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Dazai's phone alarm went off at 6am, and he turned it off immediately. There was no electricity in his sea container, so he had to charge it at work, and he didn't want the battery running out. His home didn't have any windows either, so no light came in, and Dazai only knew it was morning from the clock on his phone. It was just another boring day of filling out forms at work, and yet he still had to be there on time and stick around for the whole day. Well, he didn't really have to technically. He could probably easily get away with skipping it, it wasn't like Mori would fire him or anything. Thinking about it, maybe he wouldn't bother. It was so much effort to have to get up and go into work just to sit around doing paperwork, what was the point?
Although, he had been looking forward to annoying Chuuya. He'd thought of some brilliant new insults, and he couldn't wait to see his face. Dazai was sure he'd be so annoyed. That would be fun. Maybe he'd go to work after all. Yes surely this was worth sitting through hours of paperwork for.
'Chuuya, guess what?' Dazai announced loudly, barging into Chuuya's office, which was next door to his own. They had used to have to share one, but since they'd got absolutely no work done, Mori had had no choice but to move them. Not that it had made much difference.
'Fuck off, you annoying sod.' Chuuya didn't even look up from his desk. How annoying.
'That's no way to greet your far superior and way taller partner.'
'You're not that much taller! And I wish I wasn't your partner!' Chuuya turned to glare at him. He was so predictable.
'You haven't guessed, how insulting. Well, then I'll tell you. I got up out of bed and came all the way here from my nice, comfortable sea container where I'd much rather be, just to annoy you!' Dazai said cheerfully.
'You shouldn't have.'
'You should be honoured! That I even deigned to notice such a microscopic creature as you, much less coming all this way just to annoy you. Isn't this the greatest event of your tiny life?'
'I'm not that small, you slimy waste of bandages.' Dazai narrowly dodged the pen that came flying at his face, but the second one hit him right in the forehead.
'Was that meant to hurt?' He scoffed. 'How pathetic, the tiny creature can't even use his rubbish ability on me!'
'I don't need my ability to beat the shit out of you!' Chuuya replied, coming forwards, but stopped and lowered his hands, looking out the open door behind Dazai's back. 'Oh, good morning, Ane-san,' he said calmly. 'How are you?'
'Good, thank you,' Kouyou replied, stopping in the doorway as Dazai turned to face her. 'I didn't mean to interrupt, please continue with what you were doing.'
'It's fine,' Chuuya muttered. They both knew that they'd be punished for fighting, and Chuuya also clearly respected his mentor. Well, if it stopped Dazai getting beaten up. Not that he would have, though, he could have easily avoided Chuuya's weak punches.
'Anyway, I've got to go,' Kouyou said. 'Wouldn't want to leave my interrogation subject waiting.'
'Of course not,' Dazai said politely. He respected Kouyou as well. Everyone did, they'd be idiots not to. Everyone knew how effective of an interrogaotr she was, and Dazai admired her for it. It was his sort of work as well.
He waited until Kouyou had turned and disappeared around the corner of the corridor before turning back to Chuuya. 'Where were we? That's right, you were failing to beat me up.'
'You just wait...' Chuuya scowled and rushed towards him, fists already raised.
'Why'd you even live in a sea container, surely you could afford a proper room?' Chuuya asked.
They were sitting in the break room on their lunch break, sprawled on sofas facing each other across a coffee table. Dazai was still sore from getting beaten up by Chuuya. After eight months of knowing and working with him, he was getting pretty good at predicting Chuuya's moves, and he wasn't a terrible fighter generally, but there was no way he'd beat Chuuya in a physical fight, or even manage to avoid him most of the time.
But, after Chuuya had beaten him up, his mood seemed to improve, and now they were sitting at their lunch break together, and Chuuya had asked an almost civil question. This wasn't odd, in their dynamic, and Dazai almost was beginning to wonder over the last few months if this was what having friends was like. It was sort of weird. Not that he'd ever admit to being friends with Chuuya, of all people. Maybe friends was something it was worth having, though.
'Of course I could afford a proper room, if you can. I'm far more senior,' he said, although he knew that they were actually paid the same amount. 'But why would I bother, that's so much effort, bothering with rent and tenancy requirements, and landlords breathing down my neck and knowing where I am every minute of the day,' he complained. 'Plus, why would I bother spending my hard earned money on that, when my sea container's perfectly nice.'
'Perfectly nice,' Chuuya snorted. 'You're just a lazy, paranoid bastard.'
'Well, I don't need all that fancy stuff like you've got. Why would I want to become posh like you?'
'I'm not trying to become posh!' Chuuya protested indignantly. 'My place is literally normal living conditions. And why wouldn't I want that, after living on the streets as long as I can remember?'
'Whatever. I reckon you just want somewhere with furniture so you can fit in.' Dazai sniggered.
'What, why'd I fit in with furniture?'
'Cause you're always wearing that ugly hat, anyone would think you're really a hatrack!' Dazai laughed hysterically at his own joke.
