Archive of Our Own

Ryuunoske Akutagawa understood hatred. 

It was something he had been saturated with as far back as he could remember. Whether he was struggling on the streets or thriving in the Port Mafia, he was more than familiar with being the object of fear and hatred. Even more so, he was accustomed to dishing it out. There were so few people worthy of his positive regard and a disproportionate amount worthy of disgust that even apathy had a tendency to give way to hatred. It was a burning fire that couldn't be extinguished, for even the embers continued to spark and claw its way back into existence. For years, such terrible passion had fueled countless endeavors, both personal and professional in nature. There was a good reason he shouldered so many black monikers. 

Ryuunozke Akutagawa understood pain. 

The worst of it wasn't always physical. Even the most gruesome bruises, cuts, and broken bones could heal, but there was no treatment for internal agony. For years, he had been desperately searching for a balm for his tortured soul, but it was all in vain. He'd been scarred far too deeply by fists, bullets, and words-- oh, the words -- to piece himself back together in any way that made sense. The power to soothe the incessant ache in his chest rested in a single individual and it was all he could do to try and earn the luxury of a painless heart. Even numbness would be better than agony. 

Ryuunoske Akutagawa understood love. 

It wasn't something he was too experienced with, but the concept was simple enough to understand. Love was a lot like hatred, being a flame that was all but impossible to dampen. There were different kinds of love, each one suited for different kinds of people. Despite triggering various feelings between them, they all fell under the umbrella category of love. Personally, he only truly understood one type of love, and that was what he shared with his sister. If there was one person in this world that he felt he could trust unconditionally, it was her. That's what love boiled down to, wasn't it? Under the flames, the fuel that sparked love was trust. It had to be. He couldn't imagine wanting to cherish and protect someone so desperately if he didn't trust them. 

Needless to say, he could count the number of people he loved on one hand. 

Akutagawa knew what it was like to love, hate, and hurt, even if not to the same degree. What he could not understand for the life of him was how Atsushi Nakajima made him feel. 

At first, he labeled it hatred. How could it be anything else? Everything about the younger man was designed to invoke his hatred. He was weak, internally if not externally, yet regarded as if he were strong. His past haunted him in ways he couldn't-- no, in ways he refused to shake off-- and that blinded him. He was reckless, foolish, self-sacrificial, and naive to the core. Worst of all, he had the very thing that Akutagawa had been craving all along; the approval and recognition of a man who could not be reached. 

He was Akutagawa's replacement and Dazai had the audacity to compare them. If that wasn't bad enough, he dared to place the worthless weakling up on the pedestal that his former protégé had only dreamed of. 

With all of these factors combined, was it really any surprise that he hated him? 

Except that he didn't. Akutagawa knew hatred like he knew the back of his own hand and, once he got past the awful, fiery passion that accompanied even thinking of the weretiger, he couldn't recognize the feeling at all. For all that he wanted to destroy his rival, he wanted him to fight back more; for all that he wanted to kill him, he wanted to see him survive more; for all that he wanted him to burn, it angered him more to imagine anyone else holding the match. 

It was a possessive hatred. It was an awful feeling that he didn't want to share. The weretiger belonged to him -- was his to conquer-- and no other turnout was even borderline satisfactory. If that meant fighting alongside him to reserve the privilege of killing him for himself, then so be it. A little push from Dazai didn't hurt in that regard, either.  

He promised to kill him. He swore up and down that he would be the one to see the weretiger meet his end and went as far as to strike a bargain with him about it. In six months, his final blood would be on Akutagawa's hands and maybe then-- maybe then-- the ache would finally stop. At that point, he would have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt which of Dazai's protégés was stronger and the man would be unable to deny it. 

