Chapter 64
The ineffectiveness of [No Longer Human] and Odasaku's intuition brought Dazai Osamu's originally indifferent curiosity about Douma to a whole new level. As he happened to have no work on hand recently, his attention was naturally focused on secretly observing Douma.
Dazai's slacking behavior has caused his partner, Nakahara Chuuya, to fall into a vicious circle where he works hard and approves documents every day, but the documents piled up on his desk never decrease.
Nakahara Chuuya: ??? I always feel like something is wrong... And that slimy mackerel has been too quiet lately.
Once again working late into the night, Nakahara Chuuya, who was so dedicated to his duties that he could be called the top worker of the Port Mafia, couldn't stand it anymore, especially since he had caught Dazai Osamu secretly putting work on his desk many times and tricked him into helping him solve it.
After nearly two years of fighting wits and courage, Nakahara Chuuya inevitably became suspicious of the matter. Although he had no concrete evidence, his sharp intuition told him that it must be Dazai Osamu's family behind this matter. However, he was very sure that Dazai Osamu had not entered his office in the past few days.
If there was a loophole that the mackerel could have slipped through, the process from when the work was assigned to when it arrived at his office was the most suspicious.
After thinking it over, Nakahara Chuuya called the man in a black suit who was in charge of delivering documents and planned to interrogate him.
As soon as Chuuya Nakahara mentioned the name of Dazai Osamu, the person he was most suspicious of, the man in a black suit who was suddenly called over by Chuuya Nakahara showed a guilty look and knelt down to apologize in fear and trepidation: "I'm... I'm sorry, Lord Nakahara. But Lord Dazai forced me to do this. Lord Dazai threatened me that if I didn't do this, he would make me..."
Nakahara Chuuya: It's hard, it's hard, my fist is hard.jpg
His vague guess was confirmed. Nakahara Chuuya was sure that he had been tricked by Dazai Osamu again. Veins popped out on his forehead and his fists clenched so tightly that they made a cracking sound. "What do you want me to do to you?"
"No... I don't know. Lord Dazai didn't say, and I didn't dare to ask." The man in the black suit answered stutteringly. Hearing the angry and low voice of Nakahara Chuuya, he was so scared that he didn't dare to raise his head.
The man in the black suit was so scared that his eyes hurt. He waved his hand helplessly and said, "Go down. If something like this happens again, you must report it to me. Dazai won't dare to do anything to you when I'm here."
“Yes, Lord Chuuya!” The man in the black suit was moved to tears by Nakahara Chuuya’s magnanimity, and the way he addressed Nakahara Chuuya also changed unconsciously, from the distant “Nakahara-sama” to the closer “Chuuya-sama”.
He sniffed as he stood up and prepared to leave the office, and secretly made up his mind that no matter what happened in the future, he would never betray Lord Chuuya again.
Nakahara Chuuya, who is gentle and protective by nature, did not regard the man in black suit being forced to do so as a betrayal. After all, the one who was threatening him was the black mud spirit, and even he might not end up well against the black mud spirit, so it was impossible for him to blame an ordinary member of the lower class for compromising with it.
After comforting the timid bottom member, Nakahara Chuuya's smile gradually grew and he asked casually, "By the way, do you know where that Dazai guy is now?"
The fear of the superior made the man in the black suit tremble uncontrollably, and he revealed what he knew without any concealment: "Reply to Master Chuuya, I don't know where Master Dazai is at the moment, but..."
"Hmm? But what." Nakahara Chuuya originally didn't place his hopes on a low-level member, he just asked casually, but he didn't expect to get an unexpected reward?
The man in the black suit didn't keep the secret and said quickly, "But I heard that Dazai-sama seems to be very close to Douma-sama in recent days. People often see Dazai-sama appearing in Douma-sama's building."
Perhaps as low-level members, they do not have enough authority to know a lot of intelligence related to the outside world, or do not know enough details, but regarding the news inside the port mafia, no one knows more and faster than these little people who are ignored by everyone.
Nakahara Chuuya, who has a very good relationship with people, has never lacked channels to obtain inside information, so he did not care about the well-informed lower-level member in front of him. He picked up the coat on the hanger and hurried to Douma's building, vowing to catch Dazai Osamu who was only concerned about himself and threw all the work to him.
On the other hand, Dazai Osamu knew that his friendship with Odasaku had been exposed, so he no longer concealed it. He openly used the excuse of visiting a good friend to hang around Douma without any abruptness.
"Odasaku, aren't it only children who can play at home all day? Why do some adults skip work all day?" Yumeno Hisasaku pronounced the words "some adults" very loudly, fearing that Dazai Osamu, who was slacking off at the side, would not be able to hear who his target was, and he almost called out Dazai Osamu's name directly.
Dazai Osamu's ears twitched. Even though he knew that Yumeno Hisasaku was talking about him, he didn't feel the slightest bit of ashamed.
It is impossible to feel ashamed. I can only shamelessly continue to slack off and barely get by.
Dazai Osamu, who was not only not ashamed but also very proud, glanced at Yumeno Hisasaku and smiled disdainfully: "You are just imitating others."
