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The first time Gin saw the apartment that was soon to become their home, she nearly fainted with joy.
Those emotions were reserved inwardly, of course, and as she turned her head to check on Ryuunosuke, he had not even budged an inch. His fingers tightly gripped the black coat now wrapped around his slender frame. His mind was elsewhere. The apartment would be the least of their worries in the days to come.
‘Make yourselves comfortable,’ said the Mafia grunt that had escorted them there. He had seemed all too eager to leave. It was late at night.
The siblings, as per their orders, made themselves comfortable. They washed themselves, gained their bearings, and eventually wound back up in the living room, sitting opposite each other at the only table in their new home. There was food in the fridge, but neither of them was hungry.
‘That man will—’ Ryuunosuke said as he hugged the coat tighter. ‘That man will teach us how to be strong. We won’t have to go back there again.’
Gin still remembered the man that saved them. The frighteningly hollow smile he wore on his face.
‘Will he?’ she whispered back.
Her brother went on, ignoring her words. ‘One day, I’ll be strong enough to protect you too. I promise.’
Gin had no response to that. She only felt increasingly cold.
‘Let’s turn on the heater,’ she said.
------------|------------
It had been a long time since then. The Akutagawa siblings adapted.
They’ve gained their standing in the Mafia, proven their own worths in their own ways. For two people who have done nothing but survive until now, to continue to survive in the world of crime and darkness they now found themselves in, was not a challenging task.
The two don’t walk the same path. Gin was but a normal human; she didn’t possess the same potential as her brother had. So she put her hair up and became an assassin.
She learnt from her superiors. The leader of her division, Hirotsu, was willing to share. Occasionally, when they had the time to spare, they would spar.
It was during one of those brief spars that he notes, ‘You’re quite good at keeping your silence.’
She leaps forward with her knife, but Hirotsu predicts her move and deflects her blow with a light blast from her Ability. She regains her balance. He lets her catch her breath.
‘There’s no need to speak if I have nothing valuable to contribute,’ she responds to his earlier question.
‘And if you have?’
‘Then perhaps.’
She lands a hit.
Back in their apartment, the two of them spare few words for the other. It is usually late in the night when she returns. They sit opposite each other, on the same table that had been there since they moved in, and eat instant ramen to the silence of the night.
Fatigue overtakes them faster than any urge to talk. Some things need not be expressed in words.
They retire to their rooms, and when the time comes for them to wake, they eat their fill and leave with a brisk ‘goodbye’.
Goodbye, and I hope you don’t get too hurt today.
Goodbye, and I hope today too will be alright.
Some days, Gin comes home to find Ryuunosuke already there. He is seated at the table, trying to open a cup of ramen with one arm. His other arm in a cast.
He gives up when Gin walks in, opting to use his Ability instead to slice the top open. The cover is flung to the ground. He reaches out for it.
Some days, there would be a new bruise or two on his face.
Some days, a pair of crutches sit next to him.
The question is the same every time. ‘What happened, Ryuu?’
His voice was a guttural growl. ‘I wasn’t—strong enough. Dazai-san told me so.’
Yet his voice was filled with fervent conviction. The coat given to him on that fateful day, he still wrapped around his body for warmth.
Clinging on, and never letting go.
Yet in the end, there was nothing much she could do. She pours hot water into the noodles for him. They sit opposite each other, in that silence broken only by Ryuunosuke’s occasional coughs.
‘I haven’t forgotten my promise. I’ll become strong enough that no one will stand in my way.’
Slurp, goes the noodles.
‘But that wasn’t the promise you made.’
‘It’s the same. Once no one can stand against us, we will be safe. Just like what we’ve always wanted. If I could only—do as Dazai-san says…’
Gin doesn’t say anything. Nothing valuable to contribute.
Words that could’ve been spoken dissipate into the silence.
--------------|--------------
The wounds increase.
He gets stronger.
Whatever Dazai was doing, it was working.
‘Of course. Dazai-san’s a genius. He’s—better than we could ever hope to become.’
Gin notes that Dazai is the only person he ever addresses with honorifics. He’s the only person he listens to, the only person he respects, and the only person that hurts him.
But as long as he’s happy—
She notes, again with silence, how his feet trembles as he leaves for his room. A faint cough echoes out between the gaps of his closed door.
---------------|--------------
Gin has met Ryuunosuke’s mentor on several occasions. She is thrown off by how light his words are, the lack of seriousness in his tone.
He is standing in the middle of a bloodbath, after all.
She is tasked with reconnaissance. She runs alongside one of the lower-ranked members in the organisation, a copper-haired man named Oda Sakunosuke. She is younger than him, yet she ranks higher.