Much to his horror, however, the deeper into those six months he ventured, the less appealing killing the weretiger became. They teamed up time and time again, and time and time again, he found himself more and more inclined to protect the man. He didn't like him-- far from it-- but there was no denying the new ache that plagued him whenever a mutual foe came too close to comfort to prematurely ending his rival's life. The weretiger was still far too clumsy to protect himself properly, so Akutagawa often found himself lending his own ability to keep the idiot alive. If there was one thing that Dazai had taught him that he apparently failed to pass on to his new disciple was how to act on both the offensive and defensive. When it came to saving his own life, the weretiger was all but helpless, so the responsibility fell onto his own shoulders. 

At first, it was irritating, but the more often he risked his own neck to shield the weretiger's, the more natural it felt. In no time at all, they had each other entirely figured out. Communication wasn't flawless, but it was by no means the same disjointed barrage of insults and threats it once was. They were not kind to one another during a fight, but to deny that they worked well together would be foolish. He could feel it in his bones. When they fought together, despite their animosity, they worked like a well-oiled machine. There was no force that could hope to stand against their combined efforts. 

Slowly but surely, Akutagawa learned to trust his rival, and it was almost insulting. For Dazai to pick a new protégé who worked so well with him despite his efforts to cut him down must have been an intentional slight. There was no other explanation that made sense and Dazai was more than bright enough to pull something like that off. Damn.

The killing blow-- the event that had his heart on its knees from frustration-- was the first time the weretiger smiled at him. 

Akutagawa had seen the man smile before. He knew what it looked like; how it lit up his face and made his eyes shine and made him look just as foolishly naive as he was. It was an expression he wore around friends and colleagues, showing how much faith and trust he placed in each of them. In those moments, he radiated kindness, but it was never directed towards Akutagawa himself. That was fine; he neither expected nor required his kindness. That didn't fit the nature of their relationship and he knew it. 

He just didn't know how badly he'd wanted it until he received it. 

The fight had been a particularly difficult one, even though it had no need to be. Had the weretiger not been so intent on ensuring that he follow through on his promise to refrain from killing over those six months, it would have been over in an instant. Leaving survivors was proving to be much more difficult than he had anticipated; mercy wasn't something he was known for, after all. But the weretiger was insistent and, while he was many things, Akutagawa was not a cheat. Fortunately, there existed no rule against injuring or maiming, so their hands hadn't been completely tied. 

In the aftermath, they were both left breathless from the exertion. His lungs protested (as they so often did), prompting him to cover his face as he coughed to their satisfaction. They burned, but he had become quite accustomed to that pain by now. It was a pain he understood; it hardly fazed him anymore. Once he had paid the price for his activity, he dropped his hand and turned to look at his partner. 

His heart nearly stopped. 

Blooming across the weretiger's face was a whole, warm smile unlike anything that had ever been directed towards him before. Despite the blood covering his clothes, the man looked almost innocent in this light, eyes pinched and shining happily. It was radiant; it was beautiful; it was ridiculous. It was just a smile, nothing worth the time of day thinking about. 

So why was his stomach twisting as if he needed to run? 

"Thanks for not killing anyone. I know it was really hard this time," he said, seeming far too pleased with the lack of fatalities. It was just another example of how he was the lesser of the pair; he was too idealistic. The fact that he would thank Akutagawa for following through on the conditions of their agreement was just as ridiculous as the smile gracing his lips. 

Just as ridiculous and just as beautiful. 

Akutagawa scoffed and looked away. "Don't make it sound like some great accomplishment. It was tedious at best." Shifting the topic away from his forced mercifulness, he retrieved an envelope from Rashomon and offered it to his companion. "This is what you were after. Take it and get out of my sight."

The smile on the weretiger's face faltered, fading back into a neutral expression as he accepted the letter. He must have misjudged the position of Akutagawa's fingers on the envelope, for the tips of their fingers brushed ever so slightly during the exchange. While the weretiger appeared utterly unaffected, the contact sent a jolt of something straight up Akutagawa's arm that had his stomach twisting up in even tighter knots. 

Immediately, he retracted his hand and rubbed the spot they had made contact to make the residual tingling go away. What was that shock..!?

