as he too now approached the door to see who this woman was.

The woman who stood before them had long brown hair, hiding most of her face, the parts they could see were plastered sloppily with makeup, doing a terrible job at hiding the bruises that scattered her face, she could barely be called an adult, maybe 20 years old.

Leo was avoiding eye contact with both them and the woman, “um have fun I guess, I’ll come and change your sheets in a couple hours,” and with that he sped off.

“The fuck?”

“Is there something you need dear?” Dazai turned on his fake manners as he looked the woman up and down, knowing him, looking for concealed weapons.

“I'm here as an apology,” the brunette mumbled.

“Excuse me?”

“A peace offering, a gift, a prize.”

Both boys looked at each other and back at the woman who hadn’t yet looked up at them.

“I think you might have the wrong room.”

Suddenly the woman whipped her head up and surged forward storming her way into the room by putting her arms on both of Dazai's shoulders and pushing him backwards, he began to fumble back almost falling over several times from tripping over his own lanky legs.

Chuuya who was momentarily stunned by the sudden movement only watched the scene unfold, more baffled than threatened. In no time Dazai was pushed backwards onto one side of the bed all the way at the headboard, sporting a surprised look the entire time.

“Um miss, seriously allow me to lead you out, you really have the wrong room.”

Her attention was spun back round to Chuuya, moving just as quickly back to him and slamming the door shut.

“My name is Lucy and I was sent by Mr Jefferson, he told me to service you as a sign of no ill will.”

Now Chuuya was angry, not at this poor woman but at that god awful man that had once again crossed a line.

“Ah I see, but no really we don’t require ‘servicing’ please just leave and tell him that as long as he stays away from us and this hotel there should be no further problems.” Chuuya became acutely aware of the massive murder board that took up practically half the room as he tried to hrry her back out of the room.

The woman completely ignored this, instead busying herself by emptying the contents of her handbag which consisted of various sex toys onto the bed.

“There’s no need to be shy, I'm Mr Jefferson's best merchandise, he insisted on sending only the best to make up for last nights actions, I'm well equipped to meet your needs.”

Chuuya looked over at Dazai for help but he seemed just as baffled, seemingly surprised at how he had been manhandled to the point where he had travelled across their entire room.

“You're useless,” Chuuya hissed in his direction.

“She's surprisingly strong.”

“It's too early for this shit, lady really please leave and take those with you.”

“Which one of you are Chuuya?”

Neither of them had to answer, Dazai smirking at Chuuya gave it away.

“You are my primary customer, your husband can also participate but I intend to keep my attention on you,” the woman explained on auto pilot, seeing this as just another job as her eyes locked onto their forgotten complementary hamper, grabbing the fluffy pink handcuffs they had both forgotten about, she quickly made her way back over to Dazai, grabbing his hand and connecting one cuff to his wrist and the other to the metal neck of a wall mounted lamp.

“For now he can sit back and watch, I don’t want him interfering till I'm ready for him.”

Oh god she's serious, do I just knock her out? Do I shoot her?

“Dazai help me you fool, I don’t hit woman.”

“Can't you see Chuuya dear, I'm helplessly handcuffed to our bed,” Dazai waved at him by removing his hand from the cuff to then just reattach it to his hand, of course he could pick the lock, it was just a toy, Chuuya was sure that if it were him he could just use his strength to release the mechanism if he pulled hard enough.

“Seriously miss, I'm not into any of this really so if you could please release my husband.”

“I've been doing this for a long time and no one has ever not enjoyed being watched by their partner as they get pleased.”

“No, no I assure you I really am not into this, you can just leave right now and tell Mr Jefferson that you did what he asked and he'll never know you didn’t.”

“I gathered from the fact that you have a husband that you were gay but I can turn you straight for a day, trust me I'm good,” she was gradually closing the gap between them, “I have bondage and plenty of toys, you can pick what I wear or if you'd like to try something on-”

“No that’s enough,” Chuuya pleaded with his hands outstretched.

How was this girl completely oblivious to the murder board behind him, it's like she had zeroed in on him and only him.

“Fine you can wait, this’ll loosen you up,” the woman turned her attention to Dazai, who now wasn’t so amused by the display as Lucy once again made her way over to the bed, he couldn’t uncuff himself in front of her or it could look suspicious.

With her attention back on Dazai, Chuuya hurried to turn around the boards just in case she decided to actually take interest in them and read their contents.

“Looks like I’ll be starting with you after all, you present yourself like a man who swings both ways so you should be easier to convince into accepting your gift, come now tell me what you're into and even better tell me what Mr Chuuya is into, he is my primary client after all.”

When Chuuya turned back round he found the woman crawling to the middle of their bed, sitting on her knees and pulling her lowcut t-shirt over her head, she had her back to him but Chuuya could still see she wasn’t wearing a bra, Chuuya seeing that Dazai had turned his head to one side as to not look at the now semi naked woman.

She continued her crawl across the bed and buried herself into Dazai's neck, she was there for about five seconds before she was violently flung backwards tumbling off the bed and onto the floor. Chuuya had made his way across the room and grabbed her by under one of her arms, both her and Dazai now looking very surprised.

“Hands off my husband you bitch.”

Chuuya turned his attention back to Dazai who was giving him the biggest shit eating grin, oh god no.

“Is my cute little husband jealous, you want me and my sexy body all to yourself.”

“Stop that.”

“Admit it baby~ you're mad that she was going to have sex with me.”

“Dazai seriously I’ll leave you cuffed there for the rest of the day.”

“You know that won't keep me from you.”

Bickering between them made it easy to forget there was a prostitute trying to force them to have sex, but she didn’t stay on the floor long.

“There must be something I can do, hand job, blow job, heck I can fist you if you'd like.”

