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Dazai’s head was just violently assaulted by a snowball that was certainly thrown with far more force than it should've been. Ouch.
The war season had officially started again.
Winter was one nasty season for sure. Merely the low temperature was enough to sour everyone's mood (or at least Dazai's and Chuuya's — but everyone else wasn't important enough to be considered at the moment), prickling at the skin the moment the unfortunate soul stepped outside. Coats, hats, the (triple) socks he currently had on his person did absolutely nothing to help. Yes, he might have protected himself from a slow death caused by hypothermia, but the persistent cold wouldn't stop assaulting every millimeter of his uncovered skin — including his eyes, which burned more and more with every blink in those extreme conditions.
The season clearly wasn't something Dazai enjoyed. Neither did Chuuya, although his suffering was more self-inflicted than anything.
Chuuya, a fellow cold-intolerant person, refused to take the same multi-layered protective measures against the criminally low temperatures outside. All those layers are too hard to move in! he’ll say, leaving with nothing more than a not too thick jacket (and occasionally a hat) on.
He would go outside, his mood quickly becoming as intolerable as the weather. It took a mere week for Dazai to learn that seeing Chuuya’s amusing expression wasn't rewarding enough to subject himself to the horrors of a snowball being shoved down his shirt.
Unfortunately for both of them, their prickly attitudes couldn't stay under control for long. When snow eventually covered the ground, turning Yokohama white, they quickly realized that having such a convenient weapon at their fingertips could only lead to one thing.
The snappy comments, barely controlled outbursts were instantly let loose with the power of snowball battles. Never putting the fight at hold, both him and Chuuya were using every possible opportunity to snack the other with as much force as possible.
And clearly nothing changed after a year.
Because, now a year later in Musutafu, the instant that cold projectile exploded at the back of his head (covered with a hat, take that you dumb slug!), he was already scooping one of his own, ready to deliver a full force attack on his own as well.
His attack, which was the opposite of sneaky, was stopped mid air as expected, but the split second squeal of surprise that Chuuya let out was absolutely worth it. Grinning under his scarf, Dazai kicked up as much snow as he possibly could in the hatrack’s direction, before bolting towards the safety of the warm car parked nearby.
(Aizawa, watching the whole thing through the car window, simply sighed. He wasn't paid enough to deal with this. He wasn't paid at all, actually.)
Miraculously avoiding another borderline-lethal attack, Dazai scrambled inside, slamming the door shut with a tad too much force. An annoyed grumble came from the front seat which he ignored, shuffling into his spot.
As one might have already guessed, Christmas was coming. Arguably the biggest holiday out there, anticipated by millions of people every day. Family celebrations, the time of joy, full of toy ads on the TV and festive songs overtaking every radio station in existence. This time period was impossible to miss, filling the daily lives of everyone out there, regardless of what they might think.
Dazai didn't particularly care for Christmas. The indifferent attitude persisted over the years — however, he did make use of the present giving tradition to gift Mori a dead rat the previous year. Good times.
Regardless, he was currently living under the roof of a couple that certainly took their holidays seriously. Or at the very least they gave it more attention than anyone Dazai has ever known did. The special day was just two weeks away and, after decorating the whole house up to his standards, Yamada assigned them (Aizawa) the important task of obtaining the perfect christmas tree. Dazai only dragged himself and Chuuya along so he could make fun of the others' lack of knowledge regarding the celebrations.
(It was definitely the only reason.)
He could tell how much the slug was paying attention whenever the topic of christmas traditions came up. Dazai managed to squeeze some rather embarrassing stories of what Chuuya had done with the Sheep for this time of the year — and it didn't resemble anything their hero guardians were doing, that's for sure. He snickered at the mere thought, perfectly lining up with the moment Chuuya slid inside the car. The scowl his expression turned into was priceless.
“You two, behave.” A warning came from the front, accompanied by the sound of the engine turning on.
Chuuya soundlessly mouthed the words back, shooting a look at Dazai, who only snickered in response. It was enough to keep the car ride relatively peaceful — excluding the numerous insults tapped out on morse code, that Aizawa might have pretended to not understand.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
“Okay. Simple task — pick a good christmas tree, have it packed and be here in forty minutes.” Half an hour later, they were standing in between said christmas trees, receiving the instructions.