"Right. Until next time," the weretiger stated, seemingly unaware of the damn thrill that came from their brief touch. He turned and left, envelope in hand, without acknowledging it at all. Had he not felt it? Was the sensation exclusive to Akutagawa alone? He wasn’t sure he liked that explanation in the slightest. 

This wasn't something he had experienced before. Up until this point, all of the little fluctuations in his regard and reactions toward the weretiger had been conveniently explained away by possessive hatred , but this ? 

Hatred didn't give him butterflies. Hatred didn't make every nerve come alive from a brief, unintentional touch. 

Hatred certainly didn't think that anything was beautiful. 

As he retreated home, Akutagawa distractedly attempted to talk himself out of his confusion. There was nothing beautiful about that nuisance of a weretiger ( except everything) . His mind ran through all of the terrible things he knew about Atsushi Nakajima-- his idiocy, his inexpertise, his soft heart, his selflessness, his kindness-- stop.

The more his thoughts drifted, the more frustrated he became. These strange feelings had even polluted his opinion of the weretiger, making it appear as if he liked the man rather than that he wanted to tear his guts out. Even the image of him perishing at Akutagawa's own hand didn't bring nearly as much satisfaction as it had just a handful of weeks ago. If anything, the more he tried to imagine details to stoke his bloodlust, the more his mind tried to reject it all together. 

He wasn't even going to touch the butterflies, for the only other explanation for that was fear and he was not afraid of the weretiger. How could he be? Akutagawa was afraid of no man; he'd replaced fear with numb fury years ago. If he hadn't, he never would have made it this far. As much as he hated to admit it (and this he truly did hate), the information he had only led to one logical conclusion. 

What he felt for the weretiger was not hatred at all. 

That only left the question of what it was.

It was unlike anything he had ever felt before. Things that were warm and pleasant didn't belong to him. Even the love he felt for Gin didn't feel even remotely similar to what he had experienced, which he supposed was fortunate. If he were to love the weretiger, his predestined enemy, then he would never forgive himself. There were certain things that, if he put enough effort into it, he could accept-- that the weretiger was easy on the eyes, for example, or that his hatred might not be as pure as he anticipated-- but loving him was completely out of the question. It wasn't even worth considering. 

So why did his mind keep circling back around to it? 

If Akutagawa had to guess, he was being manipulated somehow. The weretiger wasn't nearly skilled enough to be pulling the strings on his own, but he was more than close enough to Dazai for him to be playing some sort of game. But how? And to what end? What was the point of making him feel so strangely? Did he think that it would make him soft? Never; he would never be soft again, especially not for Dazai. That was a mistake he'd made that he could never afford to repeat. 

It had to stop before it got out of hand. If he kept unwittingly playing into Dazai's hand, regardless of intention, he was only going to get himself hurt. He would take any number of scrapes and bruises over another gaping emotional wound any day. He still hadn't healed properly from the first set.  

Confrontation was the only remedy. Not confrontation against Dazai himself-- even Akutagawa could recognize that he failed to keep his head on straight when the older man was around-- but against the pawn he was using to get to him. In the same way that he was going to force his old mentor to acknowledge him by cutting down his new protégé, he was going to dish out a failure to him by destroying these feelings before they could grow. 

Getting the weretiger to meet with him wasn't difficult. All it took was a well-placed message to the Armed Detective Agency for him to come running. Absently, Akutagawa wondered if they had reached the point in their on-again, off-again partnership to warrant exchanging numbers-- it would certainly make communication and coordination easier-- but he shot that down immediately. In a handful of months, it wouldn't matter what the weretiger's phone number was; the only number that would matter would be the date of his demise. For now, he had to be satisfied with getting his attention like normal; with a threat. 

If the weretiger doesn't meet me in the alley where we first met by five o'clock tonight, then he can consider our agreement null and void. 

