Chapter Text
"Really kid?"
The man's voice is surprisingly deep. Atsushi doesn't respond. He's still seeing stars, vision gone static bright behind the skin of his eyelids, the back of his head one huge blaring concentration of pain from where it had cracked against the concrete. There's a pressure on his chest, heavy and settled. A boot. He's pretty sure that it's a boot. When he tries to move, awkwardly, the owner of the boot stomps down hard.
Something creaks. Atsushi muffles a yelp between his teeth and kind of wants to cry.
He's not sure what this says about his own luck or just karma in general. It's probably his luck--Atsushi's luck is terrible, no good, useless. Atsushi himself is terrible, no good, useless, kicked out of his orphanage and left to starve, desperate to the point of committing theft in order to survive. And really, at this point , getting beaten up by the person he was trying to rob doesn't even come as huge surprise.
Although it still is a surprise.
Above him, colours are starting to blur into focus. A boot, leading up to black slacks, to a crisp looking shirt, then black gloves and startlingly bright hair underneath the tipped brim of a hat. It's the same man Atsushi had tried to rob, no doubt about it. Slim and short, with delicate, androgynous features and expensive clothes. Alone, walking at a slouched pace, Atsushi's first impression of him had been easy target. This is what he gets for that, he thinks dazedly, a minute and a failed lunge into the future.
The man is scowling down, looking distinctively unimpressed. Atsushi can feel the tip of his heel digging into the soft space between his ribs. "Oi," he says, sounding faintly incredulous past the ringing in Atsushi's ears. "Did you try to mug me in broad daylight?"
"I'm sorry!" Atsushi yelps. It comes out as a pathetic kind of whimper. His head is swimming and his back aches and he can feel the hard edge of rock digging into his palm. Oh god, what did he get himself into. Atsushi is an idiot and useless and he knew he was going to die alone and homeless, he knew, but now he's going to get a criminal record on top of that. "I'm sorry. I am so sorry. Please please please don't call the police. I know I shouldn't have I know but I was so hungry it was my first time I won't do it again I promise. I promise." He's babbling. He's going to jail. He has no money for bail and he's going to jail because he decided to rob a random stranger, and Atsushi will not survive in jail. "Please, I won't do it again! I won--"
"Kid," Stranger interrupts.
"--t! I'll be good! I won't even think of doing an--"
"Kid," Stranger repeats, harsher. Atsushi snaps his mouth shut, quickly enough for his teeth to click. Sometime through that desperate ramble, the boot on his chest has been generously removed. He keeps very very still as Stranger leans down, still frowning. Tries not to breathe or even blink. "How old are you?"
Atsushi stares at him for a moment. Blue eyes narrow, impatient, and he scrambles for a response.
"Um. Eighteen?"
"You don't sound very certain," Stranger says dryly.
"I'm eighteen," Atsushi reaffirms.
In response that this, Stranger makes a sound kind of like tchht, and Atsushi wonders belatedly if he should have lied.
For a moment the stranger just eyes him, a crease in his brow, eyes bright and frightening in their intensity. Atsushi wonders if this is what prey feels like when cornered, somewhere between terror and petrification and well, more terror, helpless in the face of some larger, meaner predator. Resisting the overpowering urge to scramble away is hard; there's a weight settling like cold lead in his stomach, spindly fingers digging into his neck, a voice, quiet but furious, hissing run-while-you-can even as he's being scrutinized.
"You look like you got kicked out of a hospital," he says finally, shifting on his heels.
"I... got kicked out of my orphanage." Atsushi replies weakly.
Stranger's eyebrows hitch up. "Yeah? Just like that when you turned legal?"
"No. There was..." Atsushi pauses. He's not sure why the stranger is asking, but at least this means he's not being hauled away in a police cruiser. "There was downsizing. And crop failure," and also a terrifying, man-eating tiger, but he isn't about to mention that. "Mostly downsizing."
The stranger's expression turns contemplative. Atsushi hopes, anxiously, that it's a "I feel pity" sort of contemplative and not a "law enforcement kind of contemplative. "Huh," he mutters.
Then he snags Atsushi by the arm and rises in one fluid smooth motion, heaving Atsushi up with him. The grip is strong, a vice clamp on the delicate wrist bone. For a moment Atsushi's wobbling. His legs feel like soaked noodles and he still hurts everywhere, and the abrupt motion of standing has him blinking away a dizzying amount of vertigo, colours blinking out for a moment, bile on his tongue. Stranger waits until he's steadied before turning sharply on his heel.
