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It was only natural, really, after he’d gone from the orphanage’s gruel to a healthier and balanced diet delivered to him by his own money from his own wallet. He’d be a little insulted if his scrawniness was an inherent trait, rather than the result of his terrible life under the headmaster’s tyranny. So when he began to fill his shirts instead of hiding within the cotton, it felt like an achievement. The shorter his pants were on his legs, the further he was from his past.
Atsushi hadn’t realized how much he’d grown until he was sitting in the closet upon waking up, the wood of the upper shelf pressing firmly against the crown of his head. The entire space was more cramped than he remembered, and he could see his feet poking out the end of the futon. He wiggled his toes.
For years, he had dreamed of it—the day he could turn his arm at the joint without being taken aback by the lines of bone, but now it had arrived he was left with an absence of any strong emotion. He’d expected to feel like a different person, but he was still the same Atsushi he’d been at sixteen, and ten, and five.
Is this a person who deserves to live? he wondered, flexing his fingers in and out. Did that person have a certain look? He didn’t think so, but attaching some kind of meaning to his progress would at least help him to stop moving his goalposts.
There was a knock on the closet door, and he didn’t flinch. He didn’t have the room to.
“It’s time to go,” came Kyouka’s voice, and Atsushi crawled out into the daylight, pushing his thoughts to the back of his mind.
Akutagawa was acting funny.
See, Atsushi could’ve sworn Akutagawa was taller than him the last time they’d worked together. Not by much, but enough to piss him off and to give that jerk a smarmy little smirk on his face. Now, they matched each other at eye level. Or so he suspected, but there was no way to prove it when Akutagawa refused to look him in the eye.
It made coordinating their infiltration into the enemy base very difficult.
A foreign organization was giving them the works today, after having the admittedly clever idea of putting their hideout inside a cave system. It was dark, the air was wet, and navigating the narrow tunnels required the combined efforts of Atsushi’s tiger senses with Rashomon’s far-reaching tendrils. One half of that setup was not pulling its weight.
They lost their direction one time too many, and Atsushi was reaching his wit’s end.
“I get we don’t exactly like each other, but you could at least pretend to tolerate me for the sake of the mission,” he hissed. It was far from their first joining of forces, and Akutagawa was normally a lot more mature about the situation considering Dazai’s approval was on the line.
His reply was a dismissive grunt, and he marched ahead down the one path they had yet to try, leaving Atsushi to chase after the swish of his coattails.
Muttering under his breath, Atsushi pictured Akutagawa being born in a place like this—moldy and muggy and decorated by sharp stalactites. Or maybe he came from under a bridge, or at the bottom of a well. Somewhere as unpleasant to be near as he was.
Their footsteps echoed on the stone, perfectly in sync. Atsushi altered his pace in a petty act of defiance. Akutagawa didn’t seem to notice. He was totally spaced out, and if Atsushi had any less self-respect he’d say he was starting to worry.
He had no more time to wonder, as they soon found the central chamber of the cave. Along with the foreigners, who were babysitting an enormous supply of weapons waiting to be handed over in an illegal trade. Had Akutagawa been cooperative, Atsushi knew they could’ve been in and out with time to spare. They’d had missions with much greater stakes, and frankly, these guys looked as if they could be wiped out with a few tiger punches.
Of course, that didn’t happen, because Akutagawa had chosen to schedule one of his pouting sessions for this afternoon. Instead of smooth sailing, it ended up going something like this:
Akutagawa, with his typical arrogance and odd refusal to spare even a single glance in Atsushi’s direction, charged in alone and found himself surrounded by an array of machine guns. Hardly an issue, as he was more than capable of devouring any projectile with his ability, so long as he was aware that it was heading for him.
The problem arose with a bullet he wasn’t expecting—a sniper guard, well hidden by the foliage and muck on the opposite side of the cavern.
Atsushi had never been more grateful for the tiger’s speed.