Akutagawa had no intention of dismissing their arrangement, but he knew that nothing would have the weretiger in front of him faster than the threat of unnecessary bloodshed. He cared far too much to let even one nameless, faceless person perish at the hand of his rival if he could help it. As the mafioso waited patiently in the alley, he was entirely confident that he would be promptly joined. 

" Akutagawa!" 

Speak of the devil. At the mouth of the alleyway was none other than the weretiger himself, trapping Akutagawa between himself and the dead end. There were no qualms that went with this cornering; if anything, it showed just how confident the mafioso was in his ability to escape. If he wanted to take it a step further, it demonstrated how much he trusted his rival not to force his hand and make escape necessary, but he wasn't too fond of soft thoughts like that. He may trust the weretiger to a certain degree, but he knew how trust could easily fuel something else. He needed to be careful with it. 

Akutagawa glanced down at his phone. 4:56. "You cut it close," he commented. "Did you think I was bluffing?"

"You don't bluff," the weretiger countered, shaking his head. "I was in the middle of a job when Dazai relayed your message. I had to rush through it to make it in time."

" And? "

"I would've appreciated more of a warning," the weretiger answered. 

"What makes you think that this isn't an emergency?" he prompted. While it may have been a personal emergency, it wasn't at all time sensitive. This conversation could have just as easily been had the previous or following day. 

His rival shook his head. "If it was an emergency, you wouldn't have wasted time reaching out to me through the Agency. You would've just tracked me down yourself."

Akutagawa hummed. "You're right. I would have." Tracking him down would have been just as easy as summoning him. Had he not been concerned with exercising control over the situation, he may have done just that. Once again, his stomach started twisting up in knots. "You're becoming perceptive. Dazai is starting to rub off on you. It's about time; I was beginning to wonder if he ever would."

The weretiger started moving closer and Akutagawa bit his tongue to prevent himself from speaking as his heart started to race. He was in no danger and he knew that, so what was with his rebellious pulse? 

"I know you didn't bring me here to insult my intelligence, so why don't you tell me what's actually happening," his rival prompted. "Do you need my help with something?" 

"I don't need your help with anything," Akutagawa insisted. Even if he were in a situation in which he required assistance from the weretiger, he would have a much different way of soliciting it. He certainly wouldn't be painting himself as needing it. "There is something important we need to discuss."

That piqued the weretiger's interest. "There is? What is it?" 

Another step closer had the mafioso's heart racing just a little faster and it took all of his willpower not to take a step back in response. He could curse himself for this-- for falling so far into what was clearly a trap-- but he needed to remember where the blame rested. It wasn't on his own shoulders. These feelings… The fact that the weretiger was the only person who could elicit them meant that this was Dazai's doing. Hopefully, he could win the game by going in for a direct attack. 

"You know that I hate you, right?" he started, using something that he assumed was a given to break the ice. "That I want nothing more than to see you dead?"

Immediately, the weretiger tensed up. "...Yes. You remind me of that every time we work together," he confirmed. "But you said that you weren't going to kill me or anyone else for six months."

Akutagawa scoffed. Maybe he had overestimated how perceptive the weretiger had become. "And I intend to honor that. I am not here to kill you prematurely, weretiger," he promised. Though it might correct the problem at hand if he eliminated the cause of his confusion, it would lead to a great number of other issues that he didn’t want to deal with. Besides, he doubted that he would come here completely alone after a threat like that. Chances were high that one of his Agency friends was lurking nearby, ready to intervene at the slightest sign of trouble, and Akutagawa wasn't interested in picking that kind of fight at that moment. That conflict could happen later. "Unless you can be killed by words alone, then you can drop your guard."

A moment of hesitation passed before the weretiger's defenses slowly eased. Him trusting Akutagawa was much more difficult than the reciprocal and they both knew it, so he was fortunate that the weretiger was so willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Had he actually been attempting to deceive the weretiger, then he would be dead. 

He hated that the thought didn't give him nearly as much satisfaction as it once had. 

