Chapter Text
“Time of death: 15:31." A clipboard cradled in one of his hands, the Port Mafia boss Mori Ogai said the customary statement once another person breathes his last. The constitutional motive of the chronological declaration did not hold any weight as they do things a little differently in the underground society.
Moreover, they were enclosed in the white walls owned by a single of a hundred rooms in the mafia’s massive building. As lawless as Yokohama may have the sheer temerity to do so much as be , the makeshift hospital room with smuggled state-of-the-art medical gizmos that Mori often used did not pale in comparison.
Akutagawa gazed at his lifeless body lying on a hospital bed he recalled to be soft and cozy—that was probably one of his last memories alive.
Other Port Mafia executives were present. Kouyou had her eyes glued to the ground as her way of paying respects to the situation. She silently plunged into the abstract wall of Akutagawa’s solid plaque in the Port Mafia’s long history of carnage, indulging herself in the intricate mental image she managed to put together. Meanwhile, Chuuya had his fedora in hand. His vision was fixated on the defibrillators that never once failed in betraying this irrational expectation he had conjured from the fiction he consumes. And whenever another comrade died, he opted to blame the contraption.
Death pours upon Chuuya’s head like a mulish disease. He bore the weight of the world on his back while witnessing the constant deaths of people he dared to cherish. Chuuya was given family only for them to be forcibly taken by fate, surely inanimate medical equipment wouldn’t mind taking its share of the frustration.
With tens of hundreds of Port Mafia men dying in the thankless revolutions of the cosmos unique to Yokohama alone, Akutagawa’s passing stands atop corpses melted as one identity. Not only did this fresh death manage to get the Boss and the executives in one room, but it was also enough to claim importance, to emphasize value when imagined in a room full of fellow deceased Mafiosi.
“Did you call his sister, Chuuya -kun?” Mori was the one who took the liberty to break the long, difficult silence. He received a polite nod for an answer.
This atmosphere was new. It was foreign to all three of them who had lived a portion of their lives in the mafia more than they had in playgrounds. The ambiance was solemn—but not one that revels in the mortal honor of a warrior who has won revolutions he spearheaded. Not the kind of solemn where the genuine loss gnaws at their hearts in a grave attempt to extenuate the gaping hole. Not the kind of solemn affiliated with the realization that no enemy can ever measure up to Akutagawa’s ability.
A muddled mix of all three mangles the three figureheads’ guts. None of them were particularly close to Akutagawa but to call the loss a psychological reflex is far too cruel.
Chuuya scoffed. Akutagawa had been sort of his mentee ever since Dazai had defected from the mafia. He was fully aware of the man's strength and determination to wipe everything in his path in his pointless pursuit to meet a numerical worth for something a millionfold more priceless. Himself.
Akutagawa’s death was the most Akutagawa thing he had done. It wasn’t another ability user deranged and tenacious enough to stand on the same battleground with cards up their sleeve sufficient to rival Akutagawa’s ability, Rashomon.
The only thing enough to kill Akutagawa was Akutagawa himself.
Mainly the lungs that grew fatigued of bringing such a frail body to life.
Mori, who oversaw Akutagawa’s condition ever since the day he collapsed in their headquarters’ lobby, noticed the presence of his younger sister despite her impeccable stealth. “Gin,” Chuuya acknowledged their company, “Sorry for your loss.”
“Oi, Gin,” The older Akutagawa called for them. He was even going as far as poking their shoulder in an attempt to grab their attention. With his voice going unnoticed and their shoulder going untouched, neither of the antics materialized. It shouldn’t surprise Akutagawa, he was dead after all. Just that, a harmless shot to say his sister’s name wouldn’t hurt.
With bloodshot eyes, Gin frugally responds to Chuuya with a meek nod in acknowledgment, almost like they carried their wordless persona in that makeshift hospital room. Only that, this time, it was not out of their nature as an assassin but words simply refused to appear in their mind, much less exit their mouth—just a grayish nimbus cloud squeezing itself in their train of thought.
Akutagawa caught the sound of a long, awkward exhale from Mori. “This profession we have is practically throwing ourselves in a thankless warzone, we are but a minuscule unit of currency where our lives are objects of the bargain,” he rambles. “It’s as if dying is the bare minimum requirement of this job.”
Scum, Akutagawa thinks. Scum of the earth, he adds.
“Boss,” Akutagawa speaks, a scoff along with it. “The bare minimum requirement should be changing those socks.”
He inwardly triumphed when Mori didn’t respond to his insolence that could be mistaken for a dark incantation. A harmless rant from a dead man, if he may. Nothing felt better than bad-mouthing the Mori Ogai without resulting in a bloody corpse with dislocated jaws and a tri-holed chest.
Then it sank it. Akutagawa derogated the boss yet he wasn’t dead.
No.
Akutagawa derogated the boss and the reason why he wasn’t seized to execution was precisely that he was already dead. It dawned on him that the pallid body on the hospital bed that was tangled in everyone’s attention was his—it was his body. And the one being able to realize this was no more than his soul that left its residue.
As the raw fact that Akutagawa had died settled in his lamented system, a flickering apparition that resembled a red slim string appeared conveniently tied around his pinky. The material was long and it extended past the wall of the mafia’s building, stretching way beyond that. Sure enough, it was another insentient addition to the many things to ponder upon his passing. Put simply: a sick freebie of death.
“When do we begin preparations for the ceremony?” Kouyou asked.
Ceremony? Akutagawa asked himself. As far as he remembered, a mafioso’s death was not one to be sensationalized. Not when he spent all his life as Port Mafia’s hellhound with absolute awareness of the high stakes of death. Was a ceremony remotely necessary for a single demise like his? Would a repressed jar of his existential importance let loose upon his loss?