Dazai cackled as Chuuya was getting increasingly flustered, wanting this whole interaction to end.

She tried again, stumbling back onto her feet, “please if I don’t service you both he’ll surely-” she became desperate, suddenly climbing onto Chuuya's lap and grinding against his thigh, this time it was Dazai who yanked her back by her hair.

“I think it's about time you leave.”

This time the woman listened, scooping up her emptied bag contents and hurrying towards the door, looking like she was going to cry, seemingly this was the first time she'd been rejected.

“Just tell him you sucked us off,” Chuuya called after her.

Dazai appeared besides Chuuya, seemingly having enough of being cuffed to a lamp and let himself out, they both watched the young lady run to the lifts before closing the door.

Chuuya turned to look at Dazai who looked ready to laugh.

“Dazai that was not funny. That poor girl was sent here by that cock sucker Jefferson, now I have to kill him.”

Dazai chuckled, “and I may not stop,” Dazai was turning to walk to the cork boards to turn them back around before Chuuya caught a glance of something, pulling Dazai back to face him.

Chuuya's hand went up to Dazai's neck, Dazai surprised by the sudden contact of Chuuya's hand to his arm stayed still to see what Chuuya was doing. With one hand he pulled down Dazai's shirt collar revealing a red lipstick stain where the woman had gone at his neck, seems like she had made contact with the shirt at least before she was thrown.

“Take this off,” Chuuya tugged at his collar harder pulling him down further.

“What?! Chibi don’t tell me you weren’t joking and that you really are just after my body.”

“Shut up idiot,” Chuuya began to unbutton Dazai's shirt, he seemed genuinely taken aback by this which was an expression that no one ever saw on Dazai's face.

“Chuuya?” Dazai questioned as Chuuya's hands swiftly made their way up his shirt leaving a trail of open buttons, when he reached the top he pulled the material off his shoulders, revealing Dazai's bandaged torso in full view as he completely removed the shirt. Dazai didn’t resist but was definitely surprised, unaware of what was happening, without paying him much attention Chuuya looked over the lipstick stain on the shirt that was now in his hands.

“You're really not helping yourself, now I'm just going to tease you more for being jealous.”

“We can't have the other guests thinking that you're cheating on me, we’ll have to burn this.”

“Or they’ll just think we’re into some kinky shit, after all red is your colour.”

“I'm not going to wear lipstick, now since you're already half way there, go and shower.”

Dazai started to whine, seemingly forgetting everything that had just happened, “but it takes so long to take off and put on my bandages.”

“I'm not going to be seen with a stinky mackerel, if I must I’ll help you with your bandages.”

Dazai continued his protest by sitting back down on the bed, “ow- what did I just sit on?” Dazai sitting up slightly pulled out from under him a pink ball with a string on one end, he stared at it for a second trying to figure out what it was before throwing it in surprise when it started to vibrate.

Both boys turning to look at each other in shock and then started to laugh.

“We can't tell anyone about any of this, actually we can't tell them anything that happens here.”

“That will only do so much, it won't take long for Ranpo to figure out everything.”

“He can't seriously be that good, he can't figure out things that we don’t tell him, especially if he's not even here.”

“You'd be surprised.”

Chuuya sighed, realising from this conversation that they could be here for another three weeks.

“This is gonna get old quick, I'm already fed up, can we just blow up the building and be done with it.”

“And blow up your gift with it?”

“Gift?”

“Oh Chuuya you wound me, I spend all that money just for you to forget at the smallest inconvenience, I bet you prefer Mr Jefferson's gift, maybe I really should get a refun-”

“OMG MY BIKE, get in the shower right now,” Chuuya actually resorted to pushing Dazai towards the bathroom, Dazai doing everything to make this harder, putting his full weight into Chuuya's hands as he lent back towering over Chuuya.

“Move it you waste of bandages.”

“You remember when we snuck into Mori’s office to use his computer to watch that Disney film with the blue alien?”

“Lilo and stitch? What does that have to do with anything- oi stop leaning back further.”

“Gravity’s increasing on me.”

“Don’t you dare.”

With one final push, Dazai had both of them collapse on the floor, him laughing from his spot on top of Chuuya while he struggled to push Dazai off of him.

Chapter Text

“Hurry up idiot.”

“Chuuya's so eager, acting like a child, so cute.”

“Stop teasing and start moving your legs.”

“I did warn you that this’ll take a while.”

“Move over then dickhead and give me a roll.”

Dazai hesitated, the last time Chuuya had helped with his bandages would’ve been years ago when Dazai was still in the port mafia, for Chuuya, helping with the bandages meant nothing but for Dazai it was something deeper.

“I suppose I can trust you with something easy,” Dazai held out his arm attempting to act nonchalant.

“Like it's hard,” Chuuya held one end of the material at Dazai's wrist, an area with many visible scars and began to wrap the roll round his arm, slowly and meticulously.

“Not too tight.”

“Is it?”

“Well no.”

“Then shut the fuck up.”

Dazai did momentarily stop talking, watching Chuuya's hands carefully wrap round his arm, gently hiding the bumpy scars from their view, reaching half way up his bicep before tying off the end and looking back up at Dazai all smug at his handy work.

“You can stop looking so proud of yourself, it's not that neat.”

“Don’t lie, yours are only a little better than mine and you’ve been doing it for years, now stand up.”

“Stand?”

“To do your waist idiot, chop chop let’s go.”

“I can do that myself.”

“Yer and it'll take you an hour, now you hold one end and spin in a circle and this’ll be done in no time.”

“Ha silly slug, that wouldn’t work but seriously I'll do this myself, start getting your shoes on,” Dazai took the roll of bandages out of Chuuya's hands and pulled off his temporary t-shirt.