Barely a few minutes into their little shopping trip, Aizawa received an emergency call from Yamada back home, who apparently decided it was the perfect time to start baking — without checking whether the needed ingredients were actually at home. Spoiler — they weren't. Therefore, Aizawa had to go on a grocery store run and drive back home ‘in his record speed’, as Yamada phrased it.
So, that's how Dazai and Chuuya found themselves with the terrible task of picking a good christmas tree. Whatever that entailed. Dazai never had any interest in things like these and Chuuya probably hasn't seen enough of the things in his life to determine what a good one looked like.
“Well, it can't be that hard, right?” Chuuya asked as they watched Aizawa’s car drive away.
Dazai hummed something in response, already walking away. The crunching of snow under his boots was accompanied by Chuuya’s insults. Truly a festive mood.
“How about this one?” He asked, stopping in front of the ugliest one he could spot, “It's as short as you.”
The little tree reached up to Dazai's chest if he was being generous. Its bark was tilted enough, that the pot dangerously wobbled with every gust of wind.
Dazai thought it was exactly like Chuuya. Chuuya thought Dazai deserved a snowball thrown into his face.
Well, that was unpleasant. Maybe he should avoid comparing the slug to any tiny trees as long as that cursed snow was around. Chuuya laughing at his misery, as he sputtered, spitting that nasty water out of his mouth, only rubbed it in even more.
“So no more Chuuya lookalikes, got it.” He couldn't stop himself from having the last word though, now could he?
Even if it meant having to run away from a riled up ginger, dodging between the densely placed christmas trees. Call it speedy window shopping.
“You fucker, come back here!” Came from behind a huge tree on his left. The wall of green needles seemed impenetrable enough — at least for the next five seconds Dazai needed to escape.
May the christmas spirit bless the quirk usage laws in Musutafu.
Chuuya, unable to simply float and rain the snowy ammunition at his very poor and cold self from above, was left running around, cursing mackerels and suicidal maniacs in the distance.
Unfortunately for Dazai, the tree maze led him to the main path at the same time as it did for his unwilling shopping partner. The shopping partner, who was currently running towards him at full speed.
“Found you!”
Unable to do anything other than jump back into the prickly trees (which was arguably worse than getting tackled by an agitated Chuuya), he surrendered to his fate, letting the other boy crash into him.
With words that even the most seasoned mafia members would be embarrassed to speak aloud, they went down with a bit more force than Dazai had anticipated.
Clearly, Chuuya hadn't thought this through either, if his surprised yelp as they tumbled into one of the christmas tree’s pots with enough momentum to make it swing to the side… and crash.
Comically slow, Chuuya looked down at him with wide eyes. Dazai shivered, sprawled out on the snow, a nervous chuckle coming out of his mouth.
The dense tree maze that helped him out so much before suddenly turned into one big domino.
“Uh oh.”
Chuuya frantically scrambled up from where he landed (which was on top of Dazai, and his rough treatment did not feel nice, excuse him), reaching out to the closest tree, trying to stop the disaster before it got worse. Quirk usage laws be damned, the slug probably didn't want to get sued over a bunch of trees. A sentiment that Dazai shared (which is why he didn't reach out to nullify the others ability for shits and giggles like usual).
Half of the christmas trees were quickly enveloped with a red glow, their uncoordinated domino halted before it could do any (more) damage.
One problem? People were staring. Dazai spotted someone dialing a number on their phone, no doubt calling for some authorities to report two young tree-assaulters.
An escape was in order. Wasting no time, he got back to his feet, hovering behind Chuuya who was setting everything back down as it was. The second the last tree returned to its natural colors, the red tint vanishing, Dazai grabbed his arm and started running. Sometimes the simplest strategies were the best.
Maybe the people will actually think of them as kids messing around instead of eco-terrorists if they act dumb enough (not like Chuuya needed any acting there though). Fleeing the crime scene through the main path
and then disappearing should be good enough.
“Where are you dragging me, you dipshit?” Chuuya snapped, but didn't break out of his hold. Good enough.
“Into a dressing room” Dazai hummed, ignoring the confused huh as he dragged the other boy into the green maze again.
He stopped in a place he deemed secluded enough — they shouldn't be spotted until someone reached the end of the road. Which would probably happen in around a minute.
“They probably will be looking for a loud ginger in a neon jacket,” Dazai started, taking off his hat and shoving it onto Chuuya's head, “so shut up and take it off.”
