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Dazai, the infamous demon prodigy of the Port Mafia.
Silent, yet deadly.
Dazai Osamu was deaf. He couldn't hear or speak since birth. Instead, Dazai found ways to make up for it. He learned how to read lips, communicate through sign language, and feel vibrations of morse code. He wasn't considered a genius for nothing.
Chuuya, King of the Sheep, a vessel for a singularity.
Impaired, yet powerful.
Nakahara Chuuya was blind. He couldn't see even when he opened his hazy blue eyes. Chuuya still toughed through it. He used his ability to sense movements in his area, and attuned his ears to hear things a normal person couldn't. He wasn't such a strong leader for nothing.
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Dazai felt bored. Mori told him that he would be getting a new partner. All his other past partners died because they couldn't follow Dazai's crafty plans. He hoped this new partner wasn't as bad as the others.
When he entered Mori's cold office, he saw a mop of red hair peeking out from a chair, face obscured. Well this was interesting. Redheads weren't common in Yokohama.
"Dazai-Kun," Mori signed and spoke at the same time. "This is your new partner. I hope you guys treat each other well. I have a feeling this partnership will be more successful due to your, defects."
Dazai nodded. It was hard writing out everything for those incompetent 'partners'.
Chuuya bristled slightly. Everyone had a tendency to look down on him because he was blind and thought he couldn't fend for himself. Bullshit.
Chuuya stood up and faced his new partner. Dazai's eyes widened in shock. The redhead's eyes were glossy, blue irises unfocused. So he was blind. Mori was addressing not just him, but the both of them.
"Nakahara Chuuya, nice to meet you," Chuuya dipped his head quickly, then closed his eyes.
Dazai frowned when he saw Mori sit back in his seat and smirk. Chuuya turned towards him, a look of curiosity on his face. Dazai frowned, now confused. He was blind, yet could tell when Mori moved? He needed more information.
Dazai was about to sign his name until he realized that his new partner couldn't see. The boys stood there awkwardly in silence. Dazai strutted over to Chuuya and grabbed his arm.
"Oi! W- what are you doing? Where are we going?"
Dazai ignored the flailing person behind him, and dragged the other boy all the way to his shipping container. He fished out his phone and turned up his volume.
"Be quiet, my name is Dazai Osamu," the robotic voice said.
Chuuya stopped yelling. "Huh?"
Dazai typed again. "I'm deaf."
An, "Oh," left Chuuya's mouth.
This was unusual to say the least. A blind and deaf partnership? What was going on in Mori's head?
"Can you understand what I'm saying?" Chuuya asked hesitantly, voice lowering by at least 100 decibels.
"Yes I can read people's lips," came the robotic reply. "Do you know morse code?"
Chuuya nodded. Dazai went over to Chuuya and tapped a sentence onto his arm.
'What is your ability?'
"My ability? It's called For the Tainted Sorrow. What about yours?"
'It is called No Longer Human. I can nullify any ability.'
"Oh, cool. I can manipulate gravity. I guess that's why it didn't work on you though."
They fell into another silence, soaking up this new information. After a while, Chuuya shifted and got up.
"I'm gonna go," He said pointing towards the door. "Nice meeting you, or hearing you. I'll go now?" He turned to leave but Dazai caught his left wrist.
'Wait.'
Chuuya halted, turning his head back towards Dazai. "Yeah?"
'How do you see?'
Chuuya laughed and Dazai did not wish he could hear it, dammit.
"My ability is constantly active, so I feel vibrations in a certain radius. That's how I locate things."
Chuuya slipped out of Dazai's cold grasp, and walked towards his own apartment. What was he doing in a shipping container anyways? The Port Mafia was weird.
Dazai watched as he left. This was definitely going to be an interesting partnership...
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It was one thing to be deaf and work in the mafia. You could still see, and keeping quiet was a good thing. But being blind, on the other hand, was otherworldly. It was a disadvantage no matter how you looked at it. Maybe the only good thing was not being able to see the torture. But hell, this was the mafia for crying out loud! Everyone had to be accustomed to these things.
In Chuuya's first year of the Mafia, almost everyone looked down on him, except for a quirky bunch of individuals. They were called the Flags, and accepted Chuuya not for his disability, but his talents. They were like his family admist a bigger one, and didn't seem to judge him.