Chuuya watched as Dazai moved his long fingers nimble across his own pale skin, brushing against his still slightly visible ribs, expertly covering the scars that littered them.

“Are you going to ogle at me the entire time?” this caught Chuuya off guard, he hadn’t noticed he was watching, it was soothing, satisfying even, something he'd never admit as he rushed to turn his head.

“As soon as you're done put on a t-shirt and lets go,” Chuuya complained over the noise of Dazai laughing.

“Very well, since Chuuya's been so well behaved.”

“When will you stop treating me like a dog? It's really getting old.”

“As soon as you stop acting like one, I can see your tail wagging in anticipation from here. Yes, yes I'm coming.”

“Uggghh finally.”

They began the walk down to reception, where Dazai inquired the location of the garages, they were pointed in their direction, being instructed to walk past the tennis courts and they'd come across a long building lined with garage doors. It didn’t take them long to find it, walking from one side to the other before finding the door that matched the number on their key.

Dazai unlocked a safe box on one side and pulled out a garage door remote and began to open the massive metal door which slid upwards and disappeared as it lay flat against the ceiling. This revealed a very large area, spot lights illuminating the marble floors and the raised black centre that elevated the bike a foot off the ground, with the power on the platform began to slowly spin showing off the bike in the white lighting.

To say Chuuya was flabbergasted would be an understatement, he practically skipped towards the motorcycle, completely forgetting about how much Dazai would tease him for this later.

“Did you remember the keys?”

“Are you joking?” Chuuya replied rhetorically as he closed the gap between him and the bike, running his hands carefully over the black paint.

“Just look at those wheels,” Chuuya mumbled under his breath.

“Not going to get on?”

“Not yet.”

Dazai laughed at Chuuya's bewildered behaviour, “at least put the key in,” Dazai egged him on not knowing how long Chuuya would just stand there staring.

Chuuya stepped up onto the platform that Dazai had figured out how to stop spinning a minute before, he leaned over and turned the ignition. With the bike now on, a chain of LED lights glowed bright red as the light travelled from the key ignition down the seat and around the wheels until they all glowed, Chuuya revved the bike and the lights outlining the edges of the key components turned a purple, travelling from the handle down to the wheels with every rev.

Chuuya turned to look at Dazai with his mouth wide open, “it has LED light strips that change colour when you rev. Are you shitting me?”

Dazai chuckled, watching closely at Chuuya's bright eyes, seemingly enjoying Chuuya's excitement.

“No more waiting, let’s go for a drive.”

“Now?”

“That is why I wore leather.”

“So that’s why you're not wearing your hat, I thought it had lice.”

Chuuya ran over to a row of hooks on one side of the garage and pulled off two helmets and frantically headed back over to Dazai who was lowering the platform.

“What’s that for?”

“You're coming with me.”

“Like hell I am, you drive like a maniac.”

Chuuya thrusted the helmet into Dazai's arm and took his free hand, literally dragging him towards the bike.

“No, no, nope, nu-uh, not happening.”

“Stop being a pussy.”

“What, for not wanting to crash and burn at the hands of my mortal enemy?”

“You love to pick and choose when you're suicidal. Theres no reason for you not to ride with me.”

“Oh, hmm let me think, you go really fast, you’ve never driven in France, I'm not wearing the appropriate clothing, there’s no way I'm touching you, I don’t want you to be the last thing I see before I di-” Dazai was cut off when Chuuya threw his leather jacket in his face.

“Put that on idiot and stop complaining,” Chuuya's arms were now fully exposed having decided to put on a sleeveless t-shirt, but he knew they wouldn’t crash so he wasn’t bothered.

“That doesn’t fix every other problem I have with this.”

“I’ll go slow.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“We won't crash”

“You cocky brat, you don’t know that.”

“We won't crash,” Chuuya smirked over his shoulder, very confident in his driving skills even on a new bike, “now come here you pussy.”

Chuuya hooked one leg over the bike and sat forward in the seat, getting used to the position while Dazai cautiously approached.

“What are you waiting for?”

“The one and only time I've ridden with you I fell off.”

“Oh my god I completely forgot about that, don’t try to pin that on me bastard, I revved and moved forward a foot before you jumped off and that was years ago.”

“How do I even get on?” Chuuya hooked his helmet on one of the handles and twisted his waist round to look Dazai face on and held out his hand.

“Absolutely not.”

“Then get on by yourself.”

Dazai walked over and began to struggle getting his lanky leg over the bike while still holding his helmet, slipping and bumping his chest against Chuuya's back and clinging onto his shoulder, Chuuya stifling a snide remark not wanting to deter Dazai's approach.

“It fills me with confidence that if we do crash, Chuuya's arms will be shredded to bits. Why did you wear such a seductive top?”

“Oi you're the one who has my jacket, I'm surprised your lanky arms fit in it and this isn’t ‘seductive’ it's the only one that has a long neck.”

“It's about time you admit that you have a long neck but why start covering it now- ohhhh,” Dazai's face flushed slightly at the sudden realisation, he only allowed this since Chuuya's back was to him likely embarrassed as well at what they’ve been forced to do to keep up their cover. “Sooo they're still visible?”

“Dazai they're hickeys, they're red and purple patched on my neck, yes they're still visible, don’t pretend like you didn’t see them this morning.”

“I was too distracted with you putting on my clothes.”

Chuuya jabbed his elbow behind him giving Dazai a whack to the ribs which caused him to groan and rub his skin.

“If you keep that up I'm going to crash on purpose, enough yap I'm going to move put on your helmet.”

Chuuya put his on while Dazai scrambled with his.

“Wait wait wait,” Dazai called loudly so Chuuya would hear him through the helmets.

“They have shared microphones idiot stop shouting, what do you want?”

“Where do I put my legs.”

