Work Text:
“What are you doing here?”
He can’t help but blurt out as a familiar black coated figure appears out of the darkness, enough to startle him away from the spot he was previously standing.
Akutagawa freezes, but only for a moment before regaining composure. “Nothing you need to know.”
Atsushi sighs. “I guess.”
It’s late. He’s tired, slow, not focused enough to care about whatever Akutagawa has to do here. As long as he’s not trying to kill him, which he doesn’t look like he’s about to do, anyway.
“What would be your business here?” Akutagawa says slowly, as if he’s quite aware of how contradictory his statement is, considering he just refused to answer Atsushi’s question a moment ago.
Atsushi looks away, staring at the fading sun. He supposes, that if he gives an answer, it wouldn’t be very threatening to him. “Watching the sunset. And then the stars, I guess.”
Akutagawa hums noncommittally, watching Atsushi’s gaze. Atsushi stills in surprise, that might as well be one of the first non-violent things Akutagawa has done aloud to him. They always try to kill each other during the day, never anything different. He should really be readying for some sort of battle, right about now…
But his mind is hazy, and Akutagawa hasn’t moved an inch from when he arrived, the strands of Rashoumon nowhere in sight. Dumbly, he asks, “Aren’t you gonna try and kill me now?”
Akutagawa scowls. “I would, if you’d like. Sadly, my energy is wasted, and it seems yours is too.
He gives Atsushi a onceover, and to Atsushi’s disdain, he’s right. Even if he wanted to, his movements against Akutagawa would be sluggish. “Oh.”
“I’d rather fight you in top condition.” Akutagawa ends, eyes already taken off Atsushi and onto the slowly disappearing sunset. Perhaps it’s the remaining glow of the sun, or the appearing twinkle of the starlight, but Akutagawa looks a bit gentle like this.
As gentle as an Akutagawa can get, anyway. Atsushi can’t help the small smile from appearing on his face as he rests his chin on his arms, leaning onto the side of the bridge.
It’s a barren town, devoid of crowds and people. He can hear the faint hustle of people from the city, but they’re not near enough for anyone to notice them. Which is likely a good idea, considering Akutagawa’s face plastered all over the wanted posters in Yokohama.
They stand in silence. They’ve got nothing to talk about, other than the constant attempts to murder each other in the daytime, and the nighttime, up until now.
Atsushi doesn’t know why, but he feels a slight comfort in knowing Akutagawa is next to him. He still has the bounty over his head, and he’s always had to be a little cautious - if Akutagawa could launch an attack without them suspecting it, many others could too.
He wonders for a moment if Akutagawa would protect him, but instantly dismisses the idea. He would probably run, or perhaps maybe even find fun in killing the people who approached them.
The sun sets, as it always does, and a blanket of stars hangs above their heads. There aren’t as many as there were once at the orphanage, but it still makes Atsushi stare in wonder. He didn’t get to see many stars there either, and ever since he relocated to the city, the opportunity had disappeared.
He’d always love to watch the stars.
He suddenly hears a shift beside him, and turns his head to see Akutagawa beginning to walk away without a word. Instinctively, his mouth opens to call out to him - before closing it again.
What would he say , he wonders, if he really were to say something? Stay? Don’t go? Bye? None of those are things he wants to say, or things Akutagawa wants to hear. Instead, he watches Akutagawa fade away into the alleyways, before lifting himself up and heading in the other direction, back to his apartment.
After all, they came from different ways, and would head back all the same.
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
It’s late, too late to be strolling around at this hour. Dazai-san had demanded he get more sleep, but after being plagued by nightmares, he thought a simple walk around a familiar area would be comforting. He’s tired, but every time he closes his eyes, he sees vivid images of his old orphanage and has to open them again.
Of course, with his luck, all he saw was his headmaster, standing in a lurid blue glow in front of the door, voice cold and cruel, every direction he turned. His head spins as he vaguely realizes hey, this is the bridge, and walks blankly towards it. Maybe, if the bench is empty, he could sleep there instead.
