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The man Akutagawa keeps company with is a mystery.
Higuchi has seen him on multiple occasions, always dressed in a yukata or something similarly old-fashioned, with a pipe in his hand even if he doesn’t smoke around Akutagawa’s weak lungs. She knows better than to stalk him: the incident with Gin had proven that nothing good comes of that. Besides, a man is less of a threat to her… probably?
If she does happen by chance to see them together, it doesn’t hurt if she sticks around, trying not to draw attention to herself. If overhearing him call Akutagawa ‘Ryuunosuke-kun’ makes her teeth grind and her fists clench, no one can really blame her. He doesn’t look much older than Akutagawa, what gives him the right to speak so familiarly? Her senpai would never let her call him that, but this stranger, who isn’t even in the mafia’s files, is closer than she’ll ever be…!
“Higuchi.”
Higuchi jolts. Akutagawa is staring at her, distinctly unamused even by Akutagawa standards.
“Senpai, I… I just happened to be passing by, and…” Maybe she wasn’t as subtle as she thought she was, but she really did have other business in the area.
“Higuchi… Ichiyo, is it?” The man is soft-spoken, which does nothing to stop her hair standing on end when she realizes he knows her name. It’s not as though Akutagawa would have spoken of her or even thought of her. “It’s an honor to meet you.”
If this weren’t company Akutagawa keeps, apparently of his own free will, Higuchi’s response would be more hostile. As it is… “You’ve heard of me?”
“I have heard your name. Normally I would say that most everyone in Japan has heard it, but circumstances are rather strange lately.” The man smiles without a hint of malice or irony. “My name is Akutagawa Ryuunosuke.”
“He isn’t lying,” Akutagawa, her Akutagawa, says, before she can even process what that means.
“…How?”
The other patiently explains the existence of a library full of authors who share names with members of the mafia or the detective agency, summoned out of death in order to restore their works that are being consumed. It sounds unbelievable, but her senpai nods along, and that’s enough for Higuchi to at least try to accept it as reality.
“And… I’m an author in your memories?” she asks.
“An author much more important to Japan than myself,” the writer says. “Higuchi Ichiyo was one of the first important writers of her era. Your face is on a bank note. If your stories weren’t written in classical Japanese, you would be even more prominent than you already are. …Between the two of us, there’s no question whose works are more valuable.”
The concept of being more important than Akutagawa, any Akutagawa, doesn’t process right in Higuchi’s brain. She just stares, wide-eyed, as the writer inclines his head to her in a tiny bow.
The mafioso Akutagawa clears his throat. “Don’t make an embarrassment of yourself.” It’s hard to tell which of them he’s talking to, but he certainly is grumpy about it.
Smiling, the other Akutagawa straightens up again. “Of course, I’m honored to have met you as well, Ryuunosuke-kun. Honored and delighted to know that our name is carried by a young man as strong as you.” He lightly pats his counterpart on the head. “To say nothing of being hard-working, earnest, and cute.”
Higuchi wishes Akutagawa would turn pink when she complimented him like that. More importantly, she wishes she had a camera.