“Damn those long things, tuck them up behind you and do not drop them down, every time we stop only my legs will hit the ground.”

“Where do I put my hands.”

“Jeez do I have to do everything, do you see any handle bars?” Chuuya asked sarcastically as he reached behind his and found one of Dazai's hands, taking it and guiding it with his own gloved hand to his waist where he set it down, Dazai's touch light against his skin as he hesitated.

“You want me so bad.”

“I swear to fucking god Dazai, don’t hold on, fall off and die.”

“Do you even know what side of the road to drive onnnn whoaaaa,” Chuuya had accelerated and launched them both forward putting an abrupt end to Dazai's complaints and to his hesitance with holding onto Chuuya's waist. His arms quickly wrapping completely around Chuuya's middle as he smooshed his head against Chuuya's back as he hunched forward.

Their screams unifying as they flew off the hotel’s private road and onto the main road that they had originally driven up on their first day, Chuuya whooped with absolute delight while Dazai was gripping to Chuuya for dear life.

Chuuya was just driving in any direction, Dazai also having no idea where they were going as he hadn’t looked up for the past fifteen minutes.

“Come on scaredy cat, have a look around, it's so beautiful.”

Dazai didn’t move, if anything he squeezed Chuuya harder, “I knew you lied,” Dazai mumbled under his breath something Chuuya wouldn’t have been able to hear without their helmets broadcasting their words to each other.

“It only feels fast because you're hunched over and can't see around you, when you can see the houses and stuff it doesn’t look as fast, come on just take a peak, you'll see.”

Dazai cautiously raised his head, slowly opening his eyes and taking in the scenery speeding past them.

“Wow.”

“Told you.”

“No wonder you like doing this.”

Chuuya hummed in reply as they continued to drive aimlessly around the beautiful city roads, they were driving in silence enjoying the wind against their exposed skin which combated the warm summer sun, that was until Chuuya felt Dazai's hands slip away from his waist.

“Oi bastard that’s dangerous, don’t let go.”

“You said it yourself, we won't crash.”

Dazai lifted his arms into the air, hanging his head back as he too whooped.

“But you can still fall off.”

“What if that’s the idea?”

It didn’t take long for Chuuya to bring the bike to a complete stop, kicking up the stand and turning around to look at Dazai, pulling off his helmet.

“Don’t be a fucking idiot, I'm not dragging your arse to hospital.”

“You think I'd actually try to kill myself by throwing myself off your motorbike?” Dazai asked removing his own helmet.

“I don’t know what to think anymore Dazai, the you I used to know wouldn’t hesitate but now you spend more time joking about ways you will kill yourself than actually doing it but that’s worse as I never fucking know when you might finally grow the balls to throw yourself off a roof.”

Dazai sat and took the telling off, hearing the care Chuuya had locked behind his words before giving him a small smile.

“Your hair’s a mess,” Dazai commented softly, gently tucking a piece of his bright hair behind his ear.

Chuuya continued to fume but didn’t bat Dazai's hand away, “you know I hate these mood swings, pick one, are ya gonna kill yourself or not?”

“You know Mori, that crazy fool, once said something along the lines of ‘we were one soul in two bodies’ to be honest I dunno what he meant by that but I'm sure fate is stubborn enough to ensure I’ll only get to die when you're close.”

“Lucky me, now put your helmet back on and this time you don’t let go of me until we’re stationary.”

“Chuuya cares about meeee,” Dazai teased but still wrapped his arms back around Chuuya's middle.

This time Chuuya did a U-turn and began to head back the way they came, after thinking he'd gotten them lost, twenty minutes of driving in the direction he had thought they'd come, the hotel came back into view.

“Oops we never closed the garage.”

“And who’s fault is that.”

“You can stop holding onto me now, we've stopped.”

“Oh. Oi don’t change the topic,” Dazai whined as he pulled his arms off and held them up defensively.

Chuuya chuckled under his breath as he returned his helmet to the rack.

“This storage space is massive and there’s loads of lots.”

“This is a very luxury place after all.”

“This must be it.”

“Must be what?”

“Where the killer is storing his torture equipment.”

“That’s – how the fuck didn’t I think about that?”

“So, you're the brains of this operation ay?”

“Don’t get cocky, it won't happen again.”

“Something distract you?”

“Yes, the chibi acting all giddy like a child but you're right, however we’ll need to get a warrant and considering how many garages are here it could take a while, we may even need to call back home and see if they could pull some strings.”

“Or we just break in.”

“Nope.”

“Or we could ask the owner to give us access to everyone’s garages.”

“It would go against legislation laws and people’s privacy, they probably have a guarantee and an obligation to ensure the garages are safe and kept private, I wouldn’t be surprised if people cooked drugs in these storage rooms.”

“Or we ask Leo if he has access and can swipe any spare keys so we can start to look without anyone finding out. Time is crucial.”

“Hmm if we come across Leo we’ll ask, I suppose we still have some things to clear up with him.”

“Yer like apologising for undermining him and not giving him much to do even though he technically is a police officer.”

“I was more thinking about telling him that we didn’t actually order a prostitute but yer that too.”

“I completely forgot that he was the one who brought her to our room, there’s so much of this trip that I'm trying to block from my brain it's getting hard to think.”

“Don’t strain too hard, you're already lacking brain cells you shouldn’t burn off the rest of them trying to supress so many memories.”

“Maybe if you stopped doing stupid shit I wouldn’t have to supress so much.”

“And now it's my fault.”

“Come along dickhead we gotta find Leo.”

Dazai sighed going over to hang up his own helmet as Chuuya walked out of the garage, stopping outside and turning around.

“Oh and by the way.”

“Mmm.”

“Thank you for the bike, you were right, it is the best gift I've ever received.”