He only died, no biggie.
“Immediately,” Mori responds.
Gin rendered themself surprised. As one of the three battalion leaders of the Black Lizard unit for so long, they knew the ropes around the mafia just as much as the next person did yet they had neither experienced nor learned about tributes. “Ceremony? What for?” they question the executives, still looking puzzled.
“You see, Gin -chan, days before your older brother died,” Mori began his explanation, a nonchalant ink in his inflection, almost too cheery considering that there’s a dead body in front of him. “We have reached a consensus to make him an executive primarily in charge of centralized guerilla warfare. His mettle, battle-oriented intelligence, and indiscriminate offensive ability would provide the mafia the strategic headstart once he’s given a position of higher authority. We figured that he was to take the deceased Ace’s slot after his recovery. Sadly, that’s impossible now and I wish you know how we are with you in this lament.”
Gin nodded and the other Akutagawa cringed. “What’s with the ceremony, though?” Gin followed.
“The moment we had created a unanimous decision to appoint your brother as an executive, he is one already regardless of his condition,” Kouyou was the one who answered. “For the Port Mafia, rare as it is, we treat the passing of notable executives with care; as if seeing fragility in shattered lives is our way of blessing peace amidst the lunacy."
Gin’s eyebrows created a crease between their eyebrows, letting them meet as if not an ounce of confusion was alleviated. Tilting their head quizzically, she inquired, “How come I have no recollection of this happening before?”
Silence reigned over them until Chuuya spoke up.
"That's 'cause lots’a executives are as good as a wet blanket, you feel? Bunch of scum who can’t hold a gun or two, those who can hold too many guns, the like,” he answered. “In my history here in the mafia, it hasn’t happened before. To be real, the set of executives hasn’t changed since I became one. The only death was Ace and he barely did shit for the mafia. If 'barely' gives justice to that damn fucker. And then Dazai... the guy hasn't died, unfortunately."
With a voice so pleasing even to a dead man’s ears, Kouyou added to Chuuya’s litany. “That’s why your brother will be the first executive we’ll witness to have that ceremony. Nothing of grandeur you displease, child. You are the family, after all."
Me? An executive? Akutagawa cringed at the mere thought.
He saw himself as someone who had a high standing in the stained organization. However, this standing was earned through the endless loops of carnage that had his overcoat as the origin. The sole fear triggered by this apparel was what gave him an unnamed yet overflowing amount of authority. He was not fit to be an executive simply because a byline would negate the established untitled weight he had the access to throw around associated with his name.
He waved his hand in the air as if dismissing the thought. “Oh, right. I’m dead, there’s no point in dawdling with things that wouldn’t matter because, you know, I’m dead,” he told himself.
A smile crept up his face.
He had smiled several times in his whole lifetime. An audacious smirk upon hearing the squirms and pleads of those who dared to oppose him. A sinister grin amidst the echoing of voices who so desperately bargained for their lives.
This smile, however, was a little different. There were no bodies, no tortured people, no gore mental images—yet, for some reason, this smile was so easy to paint on his face. This smile was light, it was easy to carry. One that he wouldn't mind wearing again.
Something about Akutagawa seeing his physical body on a deathbed while he stood somewhere near the door, something about the ability to pass through the walls as if his body was not once restricted by them, something about the freedom to say whatever without garnering attention—something about death itself made Akutagawa smile the most delightful smile he had ever mustered.
With his newly found rebellion averse to the laws of physics, granting him the liberty to walk past walls and any other matter, he zoomed out of the mafia headquarters and followed wherever this seemingly endless crimson ribbon would lead him. Under normal circumstances, it was not optimal to let that lengthy slim piece of silk guide him—one with an unknown variable for length, at that.
But, there were no foul possibilities from treading on heels behind that sketchy string. What was the worst thing that could happen? Dying twice?
He craned his neck toward a massive clock plastered on a famous commercial establishment, the time: 16:21. The sky obliged as it no longer held the cumulus chunks of clouds that served as a screen for an afternoon sun but it had not granted the stars the signal to shine just yet. Simply put, twilight was fast approaching.
Akutagawa just lets himself be pulled by whatever entity is on the other side of the string. Funnily enough, the movement on the opposite end seemed in haste with the subtle back-and-forth motion of the ribbon.
With his eyes not daring to leave the pavement and without minding the people or vehicles that pass through him, the ribbon guided him to a strangely familiar path. It got noticeably shorter upon arriving at a reddish-brown brick building. “Uzumaki,” Akutagawa read the name of the café on the ground floor of the structure. As his vision climbed up, the ribbon was passing through the wall of the fourth level. “Fuck,” he cursed at nothing.
Of all places, why the Armed Detective Agency?
He let out an inward groan and with heavy dead feet, he made his way up the Armed Detective Agency's floor—through walls, doors, windows, flights of stairs, name it. A gold plaque that had the agency's name engraved welcomed him as he caught sight of the oakwood door. He could already hear the annoying banter Dazai was throwing and the exasperated clapbacks Kunikida was replying.
"You loafing bastard, make sure you finish your report on the two cases you were assigned last week. That should be easy enough... I hope. Also, the president said something about the new report-making process: you type them, make your partner on that job note it, fax it then send it to Haruno since we're implementing a stricter recording. Oi, Dazai, do you have questions?" Akutagawa overheard Kunikida from the other side of the door.
"See, Kunikida -kun, do you think abilities transfer to other living creatures? If my skill belonged to a dog, would it still be called No Longer Human?" Dazai asks, a menacing giggle trailing.
The other voice just groaned in surrender, "I mean, about the report, do you have questions about the report?"
"Sure do!" A cheerful response from Dazai. "Can Atsushi -kun cover for me?"
