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He keeps the window open now. Not open enough to notice on a regular day, but still open to where water pools on the window sill on rainy days and the apartment gets just a little colder during the chillier months.
Kyouka doesn’t mention it. She doesn’t say anything about the black coat that now sits on his shoulders, nor the look of longing when he stares at the outside. She doesn’t mention the extra plate during dinner sometimes, only putting it away for lunch the next day.
Nobody mentions it either. Nobody calls Atsushi out for sitting too close to the window at the agency, watching and waiting.
Sometimes he sits on the small table in front of the window in his apartment, a pot of tea brewed and completed, munching ideally on the fig cookies that Akutagawa had once left behind as if the tea alone would make the window open and a familiar black blur to appear. But the glass panel remains untouched, the tea goes cold and Atsushi is forced to clean up. He never thought he’d miss it so much.
Gin offers some relief, but even she is still grieving. She refuses the coat, adamant that Akutagawa had given it to him for a reason. She had too much of her brother’s things to deal with anyway she claims. Akutagawa’s apartment is almost bare as they drink away the remains of the tea hidden in the cupboards. As Atsushi leaves, he wonders if Gin has forgiven Tachihara yet. He wonders how Higuchi is holding up.
Once he entertained the thought of climbing through the windows too. Staring out of it, he remembered how Akutagawa always looked so casual about it, but Beast Beneath the Moonlight wasn’t made for that. They could climb, but not in the way Rashomon could. At the thought of the other ability, he retreats away from the window, the coat feeling colder and heavier.
Closing the window means acceptance and Atsushi is uncertain if he’s ready for that. Ready to finally accept that the window will never be opened on the other side, ready to accept that Akutagawa isn’t coming home. He wants to, but the grief is still too much.
So the window stays open, waiting for the day that it will be fully opened once again to the sight of a lover dressed in black, ready to demand food or company. A day that will never come.