And he walked out, not wanting Dazai to see him while he processed the genuine gratitude.

-

-

-

“Leo how are you doing?” Dazai opened the door for the boy who walked in pulling along the food cart that held their sandwiches.

“Um good thanks I hope your morning was plesen- um – ah.”

“We didn’t order a prostitute, no need to act weird,” Chuuya called from inside the room.

“Oh, not that I'm judging but that is what I had thought happened.”

“Nah, Chuuya here got a little rash and beat up Mr Jefferson.”

“Mr Jefferson?! He's no longer at the hotel?”

“Nope, that’s why he sent that woman, to ‘apologise for the inconvenience with her body’,” Dazai visible shivered as he put air quotes around Mr Jefferson's intentions.

“That’s…disturbing. Why'd you beat him up?”

“A necessary evil to ensure he doesn’t return to the hotel.”

“He's not coming back?”

“Not if I can help it, he may be a piece of scum who apologises by sending his ‘best goods’ but we couldn’t have the killer claiming another victim even after that woman tried to rape us.”

“One step closer to cleaning up this place.”

“You'll be glad to know we have a new task for you”

“Sorry about the lack of stuff to do, we’re just used to working together and we kinda forget to divvy out the jobs to others.”

“In other words, me and Chuuya are the dream duo and you're third wheeling.”

“Ignore him, this trip has not helped with his ego.”

“We need you to try and get access to the records of who owns which garages and if there are any spare keys for us to gain access.”

“That’s risky wouldn’t it be better to get a warrant.”

“For that many storage units all under different names, it'll take a while and we want to do as much as we can while we wait, it'll cover our tracks.”

“Besides we’re hoping that we’ve thrown off the killer by taking away his primary target.”

“Makes sense, that'll give you more time to look over your suspicions while the killer tries to find someone else to target, that should bring the investigation forward plenty.”

“Exactly, this place is huge so we still haven’t seen the whole building and we’re hoping to get access to the blocked floor to try to figure out an entry point.”

“Well I’ll try my best but I'm pretty sure they're no spare keys to the garages, so you won't be able to look inside but I should be able to find a list of owners.”

“Fantastic, it's a shame that this place is infested in killers and drug dealers, it would be such a nice place to vacaay without investigating murders.”

“My mum loved this place back in it's prime.”

“And hopefully we can get it back to just a normal hotel.”

“That’s my goal- oh and of course becoming a better cop, but I better be heading off.”

“Oh, and by the way thank you for still making our bed and stuff, I think I'd die if I had to sleep in the same sheets every night with how little Dazai showers.”

Leo smiled leaving the room before turning one last time “if you guys didn’t do anything with that woman then why does Chuuya have hick-” Dazai shut the door abruptly before Leo could finish his sentence, they had to ensure his visits weren’t too long or someone would get suspicious, is what they'd tell Leo if he asked.

“Do you really think we've brought ourselves more time? When you think about it, todays been an absolute waste.”

“What do you mean?”

“What if Mr Jefferson was never the target, we could’ve spent today coming up with another plan instead of mucking around with some chick and riding a motorcycle, we’re fucking this up, they should’ve sent the nerdy kid with the glasses.”

“You're right we do have to get back on track but we couldn’t do much while we loaded more security footage and without going to the garages we never would’ve found where he was storing his torture equipment, I'm certain it's in one of them and sorry to break it to you but Ranpo is older than us.”

“By we you mean I figured out where he's storing his equipment and there’s no way that sugar toothed monster is older than us even with that brain of his, he definitely would already have this figured out.”

“Ranpo can only solve the case with the evidence around him and I think we can both agree that these crimes are practically perfect, no exit, no entry, no evidence, he'd had gotten bored as soon as it meant he had to find evidence himself. And besides all of our recon has helped us to both find potential victims and cross off those who definitely can't be the killers.”

“Huh? I haven’t been doing any of that, for me it could still be anyone.”

“Ah silly Chuuya, come along and allow me to demonstrate my massive brain,” Dazai led them both over to the crime board and presented a few files regarding guests at the hotel.

“Here we have Julie her husband and kids, she loves precious gems and has a personal vendetta against victim 2, Margaret Price for stealing a necklace from her a year ago in a hotel in Rome, she was present for the first three murders however her and her family left after the third body was found, even though she is currently here alone on a business trip, she wasn’t present for the other murders, she could have an accomplice who committed the other murders but after scouring the security footage she hasn’t had contact with anyone suspicious and has an alibi for the first three murders. That’s her, her husband and her kids all innocent, that’s four down.”

“Great, four out of a thousand.”

“Billy and his girlfriend were caught in a scam done by victims 4 and 5 one week before their deaths, the Rochford’s scammed them out of thousands, a perfectly reasonable reason to torture and kill them, however they're backpackers who had only been there for a week, literally being scammed on the first day of their holiday and being stranded there while they tried to find enough money to move onto their next country, that was until they were scared off by the Rochford’s murder, I'm sure they didn’t even know they were the ones responsible for the loss of all their money but like normal sensible people, when there’s a murdered you leave the place it happened.”

“You’ve done this for many people?”

“It's a slow and steady process and not viable to do for every suspect but so far I've been doing it with people who have had connections with the victims and proven them innocent. I've gone through about half of the guest profiles given to us by the police and agency, some only taking a minute while others require me to scour the security footage.”

“Well now I feel even worse, while you're waking up to do this crap, I've been asleep and even when I'm awake I'm not doing shit.”

“Don’t you worry your feeble brain my wittly Chuuya, you help plenty,” Dazai cooed as he squeezed Chuuya's cheeks just long enough for his to get a kick out of it without actually getting kicked, “now let’s go to sleep, I have a feeling tomorrow’s going to be hectic no matter the outcome.”

“I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that Mr Jefferson's gonna die.”