‘Let’s get back. We need to report the situation to Dazai-san.’
There is familiarity in how he speaks of the man. They strike up a brief conversation as they go. Somehow, she feels just a bit more relaxed in his company.
‘My brother mentors under him,’ she mentions.
‘So I’ve heard,’ he replies.
It is because of this false sense of security, that she asks the question that had been burning in her throat for the longest time. It was dangerous to say too much in the Mafia. But right now, she doesn’t feel any danger.
Surely, this will be alright.
‘Is my brother safe with him?’
He thinks. There isn’t a change in his expression when he gives his answer.
‘I can’t say for sure. I haven’t met your brother. But in some ways… Dazai-san’s just as much of a child as you are. In some ways, he is just as lost as your brother.’
They return to base, only to find that the enemy gang has been taken care of. Blood floods the floor. Dazai stands within the crimson stains, a half-lidded, cheery smile on his face. Ryuunosuke is beside him, his expression feral. The blades formed from his coat retracts.
‘Ah, Odasaku,’ he addresses the copper-headed man. Not her. Not her brother.
‘It seems like I’ve failed to die again,’ he continues, that scarily hollow smile still in place. ‘I’ve fuzzed up.’
-------------|-----------
That is the last conversation she will share with the man named Oda.
She learns, a while later, that he had died.
---------------|--------------
‘Where is Dazai-san!?’
A light puff of smoke. The glint of a monocle.
A black coat writhes, the beast within threatening to pounce.
‘Dazai has… defected. I don’t believe he wishes to be found.’
----------------|----------------
It is the end of another day. Another day in which Gin and her brother have managed to live on.
Although something’s different.
They try their best to keep it under wraps, but word gets around fast. The fact that the executive Dazai Osamu has disappeared.
She tries not to show it, but there is urgency in her steps when she leaves her post.
She had confirmed the news with Hirotsu himself. The old man hardly lies.
On her way back home, she buys a new pack of instant ramen. In Ryuunosuke’s favourite flavour. The convenience store bag brushes against her legs as she walks.
‘Ryuu.’
He is at the doorstep. Coughing, hacking, a small puddle of dribble forming on the carpet in front of him. And she is next to him, the convenience store bag thrown aside, holding him still and tight.
He wipes his face, his voice lowering into a snarl. ‘Leave me alone.’
Not a budge.
‘Leave me alone.’
He tries to push her away, but in the end the both of them were about the same in physical strength. The struggle goes nowhere. Gin trembles just a little more.
‘Just leave me—!’
Silence. Wet drops stain the fabric of her work clothes.
Ryuunosuke is more quiet than ever, even when he cries. He cries without making a sound, with hushed breaths, with both arms shielding the sides of his face so as to not show his weakness.
She knew all that, so why can’t she speak a word, even now?
‘You don’t understand,’ he repeatedly murmurs. ‘You don’t get it. I’m weak, that’s why he abandoned me.’
Eventually, they get inside. Gin makes some instant ramen, and they sit opposite each other at the table, listening to nothing but the silence of the night.
He plays with a piece of paper in his hands. He lets Gin read it later. It is a farewell note from Dazai.
‘You should become stronger before trying to meet me again.’
‘I mustn’t look for him. Because I’m not strong enough.’
He had been saying the phrase increasingly often. It was always because of his weakness; it was always because—
‘Because of my helplessness.’
He mutters the phrase, over and over again.
‘Stop it, Ryuu. You’re already… strong enough.’
She says it. The nails of her clenched fists dig into her palms.
‘Stop it. You’ve done enough. You’re not the same anymore, you’re not weak anymore.’
He fixes her in place with a glare. ‘I didn’t want to hear that from you. Your opinion here is irrelevant.’
‘Then…’
‘Gin, I only want to hear those words from Dazai-san’s own mouth. That’s all I wanted. And yet, something so simple—’
‘Ryuu, why do you want to become stronger?’
A slight pause in his breaths. He answers through gritted teeth. ‘To protect you.’
‘If that’s all you wanted, then that’s enough. You don’t need to protect me. You don’t need to get hurt because of me. Please. Let’s—’
‘Then tell me, Gin. What should I do?’
‘… Move on,’ she answers.
One look into his eyes, and she can tell that wasn’t going to happen. Not so easily. Some things couldn’t be let go of just like that.
What should she say now? What are the words that were always on the tip of her tongue, but never spoken?
‘Ryuu, I—’
Ryuunosuke stands up. The chair falls to the ground.
‘Tomorrow, I’m looking for Dazai-san. I won’t stop until I find him.’
With that declaration, he leaves.
The silence of the night swoops in like a hawk.
‘—love you.’
It took Gin far too long to realise that she, too, was crying.