Double Black

hearts adorned with hats

A/N: This can be read as a prequel to hearts wrapped in bandages (part 88 i think?)

Certain members of the Port Mafia have really been struggling recently.

As usual, their hardships had nothing to do with the nature of their jobs. They've been used to being mafiosos for ages anyway. In fact, carrying out missions and taking down enemy organizations was so much easier than wasting their braincells over whatever the fuck was going on with one of their superiors right now.

Over the last few weeks, the Black Lizard duo along with Higuchi, who might as well be an honorary member of their team, have been noticing a sudden new change in their executive's daily outfits. It started precisely twenty two days ago, when Chuuya-san showed up to his office.

His clothing was the same as usual, and perhaps none of them would even have noticed the minute change if Gin hadn't pointed it out implicitly. Tachihara had just noticed his partner staring intensely at their executive's hat. Naturally, he had to follow suit and do some staring as well.

That was when he noticed. 

A little pin was pinned onto the gravity manipulator's hat. And it wasn't any regular pin, like a bobby pin or a simple hairclip to hold his hat in place. No, it was very obviously a decorative pin. And that too in the shape of a... Crab? 

Tachihara didn't even know they made hat pins, much less those in the shapes of sea creatures. And why a crab of all things? A dolphin was much cuter, as best said by Higuchi. But other than that, it was Gin who took it upon herself to aggressively stare her message into her partner's soul. They absolutely made pins in all shapes and sizes, the point being. 

Right then. Tachihara got the point. Hat pins came in all shapes. Perfectly understandable. And now it appeared that Chuuya-san was fond of such cute accessories? It was surprising, but it did make him a little more approachable. Especially to the newer recruits. But nobody dared to bring up the hat pins in front of the executive just yet. 

At first, the mafiosos probably thought that the hat pin was just a one-time thing. But as it turned out, that wasn't the case at all. Two days after the crab pin, Chuuya-san showed up to work with a dolphin clipped onto his hat.

Wasn't that crazy?! 

It was as if he'd read their mind, and decided to swap out his crab pin for a much cuter sea creature. That being dolphins. The first time Higuchi spotted the blue dolphin on her superior's hat, she paused in her step for a whole minute, trying to process this new development. But then said superior walked over to her and handed her a file of paperwork before thanking her and walking away. Clearly, she had to get back to work. 

It was at least a little bit funny, because Chuuya-san also ended up doing his missions like that, with cute animals stuck to his hat. At a joint mission with him, his subordinates couldn't help but notice that their enemies were focused on his hatpin while he was kicking their ass all the way to Saturn. Even when they were defeated and dusted, their eyes focused on the gravity manipulator's retreating figure. His dolphin-shaped pin, rather specifically.

The hatpin fiesta didn't stop there, and not anytime soon at that.

The next time, Chuuya-san's hatpin was in the shape of a swallow, and the time after that, it was a little wine bottle, which was honestly just so true to his character. After that, he moved on from animal-shaped pins for a while. Suddenly, his hatpins were in the shape of hearts, or bandages, or even a little violin.

Then on some days, his pins looked like emoticons. Like the ones which were used on LINE. This one time, his pin was shaped like the sobbing emoji, which everyone seemed to be using for laughing these days. It was funnier because he had a mission later that day, which he aced as usual. The look of sheer horror on their enemies' faces was well complimented by the crying emoji on the gravity manipulator's infamous hat.