“Jinko.” A voice speaks distastefully. “What are you doing here at this hour?”
“Akutagawa. . .?” He queries softly, too tired to raise his voice any more.
Sure enough, the figure he sees sitting on the bench is indeed Akutagawa - except he’s wearing a sage green knit sweater, combined with black joggers. He has a pair of sunglasses on, despite it being dark outside, which overall if not for his visible hair would have made him unrecognizable in the night.
Like this, he looks unintimidating, the face Atsushi would’ve been frightened of in the past looking instead disgruntled at the very least. “I could ask you the same thing.”
Akutagawa tsk’s, giving him a quick glance before looking back at the book he’s reading. Atsushi feels an overwhelming pressure to pull himself together, especially in front of Akutagawa, but he’s so exhausted,he doesn’t feel like moving.“You look like you’re going to throw up.”
“I’m just tired.” Atsushi sighs. “Nothing more.”
A slight frown forms on Akutagawa’s face. “You sound much different than yourself. If your expression weren’t so idiotic, I’d believe you had been overtaken by an enemy, jinko.”
“Oh.” He doesn’t know how Akutagawa can tell, let alone in the dark of the night, illuminated only by the faint streetlights, that he’s not himself. He doesn’t even feel like himself, right now.
“I wouldn’t let someone overtake me that easily.” He jokes, but his voice fades out, a dead giveaway of his blatant lie.
Despite the sunglasses, he can feel Akutagawa scrutinizing him under his gaze. A pause, a silence that feels like an infinite void, before Akutagawa sighs. “Sit down. If you insist on not heading back to your apartment and sleeping.”
He blinks in surprise, feeling almost as if Akutagawa is mocking him at first. Slowly, he walks over to the bench and sits, trying not to sit too close to Akutagawa but not too far at the same time.
Akutagawa’s eyes are back on his book, which he’s flipping through with an angry vigor. “Um. . . what are you reading?”
“Cookbook.”
“A. . . cookbook?” Atsushi feels almost scandalized out of tiredness for a moment. He would never have imagined Akutagawa knew how to cook, much less tried to learn! It makes him feel more real , and while he’s always known that, it feels weird, still.
Akutagawa holds up the book, which turns out to be labelled cookbook in oddly elegant calligraphy and looks far too fancy for any ordinary book on cooking. “Do you. . . have any tips?”
He makes a distasteful face at that, gritting it out almost as if it physically pains him to ask for any advice, and Atsushi blanks. “Uh.”
Akutagawa hisses. “You are a foolish jinko. Of course you would not know how to cook.”
Atsushi cannot believe he’s having this conversation with Akutagawa. It’s purely one-sided, but nonetheless, he didn’t know Akutagawa could hold a civil conversation for more than two sentences. “Hey! You clearly don’t know how to cook either.”
Scowling, Akutagawa makes a face. “I have never felt the need to learn.”
Atsushi tilts his head over Akutagawa’s shoulder, hesitant to get too close. “Is this your cookbook?”
“What part of not knowing how to cook do you not understand, jinko?”
That’s your third jinko tonight. Atsushi thinks helplessly as he shrugs, leaning back onto the bench. He opens his mouth to speak, but he’s cut off by Akutagawa.
“It’s Dazai-san’s.” Akutagawa says hastily, and now Atsushi knows why he’s cradling it to his chest like an important artifact. “Chuuya-san handed this to me and told me to use it.”
Now Atsushi remembers, a couple weeks ago, Dazai-san’s voice in his head, whining about a small chibikko stealing my cookbooks, Atsushi-kun!
He remembers his response being Dazai-san, but you don’t know how to cook?
“Ah.” He says in understanding, albeit not understanding at all. He felt his eyes fluttering shut as he leaned onto the bench awkwardly, not wanting to bother Akutagawa. It’s vastly uncomfortable, but he’s so fatigued he doubts he could make it back to his apartment and he’s too tired to care.