-

-

-

Chuuya once again found himself awake at a stupid time, feeling rather helpless and useless, still tired but restless he decided that it was time to shut his brain off and try to sleep but first he wanted a drink, maybe he was still looking for an excuse to stay awake longer and try to produce evidence from thin air but luckily he had left a glass on the stupidly tall cabinet next to the side cabinet, why he left it there and not next to him he’ll never know but there was no way he was getting up.

So with his arm stretched out he lightly pressed his finger tips to the cool wood, enveloping the room in a soft red glow as it travelled up the cabinet and found the glass he was looking for, in his weary state he could only float the glass down slowly, not wanting to spill any, while also hoping the glow wouldn’t wake Dazai, who he was assuming wasn’t crazy enough to wake up at 4am to look through guest files.

Good thing I'm not wearing my gloves, not that I've been wearing them much at all this week, it's been so long since I didn’t rely on them, if ever.

Simultaneously he felt movement beside him and was suddenly again in a pitch-black room. But if the mafia had given him anything it was reflexes. Estimating where the glass would be falling to he grabbed it as it connected with his hand still upright. He marvelled for a second at the fact that he caught the glass but then snapped out of it when he realised what had happened.

A pair of lanky arms had snaked their way around his chest, Dazai the bastard had clung onto him disabling his ability. Chuuya had given up building a wall between them every night, having bigger fish to fry then considering the fact that Dazai might cling onto him in his sleep.

He was disgusted, not so much at the contact against his skin but more the fact that he was enjoying the warmth Dazai's arms brought to him in the cooled room. It would’ve been incredible easy to untangle the arms and push Dazai back to his designated side of the bed but Chuuya was too tired to care. At least that’s what he told himself as he had one last sip of water, put it down on the floor and curled back under the covers with the addition of Dazai's arms and his face that ended up being pressed into the nook of Chuuya's neck.

Chapter Text

“DAZAI CHUUYA QUICKLY.”

Both boys were startled awake by Leo who burst through the door and ran to the end of their bed.

“Wha- Leo?” Chuuya was up in a flash as if he hadn’t just been fast asleep a second ago, already out of bed and miraculously now holding his knife.

“There’s been a murder” the boy took off running back out the door, just as quickly he entered.

“How did he get in here?” Dazai had shot up too but stayed in bed looking absolutely bewildered.

“A key obviously.” Chuuya half-heartedly answered while pulling on his jeans.

“Yer but he's never had one before, we've always had to let him in.”

“Stop thinking of unnecessary things and get dressed, he works here dumbass.”

“Yer it’d look weird if he came in whenever he wanted, don’t want to tip off the killer or the other guests that there's actually an undercover cop working here.”

Both boys hurriedly got dressed, now being able to hear commotion coming from surrounding rooms.

“God I hope that dickhead came back and got himself killed.”

“Yer probably but eh what ya gonna do about it, we did everything we did to deter him.”

“He only has himself to blame, I might even shake the killers hands when we arrest him.”

“Murder isn’t excused because the guy dead is bad.”

“You don’t even believe that Dazai so don’t spout that shit to me, now grab you're stuff and lets go.”

Even without the location of the murder victim, it was easy for them both to find it, a crowd of people were flocking around an out of order elevator just down the hall from their room. The doors were closed and police tape covered its width and buttons, Dazai asked a bystander why the lift was closed and they said that it was being held on floor 4 and police tape was covering every other floor and that people weren’t really inconvenienced as there were three plenty of other lifts but they were just curious as there were police all over reception and back on floor 4 so people had connected the dots.

“So, they killed our 7^th victim in the elevator, getting bolder. Surely that’s not good?”

“Or they fucked up, there are cameras in ever elevator although I'm assuming there's no audio it should show footage of the killing.”

“Wanna take the stairs?”

“It's about time we got a look at the notorious 4^th floor”

“Oooo so spooky, try not to piss yourself.”

As both boys jest, they made their way to the flight of stairs that they were pretty sure no other guest knew about as they were disserted, making it easy for them to walk down to the fourth floor and peak their head through the door with the help of Chuuya cutting the already existing police tape.

They spotted the chief of police, Leo and many other police members including crime scene investigators. Right before being tackled by security the chief spotted them and waved them over.

“Anyone see you come up here?”

“No, we made sure we weren’t being followed.”

“Good, same as Leo here, are you ready to see this, after all this is the first crime scene you'll be seeing are you ready? It's horrific.”

“Unfortunately, this isn’t our first, far from it actually.”

“Right then you know not to touch anything yet, I’ll let you know when we’ve finished photographing the evidence and then in a couple of hours you can enter to look for evidence, a fresh pair of eyes would be beneficial. For now, you can only look from outside of the elevator door.”

Both boys nodded and followed the chief down the hall, he waved for the police and SOCO members to step back for the boys to have a look.

Their moods instantly turned bleak, where they had expected to find the body of a fat evil man, they found a woman who had long brown hair, hiding most of her face, the parts they could see were plastered sloppily with makeup, doing a terrible job at hiding the bruises that scattered her face, she could barely be called an adult, 20 years old max. But now she was hanging from her arms and legs suspended in the air with her body almost split entirely in two from her vagina up, organs hanging out of her also being cut in two from the swift slice, several other cuts were over her body but mostly focused on her breasts, they were almost unrecognisable and falling off. A red glow radiated from the elevator, all of the lights and the back mirror had been drenched in blood

“It's the girl, lucy,” Chuuya whispered in disbelief.

“You know her?” the chief asked as he waved to a member of police to write down what Chuuya was saying.

“She was a prostitute working under Mr Jefferson, she came to us yesterday morning on behalf of him.”

“Hmm then maybe this is meant for you.”

