"Okay. Remind me what we're supposed to be doing right now?"

Chuuya and Dazai were once again sitting in the front seats of the former's car. The two were back in downtown Yokohama, for a reason that Chuuya had yet to understand. They were stopped at a busy intersection, cars whizzing by them on one side of the road while others crammed behind and in front of them. They were, for once, in broad daylight; the afternoon sun shone harshly through the windshield, illuminating specks of dust that floated gently around the interior of the vehicle. More dust billowed into the air as Dazai crossed his arms.

"Must everything we do have a mission-related basis? Is it not enough for you that you get to spend time with your charming partner?"

Chuuya snorted, waving his hand in the air. "You have about as much charm as a dead fish."

"Ouch."

"And, yes, we should be working as much as we can to get this case out of our hair. I thought we made this clear last night."

Dazai sighed. "Well, by now we can assume that if we take down the individual at the center of the uprising, we can easily take down the rest of it. And according to the intel that our little Ren provided us with, combined with the fact that we found nothing else on Robun, there's really nothing much we can do until our next arms deal. Which means that we're going to have to wait for a couple of days until we can intercept Robun–preferably before he slaughters everyone involved in said deal."

Chuuya raised his eyebrows slightly. "What happened to your 'I don't care if anyone dies' attitude?"

The brunette rolled his eyes. "O you of little brains. This isn't a matter of morality. It's simply much more practical to keep our men alive in case we need backup or a distraction."

Chuuya smacked him upside the head.

"Why would we need backup when we've got me? I could easily obliterate anything–or anyone–who might pose a threat." He glanced away from the road to gaze at Dazai expectantly. "You know that I'm right."

Dazai raised an eyebrow, giving the redhead an appraising look. The silence was palpable, and it made him uncomfortable.

"Honestly, Chuuya-chan, I just don't know if you're reliable enough to be counted as good backup."

Chuuya bristled. "What do you mean? I've saved your sorry hide more times than I can count."

His partner leaned back in his seat, his hands behind his head and a complacent smile on his face. "Sure. But don't you agree that level-headedness is a very important quality when it comes to backup? We can't have our men making decisions driven solely by their emotions; their feelings would impede their judgment."

Chuuya scowled out the windshield. "So you think that I'm too emotional."

Dazai laughed. "Oh, Chuuya. That's putting it lightly. You can barely keep yourself from throttling me at even the slightest provocation."

The redhead gripped the steering wheel so tightly that he felt the metal rim bending under its leather cover. He hadn't even noticed that he'd activated his ability.

"See?" Dazai drawled, knocking on Chuuya's head with his knuckles. Upon the Tainted Sorrow deactivated immediately. "You've got nothing up there except pure, unbridled rage. It's really quite sad."

Chuuya grit his teeth. "That's not true. In case you don't recall, I took care of an entire organization by myself before you dragged me to the Port Mafia. I am more than capable of strategy and forethought when the situation calls for it."

"You really think that your experience with the Sheep is a convincing example of your strategic prowess? I'd advise you to reconsider that, seeing as the outcome of that debacle was not necessarily positive."

The redhead froze. Though he knew that Dazai enjoyed digging into his insecurities and past mistakes, he hadn't really expected him to reopen this wound. The Sheep's betrayal and his failure as a leader were things that still haunted him today. He remembered their distrustful eyes, the lines of heavily armed men arrayed behind them as they tried to kill him. He was supposed to be their protector and provider. Instead, his friends–his family–had turned to a military group for help.

He kept his eyes focused on the road ahead and fought to keep his breathing steady. The last thing he needed was to fly into a violent rage in a moving car–or worse, have a panic attack in front of the man who he hated most.

Who he hated most.

Was it really hatred that fueled his discomfort around his partner? Or was it perhaps fear that he would see through and mock his vulnerability? Chuuya loathed the feeling of being weak, and yet Dazai seemed to have the unique ability to painfully expose the flaws that he tried so hard to hide. Hatred seemed to be the only logical answer.

Dazai seemed to have noticed that he had taken his insult too far, as he said no more on the subject. A beat of silence passed between them as they continued to drive down the crowded road.

"Well," Dazai said finally, in a voice that was overly playful, "I can point to countless other examples that support my point of view."

Chuuya glowered at him from the corner of his eye.

"The way you fight, for example," his partner continued, a slight smile on his lips. "You jump right into danger without a second thought. You cause immense destruction without even meaning to. Or maybe you do, and just don't care. Even your screams of rage are irrationally loud–and high-pitched, if I may add."

The redhead's mouth twitched. Hidden under the insult, he recognized that Dazai was giving credit to his fighting abilities. He didn't need the brunette's acknowledgement in the slightest, but he grudgingly appreciated Dazai's roundabout attempts at making peace.

"And, of course, the incident on the dance floor the other night."

Scratch that. Dazai wasn't trying to make peace. He was just trying to soften the next blow.

"What are you talking about?" Chuuya barked as he whipped his head around to glare at his partner, who was grinning widely.

"You mean to say that your decision to abandon me on the dance floor wasn't driven by your rampant emotions? Come now, Chuuya. If you were in your right mind, you would have stayed with me until we could talk to Takahashi together."

"If you were in your right mind, we wouldn't have been dancing in the first place!" Chuuya spluttered. He could feel his face heating at the memory. The two of them, gliding across the floor in perfect time with the music. Dazai's hand on his back, the other holding his own hand. The brunette's gentle gaze, peering down into his own wide eyes. His stomach churned with an uncomfortable fluttery feeling, which he desperately tried to shove down.

He was brought back to reality by his partner's uproarious laughter.