As soon as he heard the minute tightening of finger on trigger, he threw himself forward, wrapping his body around Akutagawa’s and hurling them both out of the bullet’s path. They hit the ground hard. Between his arms, he felt Akutagawa’s ribs constrict in a cough. Concerned, he ran his hands over Akutagawa’s torso, checking him for injury.
They often had moments like this, fuelled by the adrenaline of the fight, where they were almost intimate in having each other’s backs. It took an average of four long seconds before Akutagawa would return to his senses and shove off his fretting hands in disgust. Atsushi had counted before.
Propping himself up on his hands, he looked down to see Akutagawa blinking up at him with rapt disorientation.
“Are you hurt?” Atsushi tried to keep his voice airy, knowing that any lilt to his words that lingered too close to caring would not be taken well.
“No,” Akutagawa snapped, short and biting, and his eyes were darting across the width of Atsushi’s shoulders. Atsushi struggled to remember whether he’d ironed his shirt that morning, but if that was what was bothering Akutagawa, he needed to get his priorities straight.
Pushing his palm into the center of Atsushi’s chest, Akutagawa shrugged him off. His face contorted with a sneer. Ten seconds, that time. It had taken him more than twice as long as usual.
Atsushi glanced around as he sat back on his haunches, taking in the arrangement of knocked-out men and the unfortunate fact that the sniper in the bushes had fled. He bounced up from his crouch to stand, brushing off his pants. The hems had hiked over his knees, so he had to awkwardly pull them back down. He turned to Akutagawa, still simmering on the ground.
They followed the standard routine—Atsushi offered him a hand that went unacknowledged. Akutagawa avoided his gaze with a coldness that made Atsushi feel antsy, the behavior all too reminiscent of the kids at the orphanage who had ducked and weaved around his desperate attempts to make friends.
Taking Akutagawa’s rudeness personally was an easy mistake to make. Atsushi often grappled with the idea that the world was written around punishing him as an individual, and having a mad criminal set on his murder due to circumstances out of his control did no favors in disproving this irrational belief.
Itching for a distraction, he searched the base. They needed documents, evidence of the trade that would tell them who the recipients were of so many weapons. According to Akutagawa, it wasn’t the Port Mafia, which made the deal a worry for both of their respective organizations.
He found nothing. He rechecked every surface, every desk and crate. There was nothing but useless scraps, store receipts and the like. He checked the bodies lying around them. Still nothing.
“How is that possible?” he muttered aloud.
Had they been given a false lead? Atsushi felt sick at the prospect of fighting the wrong men while the deal happened miles away. But how else could there have been no evidence at all? Surely, the other party would have wanted insurance, a written contract, something, if they were risking it all by making a black market deal like this.
“That gunman must have it,” Akutagawa blurted. His attention seemed to be elsewhere, glaring holes into Atsushi’s boots like they had a secret puzzle sewn into the leather. They were the same battered ones Atsushi wore to every mission, so he couldn’t discern what about them could be that interesting. The confusion made his brain take a few seconds to catch up to what Akutagawa had said.
“…Right! Right. Did you see which way he went?”
Akutagawa exhaled, as if having this conversation was ever so tiring for him. “There’s only one way out of here.”
With Atsushi’s inhuman speed and Akutagawa being boosted by Rashomon, it caused them no stress at all to catch up with a regular person’s running. Atsushi couldn’t help but cry out when he caught sight of him.
“There!”
Startled, the gunman aimed his rifle at one of the beams that held up the rock of the passage’s ceiling and fired. Rashomon was quick to take its place, pushing desperately up against the stone as Akutagawa and Atsushi sprinted out of the passage that was beginning to crumble. A hunk of rock came loose from the ceiling, falling in a convenient manner to knock the gunman out cold. They both stopped.
“You go ahead,” Atsushi instructed, “I’ll be right behind you.”
Akutagawa nodded and continued towards the exit without argument. Atsushi was surprised by the compliance, but shook his head as he crouched down and started to rummage around in the gunman’s pockets. He felt the outline of plastic file, and pulled it out of the inside of the gunman’s jacket with a victorious Aha!