A new voice butted in their conversation with a tone of disbelief, "But we weren't paired last week, I was with Kyouka -chan on all my missions so I don't really have any idea what to report."
Kunikida fell silent and focused on his own share of the workload, letting Atsushi catch whatever idiocy Dazai would say in the next thirty minutes.
On the other hand, Akutagawa was still behind the door, contemplating whether it was proper to barge in. "Not like the detective agency's all that anyway," he told the air as if anything is capable to hear. "Besides, they wouldn't see me so might as well follow this ribbon or something." And, so, he let himself inside their office.
A sleeping boy with his bright blue jumper slipping off a shoulder, a cheerful smile accompanying his equally cheerful dream.
A young girl in her red kimono wiping the newly cleaned cover for her dagger.
A woman fiddling with a shiny scalpel, expertly playing with the gadget with skillful fingers.
A man banging profusely on the computer keys with one hand and frantically answering the landline with the other.
Another is reading a red book with the document flashing on his screen, blank with obviously zero chances of being typed on.
Another who had his face dived in a pile of candy.
A boy in his late teens fixing his piercing, a black-haired girl on his side.
And another boy late in his teens, with his rear dropped on the floor in shock. With his finger twitching in shock. With his eyes widened in shock; said eyes were looking at... Akutagawa?
"Atsushi, compose yourself," Kunikida advised. "I believe that behavior is evident in boys who are first approaching puberty, you are old enough to legally drive a car already. Well, not like you can drive one anyway," he adds, his attention not once leaving the computer screen.
With trembling lips and stuttering words, Atsushi breathes out, "Akutagawa..." not more than a thoughtless mutter amidst the momentum of his fall from the swivel chair.
The name perks up Dazai's ear, "Come again, Atsushi -kun?" he says with a teasing tone they were all used to. Atsushi's vision was fixated on Akutagawa. From the other side of the room, He raised his pointer finger toward Akutagawa's direction by the entrance. Dazai craned his neck toward the space Atsushi was referring to yet he saw nothing else but an old, brown door. "Meh, I could have sworn you said ‘Akutagawa’."
"I did!" Atsushi stresses, his finger not budging one bit.
Akutagawa takes notice of the pinky finger from Atsushi's raised hand. There, a crimson string was tied extending to Akutagawa's own finger—it connected them. "You can see me?"
The mantiger grasps the floor, shutting his eyes in terror. Normally, it would take Akutagawa a leg and a lethal wound to the chest to faze Atsushi however this time seemed a little different. It was a different kind of fear, the fear that a kid feels whenever they watched a horror movie for the first time or the fear that teenagers intend to make their crushes feel in tests of courage. This surreal paranormal scare that the lawless Yokohama seldom makes.
"I sure can see you!"
Atsushi, who managed to get seated, was restless but he seemed a little composed compared to earlier. "Atsushi, we're all aware of your little crush on the Port Mafia's mad dog but tone it down a little. That damned Decay of Angels fiasco left worse aftermath than calculated so it would be highly appreciated if you helped everyone else out," Kunikida reprimanded.
With a hand on his own waist, Akutagawa stared at the two of them in amusement. He walked toward Atsushi, letting the red ribbon tied on his pinky shorten with every step closer to the mantiger. He passed through swivel chairs, tables, and sofas but upon reaching Atsushi's workstation, he felt a minuscule tingle of pain when he bumped on Atsushi's desk. "Wh..." he trails off his words in surprise.
"What the hell?" he adds, banging a fist on Atsushi's desk who was trying his very best to devote all his attention to the computer screen. Sure, a big hitter of one of their enemy organizations came waltzing into their office with only half his opacity but is that really important with all this workload? No one in the agency was in the proper headspace to listen to what Atsushi concluded as a hallucination so he just chose to ignore whatever workplace hell Akutagawa was raising.
Like when Akutagawa hoisted himself up and sat on Atsushi's desk, ignore.
Like when Akutagawa grabbed Atsushi's fountain pen and it somehow flew in midair as Akutagawa's fingers were able to take hold of it, ignore.
Like when Akutagawa attempted to reach out for Dazai's computer mouse but the only thing that happened was his arm going on a full circle as it failed to grasp on the device, ignore.
"Hey, Kunikida -kun," said Dazai out of the blue after nearly an hour of nothing but keyboard keys banging and the annoying tone of a telephone ringing. "Why not let Atsushi -kun go under the clock today?" he asks, earning everyone—including our deceased friend Akutagawa—a turn of heads.
"And on what your grounds?" Kunikida answers.
"Well, he doesn't seem his best today and he looks sick. You see here uh," he extends an arm to put the back of his palm on Atsushi's hair-curtained forehead, "See? Hot as a piping, scalding bowl of ramen!"
"Dazai, you shouldn't make a habit of influencing your juniors to skip their damn work. And, Atsushi, it would be good if you can rest up in the infirmary even only up until the day ends so you can still help Tanizaki. Aren't you and him on cleaning duty today?"
"Kunikida -kun, what a slave driver you are! And here I thought we could be comrades in dismantling this society where normal citizens are left with the illusionary freedom to choose with no options but to partake in the capitalist cycle that benefits no one else but the upper class. I reckon you were a beacon of hope in this endlessly bleak world!" A fake cry from Dazai in a forced British accent.
"Ah, Atsushi -kun, I don't mind cleaning by myself today! You can go home and rest."
With both his palms hoisted up in defense, Atsushi said, "Tanizaki- san, I’ll help, no worries. And I’m not sick at all, Dazai -san!”
"Sure you are!" Dazai responded while being asphyxiated by Kunikida, laughing maniacally while he was at it. "Don't mind, Atsushi -kun! Go get a nice afternoon rest, make sure you're in tiptop shape tomorrow or our resident Jeff Bezos here would flip out of his mind!" he yells, gesturing something that seemed like a signal to go home.
