Soukoku One-Shots

Lost in Translation (Found in Love) Pt. 4

He grimaced. "No, we haven't."

"Seriously?" she snorted, shaking her head. "You took him out on all those dates—I'm sorry, 'sight-seeing excursions'—and you don't even have something to present on?"

When she put it like that, it did sound a bit ridiculous. For the better part of the month, all they'd been doing was walking around Paris. Dazai had seen everything by now, all the major landmarks and historic artifacts and museums. They had an entire notebook to prove it, too, filled with lists and rudimentary drawings and nonsensical squiggles.

Chuuya groaned, plopping his face into his hands. He was pretty sure he stopped dragging Dazai around because of that project a while ago.

Higuchi laughed at him, patting his shoulder.

"Shut up," he grumbled.

"Hey, no shame. Do you know how long it took Gin and I to finally man up and talk about it?" She chuckled. "Way too long."

He made to reply, but the sound of footsteps approaching them had him pausing and raising his head. When he twisted around, he saw two very familiar people headed their way.

"Hey, kids!" Yosano called out, arm-in-arm with Kouyou. The pair pulled up chairs and plopped down at his and Higuchi's table without any fanfare.

Higuchi's eyes lit up. "Hi! What are you two doing around here?"

Yosano winked. "Just wasting time 'til next class. You?"

"I'm helping Chuuya with his dumbassery," she replied smoothly, all three of them ignoring Chuuya as he choked on his water.

Yosano seemed to find that comment amusing, naturally. "That's tough work," she said with a grin, patting Chuuya's back as he continued to cough.

Higuchi nodded sagely.

"Well," Chuuya cut in, clearing his throat and gathering up his things. It was a poor attempt to pivot the conversation away from his ridiculous situation, but oh well. "I've gotta run, class starts soon. Thanks, Higuchi, see you Akiko, Kouyou."

"Later, loser."

"See ya, kid."

"Goodbye, Chuuya."

Chuuya made his way toward the English building—it wasn't a complete lie, he did have class starting in fifteen minutes. He took his usual seat at the front of the room, settling in just as the professor sauntered up to the little podium and smiled at the class.

Normally, it would have been impossible for him to transfer into the class a week into the semester when it started at eleven in the morning, but Chuuya got lucky.

"Welcome back to Japanese I," the professor said with a wide, warm smile. "Let's begin."

***

Don't fuck it up, don't fuck it up, don't fuck it up—

Chuuya let out a breath and popped the lid back onto his liner, examining his handiwork in the mirror while Tachihara continued to mumble like a crazy person as he tried to 'fix' his hair.

Chuuya didn't usually wear much makeup, if any, but he liked to have fun with it every now and again. Besides, a sultry wing like this made his eyes pop.

"This shouldn't be that hard," Tachihara grumbled, running his hands through his hair for the hundredth time this evening.

Chuuya snorted. "It looks fine. You're just making it worse."

"I'm not going for fine, Chuuya!" Tachihara exclaimed, looking genuinely distressed. "I'm going for incredibly sexy and irresistible. Besides, there's no need to patronize me when you've already got that..." he trailed off, waving vaguely at Chuuya's head. "That mane of yours."