Both boys looked round the corner of the open elevator doors to where the chief was pointing at one wall. painted in blood was a “Nice try” they followed the chief’s finger to the other wall where it said “death was the lesser of two evils”, the words flickered with the lights, this was clearly a message to them.

“So that means that the killer knows that someone is meddling and they also knew that someone forced Mr Jefferson to leave, meaning he likely was his target, knowing that he was truly evil and that’s why the killer then went after someone who worked for him.”

“Does that mean our covers blown?”

“No probably not,” Dazai brushed off quickly, answering Chuuya's question but not getting any further into it at this time.

“How would the killer have known she was a prostitute and working for Mr Jefferson?”

“Maybe because she was walking around with her tits out.”

“Dazai that’s not nice, have some tact, this girl ended up dead because Mr Jefferson sent her to ‘please’ us.”

“We had a gentleman who helped inspect the body to ensure they're not alive, although it's hard to believe.” The chief waved over to a man who was knelt on the ground over doctor equipment and currently taking off his stethoscope.

“Bruce?” the man looked around at the call of his name.

“Chuuya it's good to see you.”

“I'm sorry we have to meet like this.”

“There was nothing I could do, it looks like she's been split in half from her genitals up, died almost instantly from blood loss and well, all her internal organs being cut in half.”

“That’s awful.”

“Not that I'm displeased but how comes you're allowed in here?”

“Ah you see-”

“I bribed the guards, my darling has been very into crime podcasts and what better than the real deal.”

“Ah hello Dazai, that’s- sweet?”

“So how comes you're here? Did you bribe someone as well.”

“No, you see I was the only medical professional around so a young gentleman asked if I could look over the body to ensure there's nothing we could do, as you can see there was nothing anyone could do, it's been about an hour since she was found, I was about to head out while they collect evidence as I've already examined the body and told them what I found.”

“You found a very cut up body, what would your knowledge tell them?”

“Dazai cut it out, this is not the time for digs,” Chuuya hissed at him.

“Well actually it turns out that the only part of her body that wasn’t cut was her womb and her tubes were actually tied.”

“She was a prostitute it's normal for them to have their tubes tied, it's cheaper than condoms and birth control.”

“No I think you misunderstand, this was done after because the tubes have quite literally been tied into a bow but it has been done somewhat professionally even though crude.”

“So our killer has a sense of humour.”

“Dazai, take this seriously.”

The two couldn’t speak freely about what this evidence could mean as Bruce was there but it didn’t mean Dazai had to act so carefree, they were supposed to be your average couple on a honeymoon this stuff should be scaring them.

Leo pipes up walking over to them, “rumour has it Mr Jefferson spends most his money on abortions, not using protection as it's some men’s kinks and then terminating the baby right before the cutoff point.”

“Why wasn’t it him,” Chuuya whined under his breath so that only Dazai could hear.

“Well that’s an awful thing to know, I'm off before I hear anything else I don’t want to, my rooms always available if you need to talk, see you guys later.”

“His rooms always available?”

“Oh shut up, stay on topic, why were her tubes tied?”

“It's probably apart of his torture mentality, even though it likely wasn’t by choice she was responsible for carrying many children and then having them aborted, this is something the killer would see as wrong and torture her for, as evident from the focus of wounds inflicted around her genitals and breasts that were likely done while she was alive, being a prostitute was likely a sin she was being punished for.”

“I am no longer routing for him to kill, even if it was just for Mr Jefferson, this sick fuck has to be stopped.”

“Mmm sick is right, I have a feeling I know where we’re going to find the gem.”

“What have you found out about her?”

“Not much unfortunately, we only know her name thanks to you guys, she wasn’t technically registered as a guest at this hotel and it's not like she has Id on her, she was likely being prostituted since she was 14, and from what Bruce had told me it looked as if she'd been pregnant about 5 times.”

“So she really was a spur of the moment kill as we took Mr Jefferson off the playing board.”

“Meaning that we can't prevent murders by predicting who’s next because the killer will just change targets even if it does mean the kill is sloppy orrrr we could continue doing this and eventually it will be so rushed that he’ll slip up and give himself away.”

“We can't do that, we want to save as many people as possible by preventing him from killing not waiting for him to kill enough that he fucks up on one.”

“Then it's back to us figuring out who is the killer before more people die.”

“Where are the victim’s belongings? That could give us a lead, maybe he’s dumping them as it's impossible for there to be no traces of DNA?”

“He could also be storing it in those garages, Bernard we think we've found where the killer is storing the torture devices and now possible the victim’s belongings, we need a warrant to search every garage here at the hotel.”

“That makes sense but wow that will be hard to get, there are a lot of higher ups being paid off by a lot of different guests.”

“Figured as much, we’ll call our groups and see if they can get it any quicker.”

“Ok then, for now you boys head off, you can't stay here too long or people will start looking for you, I’ll send over the autopsy results when it's complete and all of the pictures.”

“Thank you but at some point we will come back to this floor to look at the past crime scenes and inspect the floor for entry or exit points.”

“As long as it's discrete, I’ll be sure to tell my men to let you in.”

Both boys bid farewell before cautiously making their way up the side stairs back to their floor.

“Are you really sure our covers aren’t blown, if so we should be preparing for the killer to attack us next.”

“No, we know for a fact that he's aware that someone is here and he assumes that we’re not much of a threat as we’d either be from the police who haven’t yet figured out anything or from the same group Mori’s men came from and he took them down no problem, this just means that the killer is far more informed then we had originally thought but that’s not the only problem, once the information about this crime scene gets out, which it will, the other guests will also be aware that someone’s meddling and assume it's the police meaning that everyone will be very vigilant due to the amount of illegal activities they could get done for.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning we gotta take this fake marriage to a whole nother level.”

“Surely it's already convincing.”