Sighing, Kunikida added, “He’s correct, Atsushi. If your condition—whatever it is—does not show any signs of getting better by 21:30, do not hesitate to contact me and I will see what I can do. Go rest up, brat.”
With a reluctant shrug, Atsushi replies to Kunikida, “If you insist,” and makes his way outside their office and towards the locker area. Tailing him was Akutagawa who he tried his blockbuster best to ignore.
“Mantiger, hey,” Akutagawa calls. “You hear me, no?”
Upon reaching his locker, he twists the lock, revealing a plain-sighted mount of books and photo albums. His belongings scream Atsushi the more you look at it. He rummages through the small but organized pile of other necessities and alas his phone peeks out, flashing a light indicator that he recently received a text message.
dazai-san
you’re not very sick but u seem to have an ordeal, get to the bottom of it and tell me everything about it. you're not allowed to leave anything out! ^_^
“Tsk,” he clicked his tongue. “‘Ordeal,’ he says. As if a lame goddamn apparition of Akutagawa was enough to be called that,” he mindlessly blurted out.
“Me?” Akutagawa asked, his head peeking behind Atsushi’s locker and the thin metal door was the final thing forbidding him from touching the mantiger.
“Yeah, why are you even here?”
His eyes widen upon realization. “Why are you even here?! Weirdly, why are you not throwing me against the nearest building?”
“Oh, me?” Akutagawa repeats, lifting up his pinky in an attempt to express his distaste for the selectively intangible fabric. “You see, mantiger, this red string has been bugging me since earlier. What does this mean? Why is the other end tied to you?”
Atsushi tucks his flip phone inside his back pocket, completely forgetting that Dazai had texted him in the first place, ensuring that no one suspects that he was talking to himself, he made his way toward the exit of the building. “Why are you translucent then? The heavens rendered you wrongly? Their photoshop free trial ended while designing you or something?”
“Haha. Very funny. No, I died.”
And it all hit Atsushi at once. A silent note, peaceful tranquility, then all of a sudden bombarded by a powerful explosion he feared was beyond recovery.
Of course.
Passing through walls and tables, his unseen presence to everyone but Atsushi, and his translucency—all of them pointed out to the cliched depiction of death. In the back of Atsushi’s mind, while working on a report on one of the local gang cases in Yokohama, the sight of what seemed like Akutagawa’s soul was a sufficient sell-out of his death. But there was no harm in thinking that he could still be sleeping soundly on a bed and what’s beside him right now is no more than a longing, realistic hallucination.
“I died.”
Atsushi stops in his tracks just before reaching out to the bronze doorknob. “Okay? What do you want me to do? Throw you a send-off?”
“Wow, what humor. If it isn’t painfully obvious, a send-off is utterly pointless because, for some damned reason, I’m still here, am I? Had I known that death entails watching your tedious office job, I would have taken marvelous caution with my health."
"If I recall correctly, no one else can see you so you have the freedom to spy on the president of some counties and present yourself as a whistleblower because wow imperialism sucks, and maybe some of us have systemically-reforming plans had we gotten your invisible privilege. Go for a swim for all I care."
“If you were invisible, the first thing you’d do is sneak to the bank and clear your loan records,” Akutagawa insulted back.
“Joke’s on you, I can’t take out a loan because, and I quote, ‘Mr. Nakajima, you did not fit the standard of long-term financial capability, we sincerely apologize. May I interest you in illegal gambling?’”
“That’s alarming. You do recognize how that’s alarming, right?”
The mantiger looked at him with an expression far too telling than his words. “You literally look like egg whites right now, you do recognize how that’s alarming, right?”
"Have you always been this stupid or did you take lessons?," Akutagawa scoffed, a frustrated pair of irises climbing toward the back of his eyes. "The sight of me is yours alone, disgustingly so. As much as I want to leave this deranged world, I neither have the ability nor knowledge. Even in death, I have to be on the receiving end of noise pollution, that's outrageous."
Atsushi twisted the doorknob and pulled open the door, deliberately ignoring how Akutagawa was ranting about the lack of sensory perks he had. While walking in the direction of the agency's dorm, Atsushi noticed a familiar silhouette leaning on a lamppost. He heightened his guard as he approached a vaguely known person with their hair down, clad in a sophisticated white dress.
"Uhm," he called once he reached a hearing distance. "You're a member of the Port Mafia's Black Lizard," he stated the obvious. "Akutagawa Gin?"
With a composed display of confidence, the person Atsushi called Gin rectified their posture and brushed off the nonexistent lint from their flowy midi dress. It wasn’t hard to deduce how the mafioso was mourning. "Correct," they affirmed. "I'm here to inform you of my brother's passing," Gin stated, voice not wavering from the Port Mafia bar of bravado.
Atsushi widened his eyes, surprised under false pretense. He was dead all right—also fatally irritating, he thought as he gave Akutagawa, who was unseen by his younger sibling, the side-eye. "I'm sorry for your loss. Why... why are you telling me this?"
"Tomorrow, around 13:40, we will hold a ceremony to commemorate his death in one of our warehouses at the pier. Me being here is an invitation, he would've wanted your presence there."
"Hey, Gin, I certainly do not," Akutagawa counters as if his little sister could hear him. In the end, he surrenders with a heavy sigh.
"Why invite me to an intimate ceremony? What if I, say, injure your executives?"
"Then we kill you before you get the opportunity to cause havoc," Gin calmly provided an answer. "This is not your obligation and I objectively don't think it's a smart idea to push through with your attendance. But you're a bigger part of him than you think, your appearance would probably mean a lot to the life he's led."