He hears a huff of irritation before he’s suddenly pulled towards Akutagawa with a warm piece of cloth, leaning him onto Akutagawa’s shoulder lightly. He stiffens in shock as Akutagawa flips his book, a piece of Rashoumon wrapped around him like a blanket. “Foolish jinko. Sleep.”
Atsushi would speak, but he doesn’t want to irritate Akutagawa, or make him retract his decision, because despite his thin stature, it’s comfortable, even more so than his own bed. When he flutters his eyes closed, here, the vision of his old headmaster doesn’t show up, and he’s blessed by peaceful darkness.
“I am not going to kill you in your sleep.” Akutagawa says gruffly, “Stop shifting weirdly.”
“I’m not shifting weirdly!” He protests lightly, but settles down under the Rashoumon blanket, oddly pleased that Akutagawa lent him his jacket.
He falls asleep to the sound of Akutagawa flipping pages of a fresh book and the sound of waves crashing in the lake below.
(When he wakes up, he’s lying alone on the bench, with a blanket with a 3-digit price tag still stuck on it and a cookbook beneath his head. Still, he can’t stop smiling as he picks up the stuff and heads to work. )
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
“I want chazuke.”
“Must you always be endlessly hungry?” Akutagawa sighs from his now claimed spot on the bench.
Atsushi frowns as he leans over the bridge, close enough to the ground that he can reach down and feel the water flick up from the wind on his fingertips. He is, once again, tired, which was the reason he came here - but, it seems, Akutagawa’s reappearance continues to occur. “It’s not a crime to want food!”
Akutagawa snorts, but doesn’t grant him a response. He’s wearing a different black coat this time, a simpler one with buttons, and the same pair of sunglasses as before.
He looks like a vampire, still, but a modern one. Atsushi thinks, and pitifully attempts to muffle a giggle into his hand. Akutagawa lifts an eyebrow in question and disdain, to which Atsushi slowly voices his thoughts aloud.
“A vampire. . .?” Akutagawa asks slowly, and he looks so utterly confused instead of insulted that Atsushi can’t help the smile on his face. Lately, Akutagawa has seemed, even just a little bit, gentler, ever since the promise to stop killing anyone or trying to kill him for six months.
Perhaps it’s the lack of malicious intent every time Atsushi sees him now, in the daytime. This was the first time in a while, a long while, that they’ve seen each other at night.
“Just a little bit.” Atsushi amends, before switching topics quickly. “Chazuke sounds so good right now. . .”
Akutagawa slams his book shut, making Atsushi flinch slightly. “Fine.”
Laughing awkwardly, Atsushi takes a step back. “F-fine what?”
Akutagawa looks at him oddly, as if he’s the stupid one here. He would’ve felt offended if not for the fact this was Akutagawa he was talking to. “You said you wanted chazuke. We are getting chazuke.”
“Really?” Atsushi stops in his tracks, beaming. It’s uncharacteristically nice of him, and he’s about to tell him so, but something soft and fluttery shoots through him when he sees Akutagawa’s embarrassed face at doing something nice as he turns away, muttering something that sounds not unsimilar to foolish jinko .
He grins softly as he follows Akutagawa into the city. While he normally has to make sure to keep up, Akutagawa walks slower today, enough that they’re able to stroll side by side in the bustling city.
The streetlights and neon signs illuminate Yokohama in the night, and he follows Akutagawa into a small shop that doesn’t seem like his taste at all. Akutagawa lives for luxurious things, so the rusted open sign and tacky jingle as they open the door seems out of character, at the very least.
He lets Akutagawa handle ordering things, and thankfully, he pays too - Atsushi’s expenses haven’t been the greatest this month.
“Where are we?” Atsushi asks in intrigue as they sit down at a two-person table.
Akutagawa frowns. “It’s notorious for its chazuke. Your knowledge about this town is incredibly lacking, jinko.”
“I haven’t lived here for as long as you have!” Atsushi defends as he looks around the restaurant. It doesn’t look much different than the place Kunikida-san and Dazai-san took him to when they first met, but the atmosphere is different. It seems a little more private here, more coven and cozy. “Hey, it’s Atsushi , you know.”