'What, is that meant to be funny?' Chuuya rolled his eyes. 'It's a bit rich coming from a bandage mannequin like you!'
'That doesn't even make any sense. You're so thick, do you just wear that hat to hide the fact that your head's empty?'
They continued their insults until Hirotssou came past and told them to get back to work. Dazai spent less than five minutes at his own desk before going back to Chuuya's office and throwing a balled up piece of paper at him just as he was holding an open ink cartridge. The ink spilt all over Chuuya's papers, and he scrunched them up and threw them at Dazai. They traded insults and threw stationary at each other, and made a total mess of Chuuya's office, until Chuuya noticed, and Dazai hurried back to pretend to work in his own so he didn't have to help clean up.
Dazai made his way through the dumping ground, careful to avoid the sharp pieces of rusting metal and spills of toxic chemicals that covered the ground. Not that he'd mind dying of tetanus or chemical poisoning, but he'd tried both before, and he hadn't died, it had just been really painful. Especially the tetanus, he didn't know what he'd been thinking, stabbing himself like that, of course it would be painful. And then Mori had even made him get a tetanus shot to stop him doing it again, as if he wanted to have a wound that painful again. The chemical poisoning hadn't been so bad to start with, but after Mori had given him the antidote after he passed out, he'd been sick for days. Dazai was sure he'd given a bad antidote on purpose. Chuuya had laughed at him so hard that time, it had been so annoying.
The sun had already set, and it was almost dark by the time he reached his sea container, and it was just a dark shape among the piles of debris, the dark blue paint and patches of rust just showing as black against the grey sky. Once inside, it was pitch black even with the door open, and he stumbled over a box and almost tripped while fumbling for the light switch. The battery powered lamp wasn't very bright, but at least he could see, and he closed the door and picked up the box he'd knocked over.
He didn't have much in his home, but he didn't really care. What was the point in having loads of stuff and a fancy house when you're just going to die soon anyway? There was a narrow bed, just a mattress and blankets on a frame of wooden pallets, at the far end, and a table he'd found in the dumping ground. It was an old desk, with the laminate peeling off and wobbly legs, and it just had the lamp and some piles of papers he'd dumped there and ignored, and books he'd stolen from the library to read. There were cardboard and wooden boxes of clothes and food piled on the floor, but he didn't have a chair, since the old one had broken and he hadn’t got around to finding a new one. Maybe he just wouldn't bother.
Rummaging in the wooden crate where he stored his food, he found there wasn't much left. It wasn't like he had a stove or could be bothered cooking anyway, it was just tins and packets of stuff, and otherwise he'd just buy takeaways, or sometimes someone from work would take pity on him and give him food. Anyway, he didn't really care, and he pulled out a packet of biscuits and vaulted onto the table, swinging his legs while opening the packet and taking one. He knew he should probably eat better, but if he felt like having biscuits for dinner, it wasn't like there was anyone to stop him. And if he died of malnutrition, then all the better.
Work had really been really boring lately, he and Chuuya had done a big job a while ago but it'd all just been paperwork since then. And Dazai still had to go in and sit around in an office pretending to fill out forms, even though he was Mori's protegee, and almost an executive. To be fair, he had mostly been messing around annoying Chuuya, but still, if he wanted to become an executive he'd have to put up with it. Or he could always kill himself. Yes, that might be a better option. Although the annoying Chuuya bit had been fun, he had to admit, and he couldn't wait to see his face when he became an executive before him. That would show him. It was almost worth temporarily putting off his suicide for.
Having finished his dinner, Dazai turned the light off so as not to waste the battery, but continued sitting on the table and thinking. That was how he spent a lot of his time, thinking. He could do it for hours, thinking about his job, position and the goings on within the mafia and relations with other groups, his plans to become an executive, his plans to commit a painless suicide, his plans of ways to annoy Chuuya. The last two especially were always fun, and Dazai would let himself think about them more as a treat, when there wasn't so much going on at work.
Just bothering him when he was trying to work always worked. Chuuya took all that paperwork way more seriously than him. Well, Dazai supposed it was fair enough, since Dazai did have the advantage of having Mori as his mentor. Not that doing paperwork would help Chuuya much in catching up, but still, he wouldn't want to be beaten to the position of executive either. Just yelling insults and throwing bits of paper at him had been fun, but it would get old soon. And Dazai was sure Chuuya would eventually get used to it, and just start ignoring him. Maybe he needed to come up with some better insults, or maybe he should come up with something else entirely.
That pitfall trap from when he'd just met him would have been a good idea, Dazai was sure of it. It was a shame he hadn't got to see it in action, what with all that stuff with Rimbaud, and he'd always been meaning to try that again, but he hadn't got around to it. Maybe he should now, he knew that'd be fun, Chuuya would be so pissed off, it'd be hilarious. Or he could come up with something new, since he didn't have much work to do at the moment. He was sure he could come up with something even better. Dazai swung his legs and grinned to himself in the dark.