"Let's go."
Atsushi blinks at his back. "What?"
It earns him an impatient look pointed over one shoulder. "Let's go."
... Go? Go where. Oh god. Is he going to be frog marched to a police station? Is that what's going to happen? A step back, his shoes seem very loud on the road, and the trepidation must have shown on his face because Stranger takes one look at him and rolls his eyes. "To a restaurant, kid. You look like you need a solid meal."
There are a lot of things about this situation not making sense. This right here is more outrageous than Atsushi getting flipped onto his back by someone who's a good five inches shorter than him, even with the hat. ".. You're going to feed me?" he edges.
Maybe he's dreaming. Nothing good ever happens to Atsushi. Maybe, very likely, this is a dream.
"That's what I said." Stranger tells him.
"But... I just… tried to rob you?"
He wants to take the words back the moment they leave his mouth. Atsushi is in absolutely no position to pass up on free food. Thankfully though, the stranger only snorts. "Kid," he says, and there's a catch like a laugh in his voice. "You couldn't rob a five year old."
This is a very demeneaning but not exactly inaccurate assessment of Atsushi's life skills.
He crooks a finger in Atsushi's direction. "Come on."
He turns, and doesn't look back to see if Atsushi is following him, which Atsushi does, after a heartbeat of indecision and a scramble to catch up. He pinches himself on the side just to be sure. It's not a dream, somehow, even though it should be, even though this is too good for reality in anyway without a catch. Maybe Stranger is a serial killer. Maybe he's a gangster. Luring Atsushi in for the sole and express purpose of dicing him up to little bits and harvesting his organs.
But Atsushi is hungry and tired and he doesn't have it in him to refuse, not on the chance that the offer might be genuine, not if a warm meal is just a walk and a kindness away.
"I'm Nakajima Atsushi," he offers, hesitantly.
The slanted look he gets in return is mostly unreadable: a half raised eyebrow, a set of the mouth that isn't a frown but isn't a smile. "Nakahara Chuuya," the stranger introduces. And then he's walking faster, picking up the pace in long, brisk strides, and Atsushi has to adjust accordingly or risk lagging behind.
*
Nakahara-san is shaping up to not be a serial killer. Unless, of course, he's the type to lure his victims into a false sense of security and gratitude before finishing them off. Atsushi follows him into a restaurant that's too nice for him to even think of standing in its front lobby, all ornate furniture and floor polished to a gleaming chrome, and tries very hard to hunch into himself as they head towards the hostess.
They get seats near the windows. The chairs are covered in a cushion of leather, and there are fresh flowers arranged in the center of their table. Nakahara-san orders as Atsushi grips the strap of his bag and tries to not bite his nails. Everything is expensive. And although Nakahara-san fits right in, suit charcoal and tailored, not a hair out of place, Atsushi most certainly does not. He clutches at his mug as soon as a waitress brings the teapot and tries not to seem like he's sneaking furtive glances at his surroundings.
Then the food comes in, and Atsushi forgets all about that.
Chazuke had been Atsushi's first choice, but whatever. Whatever. Atsushi is in no way complaining. There's duck congee on the table, soups that smell of thyme ad salt, platters of gently steaming vegetables. Atsushi scalds his tongue on the first bite but doesn't care and doesn't stop and definitely doesn't slow down. It's food and it's hot and it's food, and his stomach is going to rebel if he doesn't get it into him right now.
He inhales four family-sized portions in maybe twenty minutes, and he's still hungry. But that's alright, because then another bowl comes, wafting up steam sharp with salt and seafood, and he polishes that clean too.
And the bowl after that.
And the bowl after that.
He only begins to slow down after maybe ten servings; starts to taste the flavours instead of straight out stuffing his face. There's a roast, gilded and golden; there's another soup, that tastes of pumpkin and the spice of winter herbs. All the while, Nakahara-san sips his wine from the stem of delicate champagne flute, one leg tossed carelessly over the other.
He's scraping off the last of the sauce from his (twenty-fifth) plate when Nakahara-san sets his glass against the table win a precise click.
"Done?" He asks. Atsushi starts, glances up to see the man's mouth tilted, amused, and he rubs the back of his neck sheepishly.