“Alright, then. What is it you wanted to talk to me about?” the weretiger prompted. He was still on edge and prepared to take up the defensive at the slightest indication of its necessity, but Akutagawa had no need to immediately evade his claws. “What’s so important?”

As if you don’t know was what Akutagawa wanted to say, but he bit his tongue. Chances were that the weretiger didn’t know; he would never be able to keep up such an underhanded tactic for as long as he had. He must be oblivious to Dazai’s plot; otherwise, it would have failed on day one. That naivety was what allowed it to succeed-- what allowed Akutagawa’s emotions towards him to twist and warp the way that Dazai had intended-- which was exactly why this confrontation was necessary. 

For the first time, he could steal a win for himself without having to rely upon Rashomon at all. 

“It has come to my attention that the way I feel about you has started to change,” he started, choosing his words carefully. One slip of the tongue could have the meaning entirely misconstrued. “I’m here to put a stop to it.”

The weretiger’s brow furrowed, a small frown tugging on his lips. Without being prompted, Akutagawa couldn’t help but recall the singular incident in which they had been curved upward towards him; in which he smiled at him rather than simply around him. It made his chest feel tight, constricting his racing heart uncomfortably. Much more of this and his lungs might start acting up, too. 

“Change?” the weretiger questioned, tilting his head in a way that was so obnoxious and adorable at the same time. “What do you mean? Changing how?” 

Changing how? How was he meant to explain this foreign feeling that the weretiger elicited from him? He didn’t have any concise words for it. It had faded from hatred to possessive hatred to something else entirely; something he had never felt before. All he truly knew was that it wasn’t hatred , which was concerning enough to warrant intervention without having it identified. 

He placed his hand on his chest, palm resting over his hammering heart. “I am not hating you the way I should,” he explained. “The idea of you bleeding out on Rashomon’s spines is no longer as appealing as it once was. In fact, I’m starting to find the thought revolting.” If someone had told him a handful of weeks ago that he would want to reject the image of the weretiger’s ultimate demise, he would have dismissed their lunacy; now, it was a problem he needed to face head on. 

“My body has started reacting to your presence in a strange way, too,” he continued, noticing how the weretiger’s eyes widened and his gaze slowly dropped down to-- 

“Not like that !” Akutagawa snapped, causing the weretiger’s gaze to snap right back up to his face. There was a mutual flush of embarrassment to their cheeks, even if Akutagawa would deny that burn for the remainder of his life. 

He pressed his hand more insistently against his chest. “I was referring to my heart . It races when you come near,” he confessed. Even now, as they stood a few meters apart, the organ felt as if it wanted to beat straight out of its confines. Being near the weretiger acted like a shot of adrenaline through his system and he didn’t know how to calm the effects. 

The hand over his heart then dropped to his abdomen, hovering over his stomach. “And I feel warm .” Those butterflies he had so staunchly avoided acknowledging raged in his gut, making him feel all sorts of terrible, awful, pleasant things. He didn’t fear the weretiger in the slightest-- fear was no longer part of his vocabulary; it hadn’t been in years-- so why was his body insisting otherwise?

“I don’t know anyone else who can make me feel this way, which leads to only one conclusion. I’m sure you know what it is.” Or perhaps not. The weretiger wasn’t necessarily the brightest bulb; what was obvious to Akutagawa wasn’t always clear to his counterpart. 

As the weretiger stared at him with parted lips, wide eyes, and a blush that would make rubies green with envy, it was apparent that his assumption asked for too much. 

“You… You feel warm around me..?” the weretiger asked, echoing the statement. “Akutagawa, I don’t-- I’m not sure what to say…”

Akutagawa pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes impatiently. “Don’t flatter yourself, weretiger. This is obviously Dazai’s doing.” What else could it be? What other reason could there be for the borderline obsessive draw he felt towards his new protege? Things like love didn’t suit the Silent Mad Dog of the Port Mafia-- not to say that what he felt was love at all! Could he even argue that he trusted the weretiger enough for that kind of flame to erupt, much less continue to burn? It was difficult to say. 