Akutagawa was just listening intently to what his sister had to say. He recalls the times he would pick Gin up on days off to do mundane sibling stuff like going bowling together or eating at an unhealthy fast-food chain. In the windows of waiting for their alley ticket or meal, they would chat as normal siblings do and maybe Gin had picked up on their conversations whose subject was Atsushi.
He would never admit it but if Atsushi were to show up at that ceremony, then it would mean the world. Akutagawa has lived a thankless life with a vague trajectory of happiness. The last time he felt a genuine, wholesome tingle of being alive was at the last moments of his humanity right before he blacked out at the ship when they dueled against Kamui.
He recalled the heavy sensation of his arms that was way too distanced from his limit, the pinching wails of his overexerted legs, and—of course—the seeping pain of his severed neck. All that, he had full memory of. Because amidst the incredibly sculpted scenery of anguish he associated with that battle, he also recalled the triangular escape route he had holed for Atsushi's breakout. The pathetic smile of triumph his exhausted facial muscles failed to carry out as Atsushi swam away from the ship, he remembered.
And all the rest was a blur.
"Uh, Atsushi... san?" Gin stumbled on their honorifics. "I'm sending this invite on my own accord as my older brother's only family. If you decide to go, then you're my liability and I will take whatever consequence should you do anything to our stronghold. On the flip side, I'll ensure your safety. That much I can swear."
"I'll think it through. Tomorrow, right, Gin -san?"
"Yes. This is no obligation but I look forward to seeing you there."
"I'll keep that in mind," Atsushi said. "I'm sorry for your loss."
"And I'm sorry for yours."
A part of Atsushi wondered what "loss" he possibly had over the recent death that warranted an apologetic show of pity. It's Akutagawa, for God's sake. On the other hand, another part of Atsushi knew exactly what "loss" warranted so, so much more than an apologetic show of pity.
It's Akutagawa, for God's sake.
Gin gave a brief bow and takes their leave. Atsushi and Akutagawa watched her back as they walked with caution across the sidewalk. In their dainty dress, it would take a million guesses before anyone could decipher that they were a sought assassin in the vicious underground society of the lawless city. They watch as Gin's silhouette shrank into the skyline.
"Didn't know your sibling was talkative," Atsushi commented once Gin was no longer within their line of sight.
"That's probably the most they've said their entire life," Akutagawa replied, a fond tone in his voice.
The two continued their walk on the way to the dorm. "A ceremony, huh? Who would've thought."
"Thought what?"
"Nothing much. I just didn't know the mafia valued lives that much."
"You didn't know the mafia valued my life that much, you mean?" Akutagawa reiterated.
"Oh, trust me. The mafia wouldn't dare go near their influence today if it weren't for you, it's like you're practically the personification of fictional one-man armies. You're rabid. The paragon of ruthlessness.”
A one-man army, Akutagawa repeated in his head. He only laughed in silence because alongside him, a "one-man army", was a socially anxious soldier, whose bangs were deliberate treason to the haircare industry, he fought with and against who he saw as the most valuable teammate. A little stroke of a clean crayon in his life full of pointless scribbles drawn by abandoned pencils.
They walked in silence until they reached Atsushi's residence. "What a shabby place to live in," Akutagawa insulted as he walked past a blue water drum lying horizontally on the ground.
"Shabby, fine. What are you doing here then? First, your presence forced me to go under the clock at work earlier. Second, I'm being peer pressured to attend your funeral. Third, you’re insulting this place as if you could do better," Atsushi ranted as he ascended the small flight of stairs, Akutagawa tailing him from behind.
Right before he reached the last step, Akutagawa said, "Please help me."
A resounding request that rang repeatedly in both of Atsushi's ears, words transcripted in a mental glossary of all the times Akutagawa dared to have the slightest strip of linguistic courtesy in his bones. "Help me, mantiger," he repeated. "No one can see or hear or smell or feel me except you. Let me cross to the afterlife."
Atsushi finished the staircase, setting foot in the hallway that housed his dorm room as he pondered on what Akutagawa has said. He was a menace, of course, a walking reminder of the world's imbalance when rewarded with the choice to wield a caliber of strength enough to cut through anything. Atsushi once hated that. However, more than anyone, their history was one to hold in high regard, to carefully set down on a pedestal as high as the tallest building visible from where they were—higher than the tallest building Yokohama boasted.
Akutagawa and Atsushi's history was not the type to be published and recognized as a New York bestseller on a red bar on top of the cover. Their history was the type to be immortalized through a photo album sitting on a coffee table only for personal viewing. A history that was to be kept as theirs in sacredness, a history the world will never be ready to hear.
That's why, despite Akutagawa's rashness, the option to help weighed rather much more heavily than not.
"Alright," Atsushi answers. God knew how he didn't want to help, that in a span of a few seconds, his brain waged an internal war over whether to agree on helping Akutagawa cross to the afterlife or not. A choice between being selfish or accepting that yet another thing will not go his way. But Atsushi was yards wiser than that, he knew better than being selfish. "I'll help."
A silent hum of gratitude was all he received as he opened the door to his dorm and Akutagawa passed by smoothly like there was never a door serving as a barrier in the first place.
Akutagawa's eyes roamed around the room. "Hey," he called while pointing at a stuffed rabbit on top of a folded futon. "Is that Kyouka's?"
"Ah, yeah. We're roommates."
"You have a fourteen-year-old babysitter, do you not have shame, mantiger?"
"Okay, for the record, I sleep inside the closet."
"So you've embodied being closeted."
Atsushi stops in his tracks right when he was about to head to the bathroom and wash his face. "Did you just... crack a joke?"
"I suppose I did. I'm uncertain," Akutagawa replies with a straight face.
"If someone told me I'm gonna have the ability to see a dead person first than hearing a decent joke from you, I wouldn't believe them but here we are."
