Soukoku One-Shots

Lost in Translation (Found in Love) Pt. 2

Alternate Universe

"He just sat there with a smug-ass smile like he thought he could sweep me off my feet like some damn bride!" Chuuya snapped, shoving the piece of brie into his mouth with palpable anger. "As if it's not me who speaks the language of love,the fuck?"

It was a lazy Thursday morning, a few days after he'd run into Dazai for the first time (literally). Kouyou had a little apartment right by the university and invited Chuuya over for breakfast since he had the day off, and they were now tearing into the fresh baguette and brie she'd picked up earlier. Yosano, apparently, was out for some sort of class assignment, so it was just the two of them.

Kouyou nodded along absentmindedly to Chuuya's rambling, hiding an obvious smile behind the rim of her own wine glass. "Yes, that sounds very hard," she said, utterly unsympathetic.

"I mean, who does he think he is? Shit, and now we have to do this presentation and he probably doesn't even know what we need to do and—" Chuuya cut himself off again with a facepalm, shaking his head. This was a disaster. He had to spend an entire month working with someone who he, A: couldn't understand, and B: couldn't possibly deal with when he kept acting like he could just sweep Chuuya off his feet. Who cared if he had pretty brown bedroom eyes and long, lithe fingers? Plenty of dickheads are good-looking.

Chuuya scowled.

"Will you cut down on the foul language?" Kouyou asked calmly, arching a brow. "You sound like a sailor."

"Cry me a fuckin' river," Chuuya grumbled as he reached for the baguette, but that only earned him a very hard glare in reply. He sighed. "Sorry, sorry. I'm irritated."

"I can tell."

"It's just—"

"Chuuya." Kouyou cut a piece of the brie for herself, looking at him with only the slightest smile. "Perhaps it's time to stop complaining and start doing something about it. If this Dazai is truly that unpleasant, why don't you get this done as soon as you can? You won't have to speak to him ever again and I can stop listening to you whine about it every day, hm?" She watched him for a moment, eyes sharp as ever, and Chuuya noticed the twitching of the corners of her lips.

He let out a long sigh and flopped back in his chair. "You might have a point," he mumbled. The sooner they picked the important piece of French History to present, the sooner they could get going on the actual presentation, and that would be a piece of cake. Chuuya would probably have to do all the work since Dazai couldn't even say hello in French without butchering it completely, but he wanted a good grade and could sacrifice a night or two.

"Of course I do." Kouyou waved vaguely at him, almost to shoo him away. "Now go take care of it. I don't know how much more of this rambling I can take."

"Hey! For your information, I'm an adult, and I can make my own choices." But Chuuya was already standing and making his way toward her, pressing two quick kisses to her cheeks. "Thanks for breakfast. Say hi to Akiko for me, too."

"Of course."

Chuuya pulled his shoes back on and made his way back down to the first floor, bag thrown over one shoulder. He had some groceries to buy for dinner tonight, but other than that, his day was open. He could call Higuchi, he supposed, since she always tried to spend her days off doing nothing anyway.

Then again, getting this presentation over with would be really nice.

There was a nice market just a few blocks away from Kouyou's apartment, so Chuuya didn't bother with the metro. The weather was perfect; sunny without beating down on the sidewalk, humid but not enough to ruin his hair. It was still quite early in the day, so there weren't many people walking around besides a few tourist families.