He understood love in what he felt for Gin. He understood love in the sense of putting faith in someone and wanting to shield them from harm. This strange heat and pulse pounding was not found in any kind of love he had known before. 

The weretiger blinked. “Dazai..?” he asked, bewilderment creasing his face in place of the flustered shock that had claimed it previously. Slowly, he shook his head. “I don’t see what he has to do with any of this.”

Of course he didn’t. The experience the weretiger had with their mutual mentor must be leagues different than his own if he had yet to realize how easily Dazai could manipulate others. Sometimes, he seemed to bend their wills without even trying. Considering how eager he was for the two of them to partner up time and time again, tricking Akutagawa into developing these feelings was the obvious next step to his plan. While he was normally desperate to receive the man’s approval, Akutagawa wasn’t about to let his relationship with the weretiger be toyed with in such a way.

He wanted him dead. He needed him dead. He couldn’t afford not to need it. 

“He must be the one behind this,” he insisted. “He is corrupting my regard for you by forcing us to work together. I’m not certain what his end goal is with this, but I won’t allow it. I have done and will do many things for him, but not this.” I can’t.  When realization slowly dawned on the weretiger’s face, Akutagawa thought that he had made this point-- that he would agree and they could both tackle the issue head on before it got any worse-- but he was proven wrong yet again. 

“Akutagawa,” the weretiger started carefully, taking another step forward and making his heart leap. “No one can make you feel things like that. Not even Dazai.”

Immediately, Akutagawa frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“Just think about it,” he continued. “You’ve worked alongside plenty of people before, many of them much more often and for much longer than you’ve worked with me. If working together is what causes these kinds of feelings, then why don’t they make you feel the same way?” 

The weretiger placed his hand on his own chest, mimicking Akutagawa’s gesture from earlier. “You said it yourself; I am the only person who makes you feel this way. If it was a matter of teamwork and partnership, then you would feel this way about everyone you work with, wouldn’t you?”

As much as he hated to admit it-- and he truly, truly did-- the weretiger had a point. What had seemed so clear in his mind just moments ago became muddied. He had been so convinced that Dazai was using their constant partnerships to manipulate him into growing soft for his new protege, but if that were the case, then he would certainly have developed such warmth for other members of the Port Mafia. The last he checked, Higuchi didn’t give him butterflies like this. 

Akutagawa scowled. “If it’s not that, then what is it?” he pressed. “What is he doing?”

“He’s not doing anything,” the weretiger insisted, pointing at him. ‘It’s you .”

“ Nonsense .” There was no way that he had developed this on his own. His black heart didn’t have the means to develop feelings like this without outside interference, with very few exceptions. The weretiger couldn’t possibly be one of them; he had started off despising every particle of his being. He wanted him dead ; he wanted to kill him . 

Or, at least, he had . 

“It’s not ,” the weretiger pushed, daring to step even closer. At this point, Akutagawa could reach out and touch him without any difficulties. Normally, he didn’t like people getting this close to him, but despite the way his heart raced in his chest, he lacked the desire to back away. 

“It’s all you,” he continued, “And… And I can prove it, too!” Though his words were laced with confidence, Akutagawa could tell that it was forced based on the way he shifted his weight from foot to foot. “Dazai isn’t here right now to make you feel anything. It’s just the two of us. All of your feelings are yours and yours alone.” 

“I don’t see how this is proving anything,” Akutagawa countered, trying not to show the physical effects that the weretiger’s proximity was having on him physically. He tried to keep himself grounded by maintaining eye contact to assert control over the situation, but found his thoughts drifting. Those eyes… Had they always had so many colors? He’d never paid too much attention before, but now that it was right in front of him, he couldn’t help but notice. 

The weretiger bit his cheek as if contemplating something for a moment before resolution shone in his eyes. “I’m going to test something,” he stated. “Whatever reaction you have belongs to you alone. If you really are being manipulated by Dazai, it shouldn’t affect you at all.”