"What? You sure are so lucky abilities die along with the user because I would kill you right now without hesitation."
"Lucky me, then," Atsushi says in a muffled tone, the toothbrush sticking out of his mouth.
Being the menace he is, Akutagawa follows Atsushi to the bathroom and gave himself the go signal to rummage through whatever he deemed interesting: a blue toothbrush that had a suction material on its base, an unopened box of soap, children's shampoo, all that boring stuff. "You're the least interesting bathroom owner I've ever met," Akutagawa chided as he extended an arm upward to reach for a shelf near the ceiling a little above his head.
"I'm probably the only bathroom owner you've met," Atsushi said as he peeled off his gaze from the mirror and transferred it to Akutagawa with a glare. He took notice of a black star drawn on Akutagawa's elbow when the overcoat's sleeves rolled themselves up. It was small but noticeable enough from the angle Atsushi was. "Didn't know you're the star tattoo type, Akutagawa," he said.
"The what type what now?"
Atsushi referred to the area of Akutagawa's skin where he found the tattoo, tapping at the seemingly inked star twice. "Here. Star tattoo. I thought getting tattoos were supposed to hurt or something. How come you had no idea?"
While twisting his elbow to catch sight of the mark, Akutagawa replies, "That's because it's not a tattoo..,” leaving the rest of the sentence abandoned in the air. He looked at himself in the mirror, inspecting his own body to find more stars that could be mistaken as ink. And he did.
A total of four: one on his left elbow, on the space in his jawline often overlooked in normal circumstances, on a corner of his right palm, and one in the middle of the scar from when Kamui practically decapitated him right around the side of his neck.
“Four stars,” Atsushi concluded, showing that he counted them as well. “And you seriously didn’t know you had them when you were alive?” he asked Akutagawa, inspecting his expression through the mirror in front of him.
“No,” Akutagawa answered. “If it helps, I have a red ribbon tied to my pinky connected to yours but, apparently, only I can see it. What does this mean? Aren’t you a detective? Aren’t you supposed to detect?”
"It's deduce.”
“Woah there, Shakespeare.”
“Hold it, dead man. This isn’t your typical theft or murder case, you’re a dead person who died of lung failure. You—your soul, I’m guessing—showed up with only me having the ability to see you. I’m up against omnipotent entities here.”
“Ah, as expected of the Armed Detective Agency. Your incompetence appalls me even in death.”
“No, this is where I draw the li—“ Atsushi was cut off by the beep of his phone from outside. “I’m going to answer this text and kick you out like that bank did when I asked if I can take out a general civilian loan, hellhound.”
He exited the bathroom and grabbed his cell phone that was laying atop a low wooden table. Yosano's name popped up on the welcome screen with a red dot peeking from the envelope icon, he clicked on it.
yosano-san
kyouka will be staying with me until you feel better. i told the ones here in the office to let you self-isolate.
you
i'm okay, yosano-san. no need to take in kyouka-chan for the night.
yosano-san
don't sweat it, you could be carrying the flu for all we know. rest up, make sure you contact me or Kunikida if you don't feel better by tonight. take care of yourself, atsushi!!
"Ah, great," Atsushi gives up on Yosano's last message. There was just no convincing her. He was aware that everyone in the agency knew well enough that he was not sick whatsoever, they weren't that easily deceived. The reason they were all riding on Dazai's ploy was because of something else and not out of health precautions. Atsushi thinks about how they persuaded Kyouka to cooperate. He wondered how much of the real story Dazai made up when talking to the agency.
Dazai knew something was up. Not even a whisker of the driest dandelion would be able to get past Dazai's radar; to Atsushi, that whisker was his thoughtless mention of Akutagawa's name earlier. He surrendered to the fact that Dazai would endlessly pry on him—on why he said that, on what prompted him to say that, on why he fell from his swivel chair. Dazai would stop at nothing if it meant meddling in this particular business.
And Atsushi, who has grown witness to how there was no beating Dazai, conceded to the circumstances and just indulged in this rare day off.
"What's great?" Akutagawa asked, head poking out from the bathroom entryway.
"Nothing," Atsushi answered. "What the hell are you still doing in that bathroom? It's not like you can get ahold of anything in there," he rebuked while filling an electric kettle with water to heat.
"Except I can."
The mantiger was confused because, as far as his memory could go—around four minutes prior—Akutagawa was a dead man with no means to grip earthly objects. "What do you mean you can? Are you... are you on drugs?"
Akutagawa goes out of the bathroom and immediately throws the unopened box of bar soap in Atsushi's direction. The box came flying at a considerably fast speed but Atsushi had better reaction time, he dodges the household weapon and catches it once averted. "How on earth…" he trailed off his words, caught in astonishment.
"See, I told you so," Akutagawa said with an annoyingly smug expression. "Although look here, I tried grabbing the blue toothbrush, the one you weren't using, my hand just passed through it."
Atsushi crosses his arm, brows furrowed as he tries to add two and two together. "Four stars, red string, the capacity to hold objects but with ambiguous limitations," he enumerates the variables they had at hand.
With a snap of his fingers and a dead-end epiphany, Atsushi caught Akutagawa's attention, connoting that he had an idea of what was the gist of their situation. "This may sound stupid—"
"You always do."
"Okay, as I was saying.” Atsushi rolled his eyes. “I could be wrong but are you aware of this specific classical lore? There's this legend about soul halving. I thought it was just a children's tale before but... four stars, a string, grip... it can't be that perfect of a coincidence, right?"
"Show me this lore."
"Why are you so condescending, it's not like you're paying me for this." Atsushi rolled his eyes but still reached for the drawer of the low wooden table where he placed his phone. Inside the said drawer was a storage of trivial things that are probably too low in quantity to have a designated space in his dorm. He held out a book, it was thick and it had a slick bronze finish. "One of our clients gave this as a gift.”