Clutching it under his arm, he made to go after Akutagawa, ducking under the tendrils of Rashomon that were keeping the tunnel intact. The end was in sight, and he could see the blue sky in front of him, beckoning him to the conclusion of a successful mission.
It was just as they made it out into the open that Rashomon missed one hulking, descending rock. It leaned towards the outside of the cave, so there was no possibility of Akutagawa seeing it while they were inside.
As Akutagawa stepped out into the open, spinning around to check Atsushi had followed him, it plummeted down, colliding with his leg before rolling on.
Atsushi heard the snap. The sound was unmistakable—he’d heard the crunch of his own bones many, many times. The worst part of it was that Akutagawa didn’t scream. Something on his face just dulled, and for some reason that put Atsushi on the verge of crying over a pain he couldn’t feel.
If he hadn't told Akutagawa to keep going as he’d retrieved the file, that would’ve been him in the lead. Maybe he could’ve handled the blow, and even if he couldn’t, the damage would at least be healing by now.
“Shit!” he gasped, “Shit, shit. Are you alright?! Are you—”
“Enough, already,” Akutagawa tried to snarl, but it came out choked. His cheeks bloomed like apples before going scarily, unnaturally pale, and he went to take a step away from the rubble that used to be the cave’s entrance. He started to fall. Atsushi dropped the file in his hands, but that didn’t stop him from being too slow to catch him twice.
He hadn’t planned to visit Akutagawa in the hospital for a number of reasons. First, they were nowhere close to an amicable relationship. Second, he was ninety percent sure that the address he’d been given was a front for the Port Mafia, not an actual hospital. Third, what the hell was he supposed to say, alone in a ward with Akutagawa?
Guilt was the driving force that sent him walking through the glass double doors, up to the receptionist who had a hardness to her that couldn’t be attributed solely to working in the medical field. If he’d just had a better reaction time, if he’d just utilized the tiger’s increased awareness that Akutagawa was always harping on about, maybe he wouldn’t have had to see his partner’s unconscious body, lying there pallid.
It had given him a sick sense of deja vu. He’d already lost Akutagawa once, which was likely why he’d become so panicked, gathering him up in his arms and rushing him to whoever would help. Feeling far too distraught than he should, for someone who he was planning to defeat in battle and who wanted to kill him in turn.
He didn’t know how long he’d sprinted with Akutagawa in his arms. Akutagawa was light enough for it to be horrifying, or maybe Atsushi had been so pumped with adrenaline he couldn’t feel the weight. They were at minimum ten minutes away from the nearest populated area, even with Atsushi running with all his might. When he’d reached the outskirts of the city, seen those characteristic reinforced black vehicles, he’d almost collapsed in relief.
He was getting into a strange habit as of late, being pleased to see the Mafia.
Of course, him showing up with the broken body of one of their highest ranking members had caused quite the stir.
The despairing look on his face had made a man in a dark suit and sunglasses give him directions that had scorched themselves into his mind and that he’d followed to this building, three days later.
He’d experienced a spell of insanity on the journey that had culminated in buying a card for Akutagawa to bring with him—he’d seen the red roses hanging at the back of the store, but that seemed a step too far even in his zombielike trance—and now it was dangling in its envelope between his fingertips. He’d stared at the blank insides for an hour, pen unable to trail a message that sounded right, before settling on a simple Get well soon with a smiley face to accompany it. And then, in case Akutagawa was more popular than he’d realized and had been given a slew of cards already, he’d written From Atsushi.
There was a lingering hope in his mind that when he arrived, Akutagawa would be dead asleep, and he could drop the well wishes off by his bedside and then slip away unnoticed. But luck had never been his ally.
Akutagawa was sitting up against the headboard with his leg in a thick white cast. His eyes were a touch glassy from whatever painkillers the nurses had pumped into his body, but he was wide awake.
There were patient notes attached to the end of his cot. One of the pages had an x-ray of what must have been the damage, with so much out of place and so many bone fragments that Atsushi had to force himself to look away, nausea bubbling up.
He wished he could activate the tiger’s power somehow and negate the gruesome wound that he’d failed to protect Akutagawa from, as if it were his own. It sure felt like his own.