“You're gonna give me lice or something…” he grumbled in response, but shrugged off the jacket and let it drop to the ground… and immediately started shivering.
Dazai tried (and failed) to stifle a laugh. That's what the slug gets for not wearing as many layers as his better partner. His coat was already on the ground — while his gray wasn't as glaring as whatever Chuuya had on, it was better to be safe than sorry.
After that, they quickly evacuated from their dressing room, as Dazai had called it. Popping out somewhere on the main path, behind the crowd searching for the mysterious child eco-terrorists above, they strolled towards the exit without any problems.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
They walked in silence down the road for a while before either of them spoke up.
“We were supposed to get a christmas tree.” Chuuya said, his voice flat.
“We were~” Dazai hummed.
“And we were supposed to meet Aizawa there.”
“Uh huh,” Dazai nodded, “the money was left in my coat pocket though.”
He took a few more steps before coming to a halt. Chuuya was standing still a few meters behind. Tilting his head, he shot a quizzical look at the hatrack. The descriptive felt fitting again, even if the hat in question wasn't his regular dumb one.
“Should we just steal one? It's just a tree, isn't it?”
Dazai blinked. Chuuya stared.
“Sure,” a grin slowly spread across his face, “why not? It is just a tree after all.”
Who was he to deny his partner some fun?
Soon enough, they were crouching behind a car, spying on the christmas tree garden. A pro hero (judging by the… weird chicken outfit) was talking with the man who made the call earlier — eco-terrorism clearly wasn't a crime serious enough to warrant someone better. The lack of a challenge chipped away at some of the fun.
Dazai sighed, which was followed by Chuuya rolling his eyes.
“Shut it. You know I wasn't in the mood for one of your mind games.” Chuuya grumbled.
“Then why did you suggest a heist?” Dazai whined.
“We're stealing a tree, not some rare jewels.”
“And that's exactly why I'm taking the lead here!” he scoffed, “Chuuya might know all about jewels, but I'm sure he doesn't know anything about christmas trees, so—”
“Neither do you.” Chuuya interrupted.
“So! I will be the one leading this heist” the emphasis on the last word didn't fail to evict a sigh out of the other boy.
“Fine, call it whatever you like.” Chuuya ended up saying, peeking out from their hiding spot. “He's still there. Still talking.”
Dazai shoved his partner’s head down, ignoring the curses thrown in his direction, checking out the situation himself.
“Looks more like flirting to me.” He said, a smirk pulling at his lips, “Which means—”
“They're both distracted!” Chuuya exclaimed, interrupting him again. And then he winced, because he was too loud, like the barking dog he is.
He shot Dazai another glare, before looking out again — the sigh of relief was a clear indication of what he saw.
Well — nothing more had to be said. No need for sneaking around when the perfect distraction was right there. Void of their recognizable features, walking right past the couple with questionable taste was as easy as it would get.
No fun, if you asked him.
“What does a good christmas tree look like?” Chuuya asked once they've put enough distance behind themselves.
Great question. Dazai had no idea. Was this a sign from the world to educate himself on celebrating this horrendous time of the year?
He hummed looking at the trees around them. They all looked green and prickly to him.
“I'd say we get a tall one,” he hesitated for a second, “so no one mistakes it for Chuuya”
Dazai couldn't stop himself. Chuuya probably couldn't stop himself from hitting him on the head either.
“We also need it to be pretty, so no one mistakes it for you either.” Chuuya retorted, shaking his hand (It probably hurt. Dazai hoped it hurt).
It was obvious that both him and the hatrack wanted to keep the argument going, but there were more pressing matters at hand — the heist. Which was going very poorly, in his humble opinion. They haven't even chosen the tree yet!
“Shush it and hurry up with the task, you slug. Don't live up to the name even more than you already do~”
Watching Chuuya hold in the urge to strangle him was incredibly entertaining.
Luckily for him, no strangling occurred and his partner’s energy was directed to glaring at the trees. Perfect. Dazai decided to follow suit (albeit with less nasty looks) and judge the potential subjects of their crime. Too tall, too short, too Chuuya-like, too crooked, too dense, too thin… or maybe it should be thin? So it left space for the ornaments?