"Your face is all red!" Dazai howled. "Just admit it, Chuuya. You're far more emotional than you are logical. I wish you could have seen yourself-"

Chuuya slammed on the brakes, the tires squealing as they came to a stop. He reached over and grabbed a fistful of Dazai's brown hair, yanking his head over so that their faces were inches apart. The brunette's eyes were wide with surprise; Chuuya's were narrowed.

"Listen," he growled. "We aren't going to talk about this any more."

After recovering from his initial surprise, Dazai raised his eyebrows and grinned lazily. "And why is that?"

"Because it isn't funny."

"Oh, but it is. It's probably the best thing that's happened to me since-"

"We're not talking about it anymore."

Dazai sighed, rolling his eyes. "Fine," he said at last, "since you're so insistent on it. You're no fun at all."

Chuuya released his grip on his partner's hair and stepped on the gas pedal. They jerked forward and continued along the road without saying another word.

The redhead watched as buildings, cars, trees, and people passed by in a blur. He trained his eyes out the window, pointedly ignoring the tumultuous feeling roiling in his gut. The silence inside the car was so thick that he almost felt the need to gasp for breath. He stubbornly refused to spare his partner another glance; really, he would have given almost anything to get away from him at that moment.

"Stop the car!" Dazai screeched abruptly, grabbing onto Chuuya's arm. The redhead, startled, jerked the steering wheel to the side; he narrowly missed hitting a car coming from the other direction before pulling back into his lane.

"What are you thinking?" he hissed, his heart thumping almost audibly. "You could have gotten us killed, you idiot!"

"Pull over," Dazai responded, staring intently at something out the window. "And don't crash. I thought you were supposed to be the better driver between us."

Chuuya, still recovering from the shock, obeyed. Dazai hopped out of the car and speed-walked up the sidewalk; his partner followed him, bewildered.

"Oi, where are we going?" he called.

Dazai stopped in front of a convenience store and, turning so as to face Chuuya, pointed at a sign taped to the glass door. The redhead squinted as he read the sign.

"Clearance on all cloth bandages…50% off regular prices?"

Chuuya brought his eyes to meet Dazai's; the latter's glittered with excitement and triumph.

"Do you know the chances of coming across a sale like this?" he chattered, grinning. "And we happened to be driving along this road on this specific day. It must be fate."

Chuuya was silent for a few seconds as he stared at Dazai in disbelief.

He had to be kidding. They had almost died…for a bandage sale?

Then, for an inexplicable reason, a laugh bubbled up from his throat and spilled from his mouth. He attempted to smother it with his gloved hand, but his efforts were useless.

He laughed so hard that he doubled over, tears springing to his eyes. His hat fell to the ground as he shook with mirth.

Maybe it was the leftover adrenaline of almost getting into a car crash. Maybe it was all the pent-up stress and emotion from the past week or so. Maybe it was the sheer ridiculousness of their situation. Whatever the reason, he was absolutely losing it over a stupid clearance sale. He knew that Dazai was staring at him, but at this point he didn't even care.

Dazai was utterly confused as to why Chuuya had decided to start laughing hysterically in the middle of a sidewalk, surrounded by people, in broad daylight. He glanced around uncomfortably as his partner gasped for breath between peals of laughter.

"Dude," Chuuya wheezed, lightly punching Dazai's chest. "You have some serious issues."

Dazai snorted. He felt the corners of his mouth lifting against his will.

And then, he began to laugh too.

He couldn't help it. The redhead's bubbly laughter was unexpectedly contagious. And it was so rare for him to display it so openly; it was much more common for Chuuya to exhibit outbursts of rage rather than hilarity. And, really, that's what he'd expected when he demanded that they pull over.

He couldn't say that he really minded this development.

Several people passing by sent odd looks at the two giggling sixteen-year-olds. And, in that moment, that's all they were. Not mafiosos, not murderers; nothing more than just two teenagers being stupid.

Dazai's sides and face ached from laughing; he wiped away the tears on his face as he straightened up, still grinning.

"I'll make this quick. I just have to replenish my stash."

Chuuya similarly wiped the moisture from his eyes as he leaned against the glass wall, panting, and bent over briefly to pick up his hat.

"Yeah, you'd better be quick…you mackerel."

Dazai bit his tongue at the reference to their earlier conversation as he slipped through the door, Chuuya's renewed laughter following him inside.

His smile, however, gradually faded as he loaded roll after roll of bandages into his shopping basket.

However pleasant that moment was, it was fleeting. It was an anomaly in their otherwise bloodstained and miserable lives. Lives that they inevitably had to return to. That was their reality: that although they might pretend to be normal kids, they weren't and never could be.

He looked down at a roll of bandages, then at his own bandage-wrapped arm. These bandages were for him, for injuries that were physically superficial but cut far, far deeper than his skin. This was his own reality. He didn't want to exist anymore. No amount of joking or laughter could truly distract him from the gaping emptiness in his life.

Chuuya's voice echoed in his head: You have some serious issues. He shook his head and let out a dry, mirthless laugh.

He placed the basket on the counter and pulled out his wallet to pay the tired cashier, already preparing himself for what he was certain was going to be a silent ride back to the Port Mafia headquarters.

***This scene was partially inspired by that one BSD Wan episode where Chuuya finds a bandage sale and Dazai finds a hat sale (?) and they're both like "Ew who would actually appreciate this." Idk, I haven't watched it in a hot minute lol.

I was half-asleep when I wrote this chapter, so I'm pretty surprised that it turned out decently. I will say that Dazai is undoubtedly a drama queen in this chapter, but honestly, who can blame him?