“Get out, if you’re here to slather me with your pity,” Akutagawa said. Atsushi wondered if he’d spoken his wish instead of thinking it.
“Hello to you too,” he grumbled, sinking into the chair at his bedside. “How… how are you feeling?”
“Sublime,” Akutagawa replied, deadpan. “There, you’ve visited the invalid. Off you go, return to your agency feeling like a saint.”
Atsushi ran a hand through his hair. “Why do you have to make everything into a fight? That’s not why I’m here.”
“I don’t see why else you would be.”
“I had to make sure you weren’t dead!”—Akutagawa raised a brow—“What if… who am I supposed to duel if you ended up being crushed to death?!”
“Given the antics your pantomimic organization gets up to, I imagine someone worth the trouble would’ve found you again in due time, but I concede your point. I am alive and recovering. Is that all?”
“I had to carry you to safety! Don’t you wanna know what happened?”
Akutagawa was right—Atsushi could leave right now, and avoid this pointless argument. He was stalling. Why was he stalling?
“By the sounds of it, I would prefer that rock to have pulverized my skull.” Akutagawa sent another pointed glance to the door. “Begone.”
With a resigned huff, Atsushi tossed the envelope into Akutagawa’s lap. Akutagawa blinked at it, as if just noticing that Atsushi had brought it with him. Slowly, cautiously, he slid his finger underneath the seal and pried it open.
Atsushi winced, regretting his choice of card. The front had a silly cartoon drawing of a dog and a cat, standing side by side with their tails entwined and biologically improbable smiles on their faces. It had been the only card he could buy with the pocket change he had on him at the time, but now it looked a little… on the nose.
Akutagawa didn’t react to the picture on the front, instead going straight for the inside. He stared at the message, his face utterly devoid of any emotion. Atsushi began to sweat. Part of him wanted to snatch the card from Akutagawa’s hands and double check that he hadn’t doodled a giant middle finger instead of wishing him a swift recovery.
“Haha! Well, I’d better be going.” Atsushi jumped to his feet. “Cases to solve, and all that. Clues to detect!”
“Weretiger.”
Akutagawa looked positively furious now. Atsushi didn’t know why, and with all due respect, didn’t want to find out.
“Sorry, I have to leave. I hope your leg, uh, mends itself. Bye!”
He darted out of the hospital room, not letting go of the breath he was holding until he was certain he was out of earshot.
“He probably feels emasculated. The guy already has an inferiority complex, and then you show up all tall and hunky, falling over yourself to save him? I mean—” Dazai broke off to laugh.
“I regret asking you.”
“No, no, I’m serious! Does he even have that one inch of height to lord over you anymore? And you visited him in the hospital? You’re killing him, Atsushi!”
It had been a terrible idea to bring up Akutagawa’s weird behavior to Dazai, Atsushi had quickly discovered. It was ridiculous to expect him to take anything related to his mentees seriously. But he was limited for options when it came to people who knew both himself and Akutagawa well, and he would rather take it to the grave than mention it to Kyouka.
Akutagawa was out of commission for the foreseeable future thanks to his broken leg, so it had been Atsushi and Tanizaki that dealt with the Agency’s dirty work today. Atsushi had half been expecting Akutagawa to show up anyway, choosing to walk on fractured bones before entertaining the notion of missing a mission, but the day had been so uneventful Atsushi became anxious that his condition was worse than he’d believed.
“Eh, I think it’s something he has to figure out on his own,” Dazai said, which was less than helpful. Atsushi felt uneasy, knowing Akutagawa was acting out of the ordinary on top of his grievous injury. So he made a decision that he always felt guilty when he did, and yet was no stranger to making anyway. He would ignore Dazai’s advice. He would seek Akutagawa out. Scrounge for some sort of answer to the questions buzzing around his mind.
Unfortunately, Akutagawa was a difficult man to pin down. It became clear why the police had so much trouble getting their hands on him. No mafia henchmen were around to tell him Akutagawa’s whereabouts, this time.