“That’s not how that works,” Akutagawa mumbled in response, but ultimately conceded. What harm could possibly come from allowing the weretiger to perform a couple inconsequential tests? He trusted that he wouldn’t hurt him-- he had neither the spine nor the desire to dish out random attacks-- so there was no reason to refuse. 

Trust. He trusted him. That was a bad sign… 

Biting back a sigh, he lowered his guard slightly in a display of acceptance. “Very well. Be careful not to vex me with this test of yours,” he warned. 

“Of course,” the weretiger replied. Drawing in a deep breath, his gaze flickered downward once again and he reached out until his fingers brushed against Akutagawa’s once again.

The effect was immediate. Just like that day not long ago-- the day the weretiger first smiled at him, their fingers brushing together for the briefest of moments during an exchange-- electricity shot up his arm and through his spine. The butterflies in his gut rioted , forcing him to either recognize their presence or reject every sense that remained. His breath caught in his throat, grey eyes widening as they shot down to look at where their hands connected. 

It didn’t end there. Rather than show mercy and pull away after an innocent bump, the weretiger maneuvered his hand intently to lock with his own, their palms pressed together in an intimate gesture. The first thing Akutagawa registered was how warm his hand was-- much warmer than his own, which always felt so cold in comparison to what enveloped it then-- followed quickly by how marred it was. Calluses littered his palm, leftover scars from countless fights, making his grip as rough as it was gentle. Like this, he could feel each and every one. 

If his heart had been racing before, it was beating at light speed then. No one had ever held his hand like this before, so softly and tenderly, and he wasn’t quite sure how to respond to it. For a few fleeting moments, all he could manage to do was stare. 

Whatever reaction you have belongs to you alone . That made it sound like he had a choice-- like he elected to feel so dizzy from such a simple touch. If an opponent knew that simply having his hand held could make him weak, then he would stand no chance.

But it wasn’t just anyone, was it? He couldn’t count how many times he had made physical contact with other members of the Port Mafia-- how many accidental brushes of hands he had shared and how many desperate hands he’d needed to grab-- and he had never felt like this. The weretiger, on the other hand, barely even had to try.  

“How’s that?” 

The weretiger’s voice brought him back out of his thoughts and he looked back up to those multicolored eyes. That blush remained high on his cheeks and there was an uncertainty to his gaze, but his expectancy didn’t falter. 

Akutagawa didn’t know what he must look like, but based solely on the heat in his own cheeks and the pounding of his pulse against his ribcage, he couldn’t imagine that he appeared nearly as composed as he would have liked. How’s that? How was he meant to respond to a question like that!? As much as he wanted to yank his hand back and send the weretiger away, he couldn’t seem to find the nerve. 

Instead, he tentatively allowed his own fingers to curl around the weretiger’s hand, feeling the soft skin of the back of his palm under his fingertips. It was still so warm … Gripping someone else’s hand without the intention of either attacking or pulling them up was strange, but not at all unpleasant.

He hated it. 

Despite his own misgivings, that seemed to be the response that the weretiger had been looking for. Some of the apprehension melted from his expression, replaced by something that seemed to shine. His lips quirked upward in the beginnings of a smile, the corners of his eyes pinching and creasing in a way that made his entire face light up. 

Akutagawa’s heart skipped a handful of beats, leaving him breathless. 

Beautiful . 

There was no denying it anymore; not with the weretiger’s hand resting so heavily and peacefully in his own. Hatred found nothing beautiful, but it was beyond obvious now that what he felt for his counterpart was hardly hatred at all. It was something close-- something that burned with equal passion and consumed him almost as wholly-- but something that was immeasurably different all the same. 

Love allowed for beauty, and that was terrifying; frightening enough to put fear back on his tongue.  