“A Collection of Classical-Contemporary Chronicles,” Akutagawa reads the title out loud. “Proses of the Past” then reads the subtext below. “Literature these days isn’t even trying to hide that alliteration has died. What charlatans.”
Atsushi flips the gloss-coated pages of the hard-bound book that was obviously sold at a high price. “Ah here!” Atsushi notified Akutagawa when he reached the cover page of a new legend, the illustration was beautiful.
They leave the page to approach a new one. There they seek whatever clues or remote affiliations of a red string, four stars, and selective grip to an old story. Sure did it sound so darn irrational or counterproductive when they start their objective of sending Akutagawa to the afterlife with a fictional myth orally passed centuries before them and transcribed decades prior but if all else seemed improbable, who's to say the impossible wasn't possible?
"Death warrants life as life warrants death. The abstruse connection of every matter stepped upon the solidity of soil, the network that links two halves into one in an incalculable bond that transcends the tangible image of life itself. Two halves stem from the core of every living being—the soul. And as these two entities are seen as one through all bylaws only to be watched in a fleeting vision recognized by all Earth, what once was two wandering links are conjoined as one spiritual soul that is set to embark on lifetimes bound together for eternities to come.”
Both their eyes followed the passage.
"It doesn't explain anything," Akutagawa complained, he was getting agitated and restless. "Are you toying with my situation, mantiger? I suspect you see this as a trivial matter?"
Atsushi looked up to Akutagawa—who chose to stand instead of sitting down on the floor like Atsushi—with a bored expression. "Would it kill you twice to stop speaking like an email from a resurrected ancient scholar? You read one paragraph and then you choose to complain, that makes you an idiot. Also, why do you want to cross the afterlife so badly?"
Akutagawa only averted his gaze and said, "That's not for you to ask and for me to answer right now. Maintain your silence, I'm trying to read."
"Jeez, you act like a stereotypical librarian," Atsushi said with a sigh. The both of them resumed reading with no one bothering to disrupt the muted air aside from the occasional questions on what words outside of their vocabularies meant or on whether or not it was okay to flip the page.
THE PREMONITION, Act 1: He who has withdrawn from the world and he whose bridge has flown with decaying lumber—those whose souls have intertwined into one in the pursuit of paradise unfound in the seeable horizons. They who had fled from the singularity. They who had transcended the stars.
In humanity, there is blood. The blood of those who have transformed death into a vestibule to reach the heavens has knit itself to the blood of those who have not. From that, born was a fiber residing in the hands of two people handpicked by fate to share identical roads for all eternity. The crimson rope that wired them as a ceaseless compass to not lose one's route; to ensure that they walk on the same pathway for lifetimes to come.
The planet was in its eighth thousandth circulation with twelve spins the stars claimed the privilege as witnesses. Beneath the seemingly abundant spheres of life came along the existence of what the palms can feel through the barrier of the skin. The foreign prickle upon contact that surpasses yet abides the laws of science: matter. A sensation that serves a champion against death with two arms and feet conjoined in a single metaphorical team. Where the absence of singularity equates to the absence of autonomous possession in which matter could only see two beings as one even in death where they were never truly beaten.
His name was Candor; spirit as clean as it sounded, soul as pure albeit in the midst of a sempiternal battlefield. The other was Rufus, with an overwhelming share of carnage as the heavens bestowed him a fitting identity in accordance to the judgment passed his way. Two souls with light years of space intervening their mutual distance from the ends of the spectrum. Separating them was a sandstorm, a volcanic interior, and an unspeakable paradise altogether—and, God, was it ever the amount of sight their eyes could only dream to handle.
Above the fused imagery of kingdoms and dungeons was a calm stretch of a never-leaving night sky pasturing a hue so restrictive of any illumination. Save for four twinkling stars that shone in their lucidity upon Candor and Rufus despite their great distance. Four stars act as keys to doors that dare impose constraints on their meeting. A vanished star meant an unlocked door, and only up to all pathways are unsealed will Candor and Rufus have the privilege to meet once again.
Until then they shall share nothing but memories of whom their souls chose to be chained with in endless lifetimes to come.
“Old folklore is a bore, Mantiger,” Akutagawa whines.
Atsushi only looked at him in disbelief and says, “How can you be so apathetic over this yet you want me to throw you over the afterlife so badly? Since when were you such a fan of paradoxes?”—he paused for a little over a second—“Oh, wait, you’re not. You’re just a humongous douchebag.”
“Speak for yourself, you fool. For the record, I already finished the whole thing and it’s not as long as you think.”
“Okay then, Akutagawa. Since you’re my client yet you have no intention of monetary compensation—which is gravely harmful to the economy, if I may be so frank to add—should you witness a little lack of enthusiasm with your request, it’s completely your problem. If I slack this one off, that’s on you.”
“You don’t have to speak like a whole verbal contract. What, do you need a verbal attorney to verbally notarize your verbally-delivered contract that is, by the way, verbally irritating because you’re annoying in every verbal, quasi-verbal, and non-verbal way.”
“You said ‘verbal’ eight times. You know what else is eight?”
“The stages of hell you fall through once I kill you?”
“I was gonna say the number of fingers that aren’t up when I flip you off on your little mafia funeral but that’s a good comeback.”
Akutagawa’s thoughts seemed to stop flowing, he says, “You’re going?”
“I did say that, yeah. Not sure if I’ll show myself to your bosses though but I’ll go one way or another.”
“What if they kill you? A small fry such as yourself wouldn’t stand a chance alone.”