Akutagawa’s nose wrinkles, and he sniffs almost cutely. “We are not on a first name basis.”
Atsushi waves his hand around, deciding to go with a childish discourse of back and forth. “Yes we are.”
“No we are not.”
“We are!”
“Are not.”
“ At-su-shi .”
“Are you forgetting I tried to kill you and will still do so?”
Atsushi frowns, using his limited knowledge of friendship. “You’re sitting here, taking me out for chazuke, so yes, I’d say we’re on a first name basis!”
Somehow, Akutagawa reacts violently to that, slamming his hands down on the table as he stands in protest. “This is not a date.”
Atsushi feels a furious blush rise up his face, and shakes his head almost immediately. “I never said that it was!”
“The last time I checked, taking me out was a term used to describe dating.” Akutagawa scowls, but Atsushi can see the tips of his ears turning red, a light flush coating his cheeks.
“I didn’t mean it that way!” Atsushi stands abruptly too, pressing his hands onto the table, which shakes with the added force. They glare at each other, and Atsushi feels a rushing feeling of something in his chest, that he tries his best to dispel. He groans in embarrassment as he tacks on, “I meant it as in, like, a friend way.”
“We’re not friends.” Akutagawa interrupts instantly.
Atsushi wilts to his seat like a flower. “Well, that’s a little harsh, isn’t it.”
“I will kill you one day.” Akutagawa threatens as he sinks back into his seat, “Do not forget.”
Atsushi sighs, but even as they settle down into a comfortable silence, he can’t rid himself of the fluttery feeling he’s been feeling all night. His gaze darts around the room, but he finds himself staring at Akutagawa as he sits rigidly, almost as if prepared for attack.
His hair waves around lightly in the breeze of the multiple fans in the restaurant. A pout remains on his face from their argument, and his eyes have a glint of emotion in them Atsushi’s never noticed before.
The weird feeling circles in his chest, and right as their food arrives and the waitress hopes they enjoy the food, he realizes.
Oh no, he thinks miserably, I have a crush on Akutagawa.
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
He thinks about telling him the next time he sees him, sitting on the bridge’s edge like a cat who wandered too far out. “Oi, Akutagawa!”
Instead, he’s instantly off-put by Akutagawa’s lack of movement, or even reaction. Normally, there’d be some quip, insult, or even just a snort of disappointment. “Akutagawa. . .?”
He suddenly hears a crinkle of paper, and he notices with a start that Akutagawa is trembling. His voice cuts like a knife through the tension, gritted out with anger and fury. “I will kill him.”
Atsushi tenses. Akutagawa’s murdered more people than he can count, but he doesn’t threaten to kill people when he’s not serious, especially not with that tone. He remains silent, though, and Akutagawa chucks a crumpled up piece of paper at his face.
Atsushi picks it up slowly, unfolding the paper to cursive handwriting he can barely read. The words he can make out, on the other hand, includes Akutagawa Gin , separate , missions , Akutagawa Ryunosuke , and an all too big signature written in loopy letters as Mori Ougai. “What’s. . . this?”
Akutagawa turns to him, then, and his eyes are filled with so much unbridled anger that Atsushi steps back once. “I will kill him. I do not care for my future after that.”
“Hey.” Atsushi snaps, “Stop threatening to kill people. What’s going on?”
“ Boss, ” Akutagawa says, cold and cruel and everything in between, “Is separating me and my sibling from missions. He spoke about multiple weaknesses any connection between us could have. I found each one pathetic.”
He spits out his words painstakingly, but the look in his eyes doesn’t disappear. Atsushi wants so desperately to make it go away, and return them to the softer look they had the last time they met at night.
He takes a step closer, and when Akutagawa doesn’t make a move to stop him, he steps up to him slowly and sits himself onto the bridge next to him. “I didn’t know you had a sibling.”
“I do not wish for small talk.” Akutagawa hisses. Atsushi shuts up instantly, and he instead stares out into the night sky. He wants something to do, to help, because he’s meant to do that, but he can’t think of a single one.