“Okay,” the weretiger breathed, seemingly just as shaken by this turn of events as Akutagawa himself. “Okay…” 

Neither of them were quite in the state to be offering coherent statements, but it didn’t seem to matter. Between fighting against and alongside one another, they had learned to read one another like the open books they knew they weren’t. It was obvious what was happening here, and though Akutagawa could be intimidated by no man, he would silently admit that he wasn’t too confident about how to proceed. 

As difficult as it was to accept, this wasn’t Dazai’s doing; it came from within. He could snap and gnash his teeth as much as he liked, but that wouldn’t change the fact that this warmth-- this sentimentality -- belonged to him and him alone and that the weretiger was the only one who could draw it out. He hadn’t been lying when he claimed that no one else could manage to draw such feelings out of him, leaving him at a complete and utter loss. 

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on one’s perspective), the weretiger didn’t seem quite as stumped. The grip on his hand tightened slightly and the weretiger hesitated, but stood his ground-- no, if Akutagawa’s eyes weren’t deceiving him, he was moving closer . 

Is he going to..?

He kept his eyes open, lips parted without accepting air as the weretiger leaned in, heart climbing into his throat. Once he was mere inches away-- once he could feel the weretiger’s breath on his face-- the younger man hesitated and, for the briefest of moments, Akutagawa was certain that he was going to pull back. He didn’t want to give an audience to the flicker of disappointment that thought elicited. 

Recovering from his momentary doubt with a surge of confidence, the weretiger changed his direction slightly and pressed his lips to the plump of Akutagawa’s cheek. His lips were soft-- almost sinfully so-- and every inch of skin they touched had every nerve coming to life. If Akutagawa hadn’t been burning up before, he certainly was after that. 

Oh. 

Pulling back, the weretiger looked at him, the strangest amalgamation of confidence and apprehension in his eyes as he searched for any kind of negative reaction. Had it been anyone else-- had it been any other time-- Akutagawa was certain that he would have lashed out and rubbed the kiss off of his skin. As it was, however, he almost relished the pleasant tingle it left behind. 

After a moment of silence palpable enough for Rashomon to slice through, Akutagawa brought his free hand up to his lips and awkwardly cleared his throat. “...Was that your test, weretiger?”

The man in question nodded faintly. “It was.”

“And did you get the answers you were looking for?” 

“I think so,” he confirmed, hesitating for a moment before adding, “If I’m right, then you should call me Atsushi.”

Akutagawa’s eyes widened fractionally. Atsushi . It wasn’t necessarily an intimate gesture to call him by name-- every man, woman, and child he knew called him Atsushi -- but there was something about being told to use it in place of the moniker he used to keep them distant that struck a chord deep within him. Referring to him as something other than completely human helped to keep him at arm’s length even when they fought side by side; to call him by name would be allowing him to come closer than he had ever anticipated. 

“ Atsushi ,” he echoed, trying it out on his tongue. It would definitely take some getting used to and the chances of falling back on old habits were high, but he decided that, at least for the time being, he liked how it tasted. 

That tiny half-smile slowly blossomed into a full one and Akutagawa’s heart nearly stopped beating entirely. One smile had no right to ruin his life like this, but there he was, met with the very same one that had made him weak beforehand. Nothing had changed; his stomach still twisted up and rooted him to the spot. 

That kind of warmth didn’t belong to him. He didn’t deserve it; couldn’t hold on to it. He shouldn’t bother trying. And yet… 

He tightened his grip on Atsushi’s hand, returning the grounding gesture. Silence enveloped the two of them as they kept their hands linked, but it was far from the oppressive kind that Yokohama sometimes bore. It was quiet, warm, and colorful. It was the kind that was all-consuming, preventing either man from noticing a certain mutually familiar individual peeking his head down the alleyway only to draw back and walk away with a self-satisfied smile gracing his lips. 

As it turned out, Akutagawa didn’t understand love-- at least, not the kind of love he was being introduced to in that dead end alley-- but it was a lesson he was eager to learn.