Yumeno Hisasaku, who originally called Oda Sakunosuke "Oda" but was abducted to call him "Odasaku" after Dazai Osamu came once, snorted loudly: "Hisasaku is not a copycat! Hisasaku asked Odasaku and he agreed to let me call him that."
"Oh." Dazai nodded without comment. When Yumeno Hisasaku thought he had let the matter go, he smiled and repeated, "Learn from others."
"Hateful Dazai!" Yumeno Hisasaku jumped up, and with his tiny leap he wanted to kick Dazai Osamu's knee.
"I can't—kick—you, lelele..." Dazai Osamu drew out his tone maliciously and made an irritating laugh. The eyes of Yumeno Hisasaku, who was chasing him from behind with a pair of long legs, turned red.
Oda Sakunosuke looked at his childish friend helplessly and said, "Dazai, please stop bullying Hisasaku."
This deranged scene happened to be seen by Nakahara Chuuya who ran over to catch Dazai Osamu. Nakahara Chuuya laughed in anger, rolled up his sleeves and rushed forward to kick him: "Are you going backwards as you grow older? Dazai, you actually bully a child."
Dazai Osamu, who was overjoyed, was kicked away without any warning. After rolling on the ground, he stood up as if nothing had happened, but kept complaining: "Hiss, it hurts, Chuuya~"
Nakahara Chuuya turned a deaf ear to Dazai Osamu's wavy tone. After all, they had been partners for almost two years, and he had long been accustomed to Dazai Osamu's unreliability. He practiced ignoring Dazai Osamu's seemingly coquettish tone and elbowed Dazai Osamu in the abdomen without any hesitation: "Go to hell, skipping mackerel!"
As a pair of partners, not only does Nakahara Chuuya know Dazai Osamu very well, but Dazai Osamu knows Nakahara Chuuya even better.
He dodged the additional elbow from Nakahara Chuuya without even looking, and then dodged another attack from Nakahara Chuuya, even as he kept on teasing, "Oh my, has the black dwarf who doesn't like to use his brain finally realized that he has too much work to do?"
"You bastard mackerel!" Nakahara Chuuya remembered that he had been working overtime until late at night recently, and he was successfully pissed off by Dazai Osamu, so he increased the speed of his attack and stopped releasing the enemy into the sea.
Dazai Osamu, who had been asked for a hammer, fell on his back on the ground, coughing uncontrollably. However, he pointed at the dark circles under Nakahara Chuuya's eyes as if he had discovered a new continent, and a happy smile spread across his lips: "Ahem... You have dark circles under your eyes, Chuuya."
I don't know when Douma showed up, hugged Yumeno Hisasaku, whose eyes were still red, and kept comforting him softly, fearing that this little ancestor would really cry because of Dazai Osamu: "Don't cry, don't cry, Chuuya-nii is helping you teach your annoying Dazai-nii a lesson."
“Don’t…” Yumeno Hisasaku’s crying voice sounded aggrieved. Just when Douma was surprised that his dark-skinned kid couldn’t bear to see Dazai Osamu who had just provoked him get beaten, he heard Yumeno Hisasaku continue, “Don’t call me brother, Dazai…I hate you!”
"..."Okay, he was thinking too much. Douma touched Yumeno Kusaku's fluffy head and soothed him, "Okay, okay, we won't call him brother."
"Yeah!" Yumeno Hisasaku responded loudly, wrapped his arms around Douma's neck tightly, and nodded heavily to show his determination.
After appeasing Yumeno Hisasaku, Douma watched the limited edition battle between the two blacks with Oda Sakunosuke. Douma didn't know whether Dazai Osamu would defect from the port mafia this time and wait for Kuroshizai to transform into Busanzai. Such a good show would be gone forever.
After all, there were people watching on the side, including Douma, who was a cadre with a higher rank than him. After Nakahara Chuuya kicked Dazai Osamu a few times to relieve his anger, he put away his stance and stopped looking at Dazai Osamu who was still lying on the ground and unable to get up.
Because Douma was once a direct subordinate of Sister Momiji, Nakahara Chuuya politely called him "senior". At this moment, there was no trace of the smirk on his face when he beat Dazai just now: "Senior Douma, long time no see."
"I've already told you to just call me Douma. I only joined the Port Mafia a short time earlier than you." Douma held Yumeno Hisasaku in his arms with one hand and waved his other empty hand towards Nakahara Chuuya.
Zhongyuan Zhongye did not respond, but just smiled.
Although he is not a human, Nakahara Chuuya unexpectedly abides by human etiquette and rules.
Douma didn't hesitate to see this and just let it go. He thought that when Chuuya gets promoted to an executive, people at the same level would drop the title of "senior" and just call him "Douma".
After a few greetings, Nakahara Chuuya hurriedly grabbed Dazai Osamu's collar and dragged him away. On his desk, there was still a pile of unfinished work that Dazai secretly gave him.
Today, Dazai must complete it all for him.
Douma couldn't help but smile as he watched them leave, thinking: You are just like me, Chuuya.
Dazai Osamu, who was unable to speak because of the collar that strangled him, was not annoyed. After all, he had already pushed most of the work to Chuuya in advance, and there was not much work left.
Dazai Osamu's eyes darkened when his eyes met Douma who gave him a fake smile.
As expected, even if Odasaku said that, he couldn't see through Douma's true self. What a strange person.