They played games together, drank together, and just had a good time. Or, at least it was good, until Verlaine decided to waltz into Chuuya's life and murder all of the Flags. Even though he couldn't see it, he knew they were heavily mutilated. For once, he was glad to be blind.
Over time, Chuuya honed his senses so much, that by now, he could feel the extreme details like bumps in walls, instead of just a hazy space. The only thing he longed for was color.
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Dazai thought it was funny. He smiled when Chuuya flared up about not seeing a small rock and ended up tripping, not that the redhead would even see the smile anyways.
One day, Dazai wanted to tease him. If Chuuya used his ability to see, what if he just nullified it? In a entirely new area, that is. Like on a mission inside an enemy base.
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It was a giant cave, with sparkly gemstones jutting out of the walls. Too bad they'd have to blow it up later.
Dazai skipped over to Chuuya, who was standing in the middle of the cavern. He seemed to be in deep thought, concentrating on somehing. The brunette grabbed Chuuya's arm, effectively nullifying his ability.
"Oi! Bastard! The hell was that for?" He tried to pull his arm away, only proving futile when Dazai tightened his grip.
'Nope!' Dazai tapped out. 'I can't let my dog get lost!'
"Hey! I am not your-" Chuuya stopped suddenly, stunning Dazai. Then he slowly smiled. "Hey, you aren't trying to do what I think you are, are you?"
'Oh? And what would that be?'
"Are you, perhaps, trying to nullify my ability so I can't sense my surroundings as well?"
Chuuya wasn't an idiot. he was only marked as 'average' because he was always around Dazai. Dazai, the guy with an inhumane brain, running several miles per minute. Of course anyone compared to him would be dumb. In reality though, Chuuya was not dumb. He was quite intelligent, in fact, he could even be considered above average.
"Too bad, shity Dazai. Being blind only heightens my other senses, so I can use echolocation loser. Also, I can smell differently. Like what the air smells like, what a waterfall smells like, and everything else down to stinky mackerels."
Well, Dazai was not expecting that. 'Chibi smells me? How cute,' he tapped out quickly, covering his surprise.
"And why the hell would I do that on purpose, teme!" Chuuya briskly walked away from the shitty, deaf bastard.
It was safe to say that Dazai and Chuuya completed the mission, with the younger of the two suffering sever shin damage.
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"Hey Dazai?"
The brunette set down his glass of whiskey and turned to Chuuya.
"C- can I touch your face?"
...
"N- NOT LIKE THAT TEME! I J- JUST WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOU LOOK LIKE THAT'S ALL STOP GIVING ME THAT LOOK!"
Dazai smiled at the slightly tipsy redhead beside him. He shrugged. 'Sure,' he tapped his nail on the countertop.
Chuuya raised his eyebrows. "Really?"
'I mean yeah I guess.'
Chuuya slowly slid off his gloves, fumbling to reach Dazai's face. The brunette shivered when cool hands framed his bony cheeks.
Chuuya hummed. "Sharp nose, high cheekbones... you still have a little baby fat."
Dazai pouted. Chuuya moved his fingers to his lips.
"But you also have thin lips, soft as well... nice eyebrows too... your skin is soft. I think you could be considered handsome to many."
'Could be? Chibi I am handsome.'
"Uh-huh, sure. What color did you say your eyes were?"
'Brown'
The redhead smiled. "I'm sure it looks nice on you."
Dazai frowned a little again. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to not see colors. The world was so vibrant, boasting several hues of, well, everything. All Chuuya could see was darkness, just an empty void. He wouldn't even know what colors even existed. All he would know was the names, and if a color like 'rose' was told to him, how would he know what color a rose even was?
'Do you ever wish you could see colors?'
"All the time," Chuuya said in a beat. "It sucks not seeing anything for its true beauty. What about you? Do you wish you could hear? Or talk? I want to know what your voice sounds like."
Dazai thought about it. Everything he was unable to do, he always found a way to compensate for it. He could read lips, sign, and watched every little movement.
'I'm sure my voice is very handsome as well.'
Chuuya laughed. "Sure, whatever you say Dazai."
Chuuya put his gloves back on and they sat in a comfortable silence. With both of the boys wielding their own disabilities, they found it easier to connect with each other than normal people. Those like them were the only ones who knew what it felt like to be different. They both longed for something they couldn't have, and at the same time, accepted what they had.
"I hope, that in another world, everything could be the same, but we could see, hear, and talk."
'That would be nice, wouldn't it?'