“But not enough for a bunch of drug dealers on edge.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I have a proposition.”

“Can't wait to hear this, gonna be fuckin fantastic.”

“Chuuya.”

“I know I know, it's for the missing, I can't have anyone else dying, spit it out.”

“We have to up our pda.”

“I suppose I could hold your hand more and maybe, yuck, smile at you.”

Dazai gave Chuuya a wonky grin before adding, “we’re gonna need to kiss.”

“Wha-”

“Like it's second nature, like we've never gone a day without kissing each other, like we are madly in love and can't keep our hands off of each other.”

“Whoa slow down there.”

“We aren’t children anymore Chuuya, kissing and stuff is a normal thing for people our age to be doing everyday, why can't be do it undercover?”

Chuuya closed the gap between them with a snarl, they had only reached the top of the stairs, not yet in their room where it would be safe to shout at him, “listen to me very carefully, I will do this for the sake of the mission but under one condition.”

“Yes dear, whatever would that be?”

“We never talk about this ever, no one can know, NO ONE, which means we only do it when necessary and in the view of others, as soon as this mission is over you will wipe your memory metaphorically and if you say one word about it I will find an ability user to actually do it, do you understand?”

“So feisty, like a cat.”

“Dazai!”

“Yes, yes I get it, now come along my little kitten we have cameras to check.”

Chuuya actually gagged.

-

-

-

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“God dammit, there's fucking nothing. The footage is gone, it jumps hours, every camera that would’ve picked up something.” Dazai slammed his fist on the table next to the laptop he was hunched over.

God his mood can switch so fast, is he on his period or what?

“So that means it’s someone with access to the security footage or they're definitely working with a member of staff or they are a member of staff.”

“Not all staff will have access, we should start by looking into security members.”

“And the owner.”

“Damn you're right, she could’ve given us access to the cameras knowing damn well they wouldn’t give us any information as she'd just delete the footage.”

“We can use that to our advantage, we look for every camera missing footage and we can see their route and maybe it will lead us straight to the culprit.”

Dazai stared at Chuuya slightly dumbfounded, “damn Chuuya you're on a roll, I take back one time I’ve called you stupid.”

“Eh I just think you're slacking and taking back one out of a thousand doesn’t mean much.”

Dazai sifted through the footage jotting down times and locations for every footage missing.

“Ok so we’re missing footage from reception, the elevators obviously which both take place at the same time but also the footage of her entering and leaving our room, which doesn’t make any sense because she must have been killed in the early hours of today but she left our room yesterday morning/midday, what’s the point of erasing that footage but not the footage of her walking around for the rest of the day?”

“That’s more helping us and also proves that the killer must have known she was in our room.”

“She went to many people’s rooms that day, it seems she had a list of people to ‘service’, maybe we can get a list from Mr Jefferson and it was someone she was going to see that managed to sedate her and drag her into the elevator.”

“Absolutely not, you go alone or not at all, I will not be able to stop myself from killing him.”

“Heh fair enough, we’ll ask Leo to when he gives us the list of garage owners.”

“For now let’s look for people that are on the cameras and then disappear, he couldn’t have deleted all footage of himself.”

“Maybe it's Bruce it's not like we've seen him around?”

“What is your problem with Bruce, I know you're smart but don’t let your emotions create something that’s not there.”

Dazai cocked an eyebrow at Chuuya's, “He always is seemingly first on the scene ‘making sure they're not still alive’ but this could just be a ploy so that he has an excuse when we eventually find DNA on one of these crime scenes and it turns out to be his.”

“Well yer but-”

“He seemed awfully quick to get all buddy buddy to you yet we never seem to see him until someone ends up dead or we’re in the middle of investigating a lead.”

“I-”

“Even though he acts modest he's a surgeon who has a permanent room in this place, he's loaded and can have just as much influence on staff with a well placed bribe as all the other guests”

“Wait-”

“Sure he said it himself, likely to not appear suspicious and look useful so that he's invited to future crime scenes, but what was done to that girl and the others required skills especially with tools, he's a surgeon he has those skills. So tell me, who’s the one who’s letting their emotions create something that’s not there.”

“Then what are we waiting for, if you're so damn sure why haven’t you had him arrested.”

“Because for now I can afford to trust your judgement when you tell me he genuinely seems like a nice guy but that is only until we find actual evidence on this guy rather than just theories but I’ll have you know that from now on I will be investigating him thoroughly no matter how much he butters up to you.”

“Ok fine I'm sorry, I get it ‘we can't trust anyone’ I just don’t want to believe that someone who shares the same morals as me can be such a horrific murderer.”

“You’ve had your fair share of horrific murders my partner in crime.”

“Shut up you.”

“You know it could be your lucky day, it may turn out to be that Mr Jefferson is still the killer, he could’ve killed her as she hadn’t done her job in pleasing us and that message was literally addressed to us rather than to the people they think are meddling.”

“At this point I hope it's him because then I could just kill him, oh- hey what’s that there,” the boys had been talking while going through more security footage, they had come across a random hallway where three men were talking discreetly, “that’s the man who works for Mori who was with Mr Jefferson the other night.”

“He definitely knows you're here, hopefully he isn’t telling everyone else that, see that man there, he is a member of staff but I can't tell who the other guy is.”

“It looks like they're handing something to each other, the man just gave Mori’s guy a briefcase, zoom in.”

“it's full of money, looks now he's passing something else over.”

“This must be to do with Mori’s business he was telling us about, something that he couldn’t have attention drawn to.”

“As long as it doesn’t get in our way the there's no need in looking into it, even though that item he's passing to mystery guy looks hella suspicious.”

“I have no right to go behind the boss’s back and stick my nose in his business.”

“Can't wait for those words to bite you in the arse.”