“Okay, first off, that’s rude. Learn some manners while you’re dead, you probably have all the time in the world to do that. Second, your sibling said I’m their responsibility. Last, is there an off chance that a man-eating coat rack like you is fearing for my life? Do you want a noble branch for that? Becau—“
“You are ignorant. If you die, I wouldn’t be able to cross the afterlife. Also, I think you’re milking too much from when Gin said she’ll take full responsibility for your safety if ever you go. They're not exactly your bodyguard, mafia services don’t come cheap.”
“And agency services don’t come free yet here we are,” Atsushi deadpans. “Besides, I think it’ll be a logical step to go to your ceremony considering that there’s a good number of parallels between you and Rufus from the lore.”
“Oh,” Akutagawa snaps his fingers. “Yeah, I thought so too.”
Atsushi held up his pointer finger, gesturing Akutagawa to wait as he stood up and rushed for a small cabinet that seemed like a storage stash. The mantiger searched among the pile of random objects until he gets ahold of a portable whiteboard. With a whiteboard marker, whose ink was nearing drought, Atsushi creates a poorly drawn diagram of their game plan that made him look like an incompetent coach of a sports team.
Listing down three circles, Atsushi started his lecture, “These three circles represent the red string you see, selective grip, and the four stars on your body. It’s a bit obvious and maybe you’ve figured out this much already but these are from the lore’s second, third, and fifth paragraphs respectively. I could be wrong but this lore is essentially identical to your situation.”
“I thought so as well.”
“See, if you want to cross the afterlife and get reincarnated, we’re going to do whatever it is to have the stars vanish from your body. The only hole that’s left is how they’ll leave.”
“Right. That’s for you to solve.”
Atsushi only represses an unserious punch, “Fine. Only because,” he abandons the sentence hanging in the air, leaving Akutagawa’s anticipation on whatever he intended to say. It’s the least I can do when I had to watch you die twice, Atsushi thinks.
“What? You didn’t finish your sentence.”
The mantiger shook his head too violently that he felt mild dizziness. “Nothing, don’t mind it. Anyway, if I’m working on your case, it’d be weird to do it on and off working hours. Plus it’s mad tiring.”
“Then take time off, Yokohama wouldn’t evaporate if you weren’t around toiling your buttocks off for the detective agency.”
“Ah, God, why would you use that phrase for ‘working your ass off’ I am so disturbed,” Atsushi crumples his face in superficial disgust. “I’m spending all my days off for this... whole thing. Why can’t you just jaywalk to the afterlife, why can’t I get nice things,” his grievances continued while he was composing a message for Dazai on his cellphone.
you
dazai-san, will it be fine if I use my sick days for this week? about two to three days at most? i’m really under the weather today
As much as it stank to lie to Dazai of all people, Atsushi knew that he sensed something was going on so it was optimal to have his request for absence be brought by Dazai. That guy most probably completely reads the situation already, there’s just no winning against him. After all, he was Atsushi’s mentor. It only took half a minute for Atsushi’s phone to chime as it notified him of Dazai’s response.
dazai-san
oh my god
dazai-san
yes i’d even give u my sick days
you
u use ur sick days during the first few days of the month because ure too shitfaced to function
dazai-san
HDFHHREHHSDHFSHFHDFHSD ???? too shitfaced to function is my full government name (not that the government has anything on me)
“Well,” Akutagawa suddenly said, “he seems... energetic.”
Atsushi laughed because he would use childish over energetic to describe Dazai. “Mhm, kinda,” he answered Akutagawa. “That's that, I just got the whole week off, today included. We start tomorrow.”
“All right.”
Atsushi checked the window and realizes that the sun had gone down, he failed to remember dinner which he brushed off anyway. He prepared his mattress—outside the closet since Kyouka was staying at Yosano’s—to sleep earlier than the usual 9 PM. As if it was a skill on its own, the moment his back was laid flat on the surface, he fell sound asleep with Akutagawa just wandering around the dorm.
Akutagawa pauses from imposing and unsolicitedly learning about how Atsushi lived life as he helped himself to watch the mantiger’s things. Like his novels, a small manga collection, and ripped recipe pages from a popular food magazine—he wanted to learn more about the mundanity of Atsushi’s world, something he never had the chance to do alive. Hearing a soft snore from the sleeping boy, Akutagawa turns his stare toward Atsushi’s direction.
“Dainty,” Akutagawa thoughtlessly blurted. He walks to Atsushi’s mattress and sits down on the floor in a lotus position, his apparitional coat slowly kissing the ground while he crouched. “Dainty,” again, he said —whispered— nothing more than a fleeting vibration in a near-lightless room.
Atsushi left the curtains separated with a little gap that allowed the moon to peer over his face. It was their only source of light as the mantiger shut all of them off once the mattress was settled.
For Akutagawa, the moon was vicious.
During the chase in a forest that chained him to the mafia at fourteen, the recurring pursuits of duds whose lives are bound to be killed with three gunshots and an unjoint jaw, the countless alleys they leave reeking of bloodshed and insurmountable fear that one could almost see it—all these were ingrained in his head with the moon villainously cackling in the background, ridiculing how it repeatedly watched the way Akutagawa’s life was even more of a dead-end than those alleys.
Not this evening though.
Tonight, the moon was nothing more than a harmless ball of dull light, it didn’t connote a dark story that will live with him forever. Tonight, the moon was only drenching Atsushi’s sleeping face in a serene touch of lighting that emphasized his soft features. Tonight, the moon was just emitting muted brightness, allowing Akutagawa to drown himself in the serenity and sheer majesty Atsushi had while resting.
And Akutagawa wondered if there was ever a night where he, too, slept at peace.
“Now I understand why the moon is so romanticized,” he told no one in particular and he could have sworn that he noticed the star near his left elbow reduce its color a little upon the realization.