He’d been trudging around Port Mafia territory feeling like misfortune personified, when he spotted someone leaving an apartment complex.
Atsushi couldn't decide whether it was reasonable to suspect Akutagawa lived with his sister or if he was being influenced by his own sharing of rooms with Kyouka, but it was the best lead he had. He crossed the street, entered the building and beelined straight for the elevator.
It was not evidence but gut instinct that made him press the button for the top floor.
The ride up was slow and excruciating. The elevator played a fun little jingle as he ascended, and Atsushi had to stifle a laugh at the possibility that Akutagawa listened to it on his way home after every mission.
The doors parted in front of him to a short entryway, one that led to a singular reddish-brown door. Whoever lived here had the entire floor to themselves.
He stepped gingerly into the entryway, admiring the fancy lights with extravagant lampshades that decorated either wall. Gathering all his courage, he rang the doorbell.
Silence reigned for one minute. Two. Three. Atsushi was about to turn around and leave with his tail between his legs when he heard the sliding of a chain lock and the handle being turned down.
The door opened, and he was greeted by a familiar face—kind of. It mimicked a face, with its scorching red energy and snapping jaws. Even as it loomed over him with clear threat, Atsushi drooped with relief.
He dodged around it, following its trail to the living room. He passed a pair of abandoned crutches, crossed over one another in the genkan. When he turned the corner, he met an inquisitive gaze.
Better curious than murderous, Atsushi supposed.
“Should I bother asking how you managed to find my home?” Akutagawa asked, before reclining until his head hung over the back of the couch. He sounded exhausted. His foot was still bound tight. Atsushi struggled to figure out how he’d gotten across the apartment without the crutches he’d discarded, until he was shoulder-checked by Rashomon bumping against his side.
“I…” Atsushi didn’t know how to answer. There were probably better ways to get someone to talk to you than showing up to their place unannounced.
He’d rehearsed what he wanted to say countless times on his way over, but standing before the man himself, all of his confidence seemed to dissipate into thin air.
“You— uh, stay there, I’ll make us tea!” Atsushi squeaked, fleeing into the connecting kitchen. He opened cupboards, hunting for tea and cups, all while trying to calm his racing heartbeat. What was he so worked up about? It was Akutagawa. The person who had seen him at his worst, his weakest. The only way was up from here.
Still, his hands shook as he set out a teapot and cups onto the tray he’d dug out of Akutagawa’s kitchen. He had to harness all of his fine motor control to avoid spilling tea as he brought it out to Akutagawa.
“Here,” Atsushi said, “I hope you like Earl Grey.”
He tried not to smack himself when he remembered the tea was Akutagawa’s in the first place.
“Hmph,” Akutagawa mumbled as he brought the teacup to his lips, “Could do with a little more steeping.”
Atsushi went to follow his lead in taste-testing, but squawked as he scalded his tongue. “That’s so hot! How can you drink that?!”
“Because I’m not a whimpering coward,” he replied around the rim of his cup.
“God, you’re seriously—”
“Why are you here, weretiger?”
Akutagawa’s eyes were thick with the same intensity they’d had when the two of them had first met. Atsushi scoured his brain to decipher what he could have done to make Akutagawa hate him again. He’d hated Atsushi for his weakness, right? So how could he still be upset? Atsushi had been working on it, tirelessly, and he believed he was finally starting to get somewhere.
“Did I do something wrong?” He rubbed the handle of his teacup between his forefinger and thumb. “You’ve been acting like… like you did with me at the start. I thought we were getting better.”
Akutagawa sighed. “There is no ‘better’ with us, fool. Did you forget the final outcome of the agreement we made?”
“But I—”
Putting down his teacup, Akutagawa reached out and grabbed Atsushi’s face, squishing it together between his hands until he resembled a pufferfish. Not knowing how to react, Atsushi didn’t move.
“I’ll ask you again—why are you here? Do you want my praise for finding some tiny increment of strength? You look less gaunt, at the very least.”
Atsushi remained motionless. Satisfied with his work, Akutagawa let go.