He stopped to scrutinize one of the thin ones. It wasn't crooked, the height was perfect — taller than Chuuya, but still short enough to fit into their living room. Not too crooked either…
“Hey, chibi, look at this one…” He called out, poking at the little blue-ish needles. They were sharp. Ouch.
“Chibi?” Dazai repeated, frowning at the lack of an answer. Looking around, his partner was nowhere to be found, which was odd. Despite his height, Chuuya was infamously hard to miss or ignore.
How dare he leave his very own partner alone in the middle of a heist! Temporary goal switch — from a tree to a traitorous ginger.
He crouched down, staring at the not-so-fresh-now snow filled with enough footprints to cause a regular person a headache. Dazai, however, was not a regular person — because it didn't take more than a few seconds to figure out which set belonged to Chuuya. Damn this silent slug, who could be really quick if he wanted to.
The sound of familiar voices stopped him in the middle of his pursuit. He was too far to understand the words being spoken, but recognizing one of the voices as Aizawa was enough for him to know that their heist was on a time crunch.
The other voice — the phone man with questionable taste.
Chuuya was nowhere to be found, but knowing his partner and his freakishly sharp senses, it wasn't difficult to figure out that he might have spotted their hero guardian and left in that direction. To keep them away from Dazai if the need arose, probably. Though it would be nice if he informed him next time! Withholding crucial information was Dazai's thing, not Chuuya's.
Either way, that meant he was stuck finishing the task alone. Without enough time to keep browsing, he decided on the thin tree that was taller than Chuuya. He still wasn't sure if that was a preferred quality, but the clock was ticking, not in his favor.
Okay, now how to pack a tree? He had seen it before, yes, but his original plan was to make Chuuya do the labor. Now he was alone, with no easy shortcut out of it.
That will be a problem for later. First he should probably grab the net.
Sneaking to the machine was the easy part — his partner was doing an amazing job in somehow keeping Aizawa away from wherever he went. Getting a net out of it though? Torturous work. He pulled, he prodded, he failed.
Plan B — find a storage. And find it fast.
He should've done that straight away, with how easy it ended up being to find. The closest building had a big red and white ’STORAGE’ sticker slapped in the center. He gently opened the door, peering inside.
The room was dark and empty. Perfect. Dazai slipped inside, immediately dropping down to search for a net. There were multiple, strewn across the floor with no particular order, just like the trees outside. The owner of this place clearly had some organization issues.
Unlike the green maze outside, the mess of strings on the floor was the biggest inconvenience of the heist so far. Because, of course, they had to be tangled.
For a future reference — untangling christmas tree nets in the dark, with thick gloves on, is a nightmare. Do not repeat unless it's unavoidable.
Unfortunately, this was a perfect case of an unavoidable scenario, where the time was running out — unlike the knots that kept appearing, apparently. To add on top of his misfortune, there were steps coming from the outside. Fast.
This was supposed to be a peaceful day, just a little thievery with no consequences aside from some yen lost for the seller. But some things couldn't be avoided — like violence, in this case.
Whoever was about to catch him in the act, had to go down. Preferably not permanently, but who knew what results the brick he found would have.
Dazai barely had the time to scramble onto one of the boxes next to the door, in an attempt to gain higher ground over whoever might come in, before light flooded the storage room and the mystery person stepped in.
As it turned out, it was no mystery person. One could even call it the complete opposite, with the clearly familiar hat and the orange tufts of hair peeking out from underneath.
Too bad the brick was already going down when the realization hit (for both of them, although one was hit with an actual physical force as well).
“Oh.”
Chuuya slapped a hand over his mouth, muffling the yelp that came out almost instantly. He had enough mind to spare for their case, to kick the door shut before he broke out in curses (directed at Dazai).
The brick only grazed his head, thanks to the aforementioned freakishly sharp instincts, but his shoulder was not spared.
“It’s not broken.” Dazai supplied helpfully, hopping down from his box.
“I know it's not broken, you fucker! It still hurts as hell” Chuuya gritted out, holding back his urge to scream as well as the urge to break his partner's neck.
He rubbed his shoulder with a grimace on his face, before getting down to business. Dazai was glad they could put this accident past them.
(He would not, in fact, be glad, once his spare bandages would start mysteriously disappearing when he needed them in the near future.)
