Bungo stray cats

Chapter 1

The day was a nasty one, even by Dazai's standards. The sun's rays were blocked by the heavy cloud cover and thick fog, giving Yokohama a foreboding atmosphere. Rain fell at a steady pace, never letting up or pelting down on them too hard as if they were stuck in time.

But what's worse, was that it was downright freezing. Later the rain droplets would crystalize and fall as snow flurries, but for now, it remained freezing rain.

Dazai never liked the salt smell that lingered in the air with rain.

From next to Dazai, Chuuya shivered violently, pulling that old leather jacket of his closer to his body. How stupid of the Chibi to not wear layers on such a cold day, Dazai himself was perfectly fine under his own thick coat.

"W-why did our m-mission have to be today?" Chuuya grumbled grumpily, teeth chattering. It seemed that his personality matched the less than satisfactory weather.

Their mission wasn't hard, on the contrary, it was a simple meeting with an enemy organization discussing port boundaries. No one even tried to slit his throat.

They didn't have a driver, unfortunately. And there were no cabs in sight, the ominous city stayed eerily quiet with only the pitter-patter of the rain to fill the soundless void.

And with no one occupying the streets and no cabs running, Dazai and Chuuya were forced to walk back to headquarters. (Subways were out of the question, Chuuya had some strange obsession with staying as far away from them as possible. Dazai had yet to find out why.)

Dazai hummed in agreement "It was uneventful, though I did acquire the headsman's wallet."

Chuuya inhaled sharply, turning to look at him with an accusatory glare "You stole their bosses money-"

"I prefer the term 'borrow' stolen is such a harsh term."

Chuuya scoffed, turning back to huddle into himself for warmth. "Harsh term or not, you're still a thief. And a murderer" he added as an afterthought.

"My my, don't be such a hypocrite." Dazai tsked, and left their short conversation at that.

It was too miserable outside to be taunting the Chibi anymore, maybe when they reached the Mafia base he would lock him outside to freeze to death, but for now, he would pointedly avoid the larger puddles of rainwater even if the soles to his shoes were already soaked through.

Then the Chibi suddenly came to a halt, stopping directly in front of him, eyebrows furrowed. "Do you hear that?"

Dazai strained his ears, yet nothing out of the ordinary could be detected. Or he just didn't care enough to hear it. "No, has the slug finally lost his last brain cell?"

Chuuya ignored the comment, shoving past Dazai to explore the alleyway they had been walking past, his head tilted to the side like the dog he was. Dazai simply trailed behind him, at least the buildings gave them some coverage from the weather, though Dazai was still willing to leave the Chibi in this alley if he stayed for much longer.

Then he heard it, an annoying meowing noise that was undoubtedly coming from the dumpster.

Despite how much Dazai knew that Chuuya just wanted to get back to the warmth of the headquarters and escape the cold, the slug kept looking around the alley for the source of the noise.

Dazai sighed, gesturing towards the trash bin. No matter how funny it would be to watch Chuuya flounder around looking for the noise, the biting cold was starting to get to him too.

Chuuya was quick to move the already cracked trash lid to the side, bending over to reach into it properly (standing on his tippy toes, Dazai would not leave that vital information out.) Then he bounced back on his heels once he retrieved...