He didn’t want praise from someone like Akutagawa at all. For a second there, he’d had the rogue, fleeting thought that maybe Akutagawa would lean closer and steal something from him that nobody had ever taken before. The mental image burned in his chest like a brand, punishing him for daring to imagine such an outrageous turn of events.
“A-Are you angry?” Atsushi asked, trying to cover up his conspicuous swallow.
“With you? I struggle not to be.” There was a trace of humor in the curve of Akutagawa’s mouth, but it vanished before Atsushi could pin it down.
There was a softer edge to Akutagawa sometimes. It appeared when he grew tired of glowering at Atsushi like he was the devil incarnate, or when he was high on painkillers, or when he’d lost a lot of blood. He would look at him with an expression that glowed with nostalgia, like he felt Atsushi was someone he was responsible for. It was an edge that only fit into Akutagawa’s overarching puzzle after Atsushi had found out that he was an older brother.
At this moment, he looked at Atsushi straight on. “You’re avoiding the question.”
“I’m not sure I know how to answer it.”
That wasn’t entirely true. If it were acceptable to do so, he would grab Akutagawa by the shoulders and yell out, I want to know why you look so angry whenever I do something nice for you. I want you to tell me why you struggle to look me in the eye even as we’re fighting. I want to know how I could ever make you feel lesser than me, when your strength is all I’ve ever strived towards.
Dazai must be wrong, rare as it was. It was impossible that Akutagawa could feel inferior to him when even now that they were the same height, Akutagawa looking down his nose at him made him weak in the knees.
Atsushi stared forlornly at the teapot. “You should rest.”
As he spoke, Akutagawa rose from the couch, using his ability to brace himself. He began to walk away from Atsushi.
“Where are you going?”
“To rest. Is that not what you wanted?”
Atsushi didn’t answer, so Akutagawa kept walking until he turned into a bedroom out of sight. Atsushi was surprised he hadn’t been shooed out of the apartment. Maybe his presence meant so little to Akutagawa that he hadn’t remembered to.
Maybe he didn’t mind if Atsushi stayed.
Each explanation weighed differently on Atsushi’s shoulders, but they were both heavy. His eyes flitted around Akutagawa’s living room, taking in all that he could, as if the building was doomed to go up in flames tomorrow.
He couldn’t say with confidence that he liked Akutagawa as any friend, any partner should. But he respected him, and as that thought crossed his mind it sank into his chest with certainty. He respected Akutagawa’s power, his personhood, his integrity. He needed Akutagawa, in some twisted way, to see him. To know him at a depth so great, it was a burden he would never want to put on his friends, or Kyouka, or even Dazai.
With Akutagawa, he didn’t feel any remorse at all.
The door to the bedroom was ajar, so he knew Akutagawa was listening. Waiting for him to do something drastic. To wreck his apartment. To follow him to the bedroom and entangle them to a point of no return. To break the rest of his bones, exacting his revenge on a man that was already too damaged to put up much of a fight.
But all of those options were selfish, so selfish. Atsushi had grown two and a half centimetres since they’d met, and his selfishness had been beaten out of him long before that.
Atsushi sat in a loop of silence for some time, stewing with questions unspoken. He pushed himself to his feet, downed the last remaining dregs of his tea. He stopped at the doorway to Akutagawa’s bedroom.
He could see Akutagawa’s shoulders rising and falling. He was so frail—Atsushi knew because he’d felt it, carrying Akutagawa’s body for all those minutes.
Akutagawa’s bedroom was carpeted, and the fibers were soft under Atsushi’s socked feet. He wanted to say something, as would be polite when entering someone’s private space, but nothing sprung to mind. All he could hear was Akutagawa’s long, deep but ragged breaths, contrasting with the short and shallow ones of his own. Stuttering with emotion as they left his lungs. Akutagawa was feigning sleep, he was sure.
Before he could talk himself out of it, he leaned down and touched his lips to Akutagawa’s temple. Then he stood straight and walked back the way he’d entered, returning to the genkan and lacing up his boots. When he left Akutagawa’s apartment, he closed the door so gently behind him, it didn’t make a sound.