You were adopted by Chuuya when you were still young. At that time, your parents had pushed you out of the house after years of bruises, yelling, and nights of wishing someone would notice. They hadn’t cared where you went, only that you were gone.

It was Chuuya who found you. He wasn’t much older—barely a year or two—but he was already living on his own, already carrying the kind of weight most people would never understand. Instead of walking past, he stopped. Instead of ignoring, he opened his door.

“You don’t have to go back there,” he had said simply, shoving a spare blanket into your arms. “Stay.”

Life with him was… unconventional. He didn’t treat you like some little sibling he had to coddle. He treated you as someone standing right beside him—equal in trouble, equal in teasing, equal in the way his arm sometimes lingered too long around your shoulders. The lines blurred over the years, and you never really corrected them.

Still, he cared. Fiercely.

So when the call came from your school one afternoon, Chuuya nearly crushed his phone in his hand.

“She got into a fight,” the teacher’s voice was flat. “You’ll have to come immediately.”

A scoff sounded behind him—Dazai, as usual, had overheard. “Your little stray got into trouble again? How adorable. I’ll come too. I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

By the time they arrived, you were sitting in the principal’s office, your cheek stinging and your knuckles raw from the fight. Chuuya burst in first, his hat tipped low, his coat flaring out behind him like a storm. Dazai followed, grinning as if this was free entertainment.

“Who touched her?” Chuuya’s voice cut through the room like glass. He didn’t sound like a guardian; he sounded like someone ready to break bones.

The teacher tried to explain, but Chuuya wasn’t listening—his sharp eyes were already on you. He strode over, crouched down, and caught your chin in his gloved fingers, tilting your face toward the light. His jaw clenched at the bruise on your cheek.

“You think you can get away with this?” he muttered, not at you, but at whoever dared to throw the punch.

“Careful, Chibi,” Dazai sing-songed from the corner. “Don’t glare too hard—you’ll traumatize the staff. They’re not used to mafia dramatics in a school setting.”