His eyes dart to the water under the bridge, surely leading to the spot where he first found Dazai-san and jumped into the water to save him.
“Akutagawa.” He whispers.
He doesn’t expect a response, and he doesn’t get one. Taking a deep breath, he breathes in a breath of confidence and words to say to explain himself, before grabbing Akutagawa’s hand and yanking them both into the water.
He feels himself submerge under the water, hand still connected to Akutagawa’s elbow, and it’s cool under the heat of the summer weather. It feels refreshing, and he circles around before bursting through the water to glance around.
A disgruntled, soaked Akutagawa floats next to him, Rashoumon’s strands tangled beneath the water. “Atsushi.”
Their previous discourse on his name suddenly disappears behind them, the first time he’s ever called Atsushi by his name. His heart skips a beat,but he also fears a little for his life as Akutagawa approaches him. “Yeah?”
Suddenly, he’s dunked under the water again with lightening fast reaction speed, Akutagawa pushing him down abruptly. He splutters as he swallows lake water, before he resurfaces. “Hey!”
Akutagawa shrugs, and to Atsushi’s happiness, the ever so malicious glint is gone from his eyes. “Revenge, as I’ve found, is an enjoyable past time.”
Atsushi can’t help it as he blurts out, “You’re kinda cool sometimes, Aku.”
“Aku. . .?” Akutagawa lifts an eyebrow.
“Well, you call me Atsushi.”
“It doesn’t happen to be my first name.”
“It feels too personal.”
Akutagawa looks at him in disbelief as he clarifies quickly, “Nobody calls you Ryunosuke. A lot of people call me Atsushi.”
“But Aku. . .?”
Atsushi laughs as he swims around in the water a little, having gotten used to the weight of the wet clothes and the cold temperature of the water. “It’s cute.”
Akutagawa blushes , a full on red dust of his cheeks, that Atsushi almost can’t believe he coaxed out of him. “Do not refer to me as cute. ”
They banter, playfully, and Atsushi can’t believe that he’s doing this with Akutagawa. It feels like a fever dream, that past him would surely have stared in shock at, but it feels good and by the time he’s shivering on shore the light of the sunlight is coming up.
“I have a question.” Akutagawa asks as they bask under the upcoming sunlight. “What was the true reason for pushing me into the water?”
Atsushi shrugs. “I felt like it.”
“Oh my.” Akutagawa says dryly. “Groundbreaking.”
“I don’t actually know!” Atsushi protests. “You feel better now, don’t you?”
Akutagawa frowns. “Somewhat.”
“Thought so.” Atsushi says smugly.
Akutagawa suddenly stands, brushing himself off before suddenly, all the water on Rashoumon falling to the ground. “I’ll be going, then.”
“Wait.” Atsushi grabs the edge of his coat. “I wanna see you again.”
“What are you saying, jin- Atsushi.” He corrects, his voice sounding odd as he changes what he was going to say.
Atsushi turns, hesitating for a moment, before questioning hopefully, “I want to take you out, but like, in the dating sense?”
Akutagawa freezes, which makes Atsushi wince. His heart is pounding in his chest as he awaits his response, watching Akutagawa’s eyes flash with indescribable emotion before he meets his eyes. “So. . .?”
Akutagawa rolls his eyes, leaning in slowly until they’re only a couple inches apart. Atsushi can feel the rapid blush he tried to repel earlier, increasing on his face as he turns a bright red.
“Took you long enough.” He whispers, before pulling away quickly, his warmth disappearing from Atsushi’s face in an instant.
“Hey!” Atsushi shouts as Akutagawa fades away into the distance, feeling slightly robbed. “That was rude!”
Akutagawa didn’t look back, holding out a hand in goodbye. “You can get your first kiss on our date, idiot jinko.”
( The blush on Atsushi’s face remains there even during work, and Yosano questions whether he’s sick. Lovesick maybe , he thinks pitifully, and it’s all Akutagawa’s fault. )