"Absolutely," he says."I haven't eaten this much in forever." His voice comes out ridiculously happy and a little fervent, and he means it so much he doesn't even feel ashamed.
There's a pointed look at Atsushi's stomach."I can see that."
Atsushi feels the blush reach his ears. He laughs sheepishly. "Uh. Yeah. I don't really know how that fit either." That was a lot of food. A lot of... Expensive food. "But really. Thanks. I don't-- You don't know how much this means to me. I honestly thought I was going to die out there. I don't have anyone and I thought--"
He stops, not quite sure how to go on.
For a moment, Nakahara-san is silent as well, and Atsushi thinks, too heavy too heavy why did you say that. He has a hand already half raised to wave it off, a not-quite laugh stuck in his throat, but then Nakahara-san leans back and tosses back the rest of his wine.
"You have anywhere to go?" he asks, when he's finished swallowing.
"Um," says Atsushi, shoulders hunched. Then, "No."
Atsushi never has anywhere to go. That's the basis of his life. He doesn't know where he's going to sleep for the night. He's got to move, too, otherwise the park bench would be a pretty appealing place to lie down and take a break. The tiger is following him. He remembers that in a terrified rush, followed by a kind of resigned despair. He has no idea how the tiger is following him, but it's definitely following him.
"It's fine." He lifts his head and tries for a smile, finds it small and self-decapitating."That's how it always is."
There's a pause. Very keenly, Atsushi can hear the soft clinks of china from the other tables. Nakahara-san fingers his wine glass, reaches for the dark amber bottle at his elbow to pour more inside. It's a quick elegant motion, all smooth practice. Atsushi watches and he's anxious. That's what this emotion is, he thinks. His heart is thudding and his palms are cold and hot at once, and he's anxious, because Atsushi has always cared too much about what people thought of him when people have never thought well of him, when they have always thought useless and failure. And now there's this nice stranger that's picked him off the street and Atsushi is so grateful, so grateful and he just--
"You wanna stay at my apartment?" Nakahara-san asks, something like a sigh in his voice. He laces his finger and rests his chin on the tent of them, looks at Atsushi with the same look he did on the street, half scrutiny and half something undecipherable.
It is a very, very tempting offer.
Atsushi blinks. Swallows. His nails dig into the cushion of his chair.
"I can't possibly--"
"I'm not offering you permanent residence," Nakahara-san interrupts, bluntly. "It's just for a night."
"I don't--"
"You just said you don't have anywhere to go."
"But I can't--"
"You really, really need a shower, kid."
There is a man-eating tiger following me, Atsushi does not say in hysterics, because that is one topic of conversation he in no way wants to breach to anyone, let alone nice strangers that give him food even after he's tried to rob them. He can't do that to Nakahara-san. He definitely can't lead the tiger to Nakahara-san's apartment.
Atsushi rewinds that sentence through his head.
Apartment.
Those have security services right? The nice ones do, he's pretty sure, all gated and with doormen on first floors. He doesn't think the tiger could... but no. Nope. Atsushi is not risking it. The tiger has been pretty set on tracking Atsushi so far. Atsushi will not underestimate its abilities.
So Atsushi tries to formulate a polite, thankful way of turning the invitation down. He gets as far as "I really appreciate the offer --" before Nakahara-San rolls his eyes and leans forward again with a soft, dismissive noise.
"No one calls me Nakahara," he drawls. "It's Chuuya-san to you."
"Uh." Atsushi readjusts. That is a thing he can do. "Well. Um. Chuuya-san, then--"
Evidently though, Chuuya-san isn't having any of this, because Atsushi gets steamrolls right over."You need clothes," he begins, paying Atsushi's flailing hand gestures no mind. "And maybe a checkup at the hospital. And possibly a haircut. You look like a five year old took scissors to your head." He eyes him up and down. Atsushi opens his mouth but doesn't manage to get a word in edgewise. "Kid, do you even have a legal ID?"
"Um. Yes? But--"
Chuuya-san holds up a hand. Atsushi goes quiet.
Fingers tap against the fine silk of the table cloth. Just as Atsushi's scrounged up enough courage for a third try, Chuuya-san rises, and Atsushi is half out of his chair to follow him before he remembers where this is going. There's a hand snagging his elbow, a wallet being flipped open, bills being slapped onto the table. "Shower first," Chuuya-san tells him decisively, in a tone that says "no" is not an appropriate response, and shortly after Atsushi is being half dragged out the restaurant.