“The Chicken guy is gone, his flirting partner didn't say a word to Aizawa about the incident. I don't think he even knows that he was talking to another hero. Aizawa thankfully referred to you as a bandaged boy, and didn't mention my hair color or the neon jacket. So neither of them is aware of anything.” Chuuya quickly laid out the facts. “We're definitely running out of time though.”
The lack of time was never an issue for Dazai to make fun of his partner however.
“He described you as short, didn't he?” He asked, grinning.
“Shut it! No he didn't. Finish what you came here for, we need to hurry up.” Chuuya continued before Dazai could get another word in. Rude.
“No fun…” He mumbled in response, crouching over the tangled nets once again.
An exasperated sigh came from behind, and before Dazai knew, he was being shoved away, the room illuminated by a red glow. Chuuya's ability was suspiciously good at untangling knots. He stored that information in his mind for later use.
After the main problem was dealt with, it didn't take them long to sneak back to their (Dazai’s) chosen tree. Chuuya eyed it critically, but said nothing.
“Okay, so you lift it up and I place the net at the bottom. Should be simple, right? Then we just pull it up, tie a knot and done!” Dazai cheerfully explained, gesticulating with the net in question. The poor thing looked terrible, but it would manage. Hopefully.
Chuuya nodded, before lifting the soon-to-be-theirs tree into the air with a strained grunt. Maybe hitting him on the shoulder with that brick was a bigger deal than Dazai initially assumed.
It only took a few more seconds for him to realize that it was, in fact, a way bigger deal, when a sudden spike of pain caused the damned thing to slip from Chuuya's hold. Right into Dazai's fingers.
Don't get him wrong — broken fingers were nothing strange in their line of work. His were broken before, more than once. The pain wasn't anything new. But — this time it was unexpected. In his whole sixteen years on earth, he would have never expected his fingers to be crushed with the pot of a christmas tree he was in the process of stealing.
That unpredictable situation was completely at fault for the pained yell that broke out of his mouth at the impact.
Chuuya froze.
Dazai froze (in pain).
Well, that was certainly loud.
Both of them knew someone would be coming soon. Knowing their cursed winter luck, it would be two of the people that they did not want to be seen by. The mutual realization provided enough of an adrenaline kick to where the pain could be (slightly) ignored and the job completed.
The tree was wrapped in the net in an instant, with a sloppy knot at the top (not sloppy enough to fail at its task, however). Then, it was time to sneak out.
They managed to shove their packed tree in-between the others, and hide behind it, as Aizawa appeared down the main path. The man was running along it — probably the hero instincts kicking it at the sound of someone yelling in pain. Or something. He was still unsure of how exactly heroes heroed.
Too focused on searching for the injured, he completely ignored them (or the trees concealed them well enough, who knows), speeding past their hiding spot.
Chuuya didn't waste even a second and the moment he deemed it safe enough, he jumped out of the bushes, and started dragging their poor little tree in the direction Aizawa came from. Dazai followed, happy to be skipping out on all the labor. His fingers pulsed with pain, but they would be fine. Hopefully. He'd make Chuuya set them later. For now, he decided to conceal the injury from any curious onlookers by shoving them into his pockets.
They passed the agreed upon meeting spot, and headed straight to the car instead. Dazai suggested that the man from before has a higher chance of spotting them there than near Aizawa's car.
Heist complete.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────
When they arrived back at the house, neither he nor Chuuya had the energy for anything other than dozing off in the back seats. The cold seeped out all the remnants of energy in his body. Chuuya without his jacket was probably even worse off.
Speaking of jackets — they decided to tell Aizawa that they got ripped during a heated snowball duel (the fact that the man didn't even question how it happened said a lot) and decided to throw them out. It was one of his worst lies, but christmas magic did its thing apparently.
The only thing they received was a lecture. A lecture that was still ongoing, but was currently being tuned out by him, and probably the hatrack as well. Although he wasn't exactly being a hatrack at that moment — Dazai took his hat back to avoid any extra suspicion.
And the heist was a failure.
The second Aizawa saw their beautiful thin and taller than Chuuya but short enough to fit into their living room christmas tree he let out a sigh so loud that it was probably heard back in Yokohama. Apparently Dazai's pick was a horrendous one.
Safe to say, they were unceremoniously shoved into the car, as the man went back for a proper one.
He paid for it as well. He broke his fingers for nothing!
Dazai hated Christmas.