Chapter Text
Stray Dogs Orphanage lay on the outskirts of Yokohama, a three-story, grey brick stately home sitting comfortably amongst acres of sprawling ground and twisting lakes. In the summer, when the cherry blossoms would bloom, they would cover the crumbling walls in a canopy of pink, giving way to the ivy which snaked up to meet them in the autumn. It had once belonged to a duchess of some sort, who’d fled France and taken refuge in Japan after her husband was discovered as a tax evader by the police. After she died it was left to the government who transformed it into a children’s home, a refuge for those abandoned by their parents or victims of tragedy. It wasn’t a nice place but it wasn’t cruel either. It seemed stuck in the past, like a black hole hidden by the thriving cosmos around it.
But change was inevitable.
And it came in the form of Dazai Osamu.
The car smelt like cigarettes and damp, still lingering even as Dazai shoved the thick cuff of his jumper over his nose, trying to block out the smell. Every so often it would drive over a bump or a pothole and his whole body would lurch violently, leaving angry red marks on his chest from where the seatbelt strained against him. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been in a car for this long, but then again, he couldn’t seem to remember much of the past week, let alone past that. It was as if everything had blurred into one endless slideshow of blood, police, and tears, culminating in being shoved into a taxi with a badly packed suitcase and the promise that it would all work out eventually.
The driver seemed to feel sorry for him, he kept peering at him through the rearview mirror with his face creased in concern. God, he was so sick of that look, it seemed to be the only way people looked at him lately. Like he was some poor little traumatized boy who needed to be coddled and pitied.
“Can you hear me?”
“Yes a male and female, both late twenties-“
“Poor thing, so young to go through something like that!”
“Can you look at me please? What’s your name?”
The driver cleared his throat, double chin wobbling as he did so. “Look kid, we haven’t got long to go now.” Dazai found himself struck by the urge to fling open the car door and run, get as far away as possible. The thick roll of money he had hidden in his sock could probably last him until winter, after that he would find over ways to get by. “There’s a bottle of water somewhere you’re thirsty.” The driver offered, taking one hand off the steering wheel to root around his footwell. “I might be able to dig up some chocolate as well if you’re lucky.”
Dazai blanked him, but the man seemed to take this as an invitation to continue his ramblings. “You’re not the first kid I’ve brought up here, I had a little girl just last month and a boy before that, can’t have been much older than you. Kept crying the whole time, gave me the worst headache by the end of it. Good thing you’re not like that, aye?” He grinned, as though the two were sharing some hilarious joke. “It’s not such a bad place, as long as you keep your head down and stay out of trouble- Aha!” He brandished a battered bar of chocolate at Dazai triumphantly, as though offering him some wonderful prize. “Here you go, my treat!”
Dazai took it, examining it for a moment before sliding it into the secret compartment of his bag and zipping it up. The man raised one bushy eyebrow at his behavior but said nothing, taking a sharp turn up a gravel driveway. Even in the dark Dazai could make out the sign they had just passed, Stray Dogs Orphanage for Children, in looping green calligraphy. They came to a stop outside two tall metal gates, with an older woman standing next to them, dressed in thick furs.
The driver rolled down his window, letting in a sharp gust of cool wind into the car, making Dazai shiver slightly. The women approached and he could see the white of her hair and the creases of her face in the car headlights.
“Thank you Matsui-san, I can take him from here.” Her voice was low and authoritative in a way that commanded attention, he had seen similar versions used amongst his parent's business associates and knew that it only came from someone who had spent a lifetime of getting things done.
The driver -Matsui- lumbered out of the car and around to Dazai’s door, pulling it open so the women could see him. He couldn’t help but feel exposed under her hawklike stare and the way her eyes traced his neck.
“I see.” She said. “Well we’ll have to do something about those scars, we can’t have you walking around looking like that. I’m sure matron will have some bandages in the first aid room that we can borrow.”
Her words didn’t make him flinch or blush in shame, instead, he felt a strange mixture of pride and anger bubbling inside of him because, underneath the imperious facade, he could see the unease in her eyes. That’s right. Don’t overlook me.
Perhaps she could hear his thoughts because her face flickered for just a split second before the mask fell over her features once again. “Come along then, we don’t have all night. And carry that suitcase yourself, the quicker you learn to work the better. Perhaps we’ll be able to find some use for you.”
The night air felt strange, almost charged as he left the car and she led him down the driveway. In Yokohoma, there was almost always noise. Car alarms, the thumping of music, a couple arguing in the street below. It had taken him years to drown it out, but now, when surrounded by complete silence, he couldn’t help but crave it. Was it too late to turn around and beg Matsui to take him back? He could already picture the man telling his next passenger all about the strange orphan boy covered in scars.
They stopped at the bottom of the steps leading up to the house doorway and the women turned to him. “You’ll have to be quiet, the other children will be in bed by now.”
He bit back a snort at the statement. He hadn’t spoken a word since he’d gotten in the car and wasn’t planning on starting now.
“You will address me as Matron, as well as the other careers here. We have a system here and you’ll be expected to follow it, if you disobey or cause trouble there will be consequences.”
I’d like to see you try.
She took a large rusted key out of her pocket and unlocked the door, hushing him as they stepped into the Orphanage. It was low lit and Dazai struggled to make out any defining shapes, just the tiled floor, and the shape of Matron. She took through the corridor and turned left down another at such a speed that he found himself jogging to keep up her. It felt like some endless labyrinth of stairs and corridors until she finally stopped him for the last time at a door on the second floor.
“This is our boy's dormitory, there is a spare bed and space for you to store your belongings. Breakfast is at seven and schooling will begin after that. Education is taken very seriously here at Stray Dogs and I would advise you to treat it as such.”
He nodded and she gave a small attempt at a smile. “Good night Dazai, I hope you find your transition here as easy as possible.”
Dazai cracked the door open as quietly as possible, letting a beam of light from the hallway illuminate the dark room. From what he could make out, it was long and rectangular, with two rows of spindly bunk beds on either side. He crept through, careful not to walk into anything or wake the other boys up. The last thing he wanted right now was an interrogation. At the very end of the room, he found an empty bottom bunk just as the matron had promised, with a nightshirt and a thin blanket folded neatly on top of it. Next to the bed was a rather bashed up, steel bedside table, with space to fit his bag in but knew not to leave there, in plain view of everyone else. Tomorrow he would find somewhere safe to store his things but for now, he would have to make do with hiding the more important items under his pillow.
“Who are you?” A small voice hissed from above him and Dazai looked up to the top bunk where he found the owner of it staring at him. It was a boy, around his age with big eyes and strange black and white hair which looked as though it had been cut by a blind person.
“Dazai. Who are you?” He whispered back, a little bluntly.
The boy blinked at him. “My name’s Akutagawa. Rynosuke Akutagawa. Are you new then?”
Dazai snorted. “Obviously. I didn’t just wander in here because I felt like it.”
“Oh.” Akutagawa breathed. “How old are you? I just turned ten.”
“I’m almost twelve.” He didn’t want to talk to this strange kid anymore, Akutagawa was staring at him with a kind of reverence and it was making him feel uncomfortable. He just wanted to go to sleep and pretend that things were normal again. Akutagawa’s bed looked more comfortable than his, covered in patterned blankets and the kind of pillows that you normally find in fancy department stores. There was even a superhero poster on the wall next to his bed and a ratty-looking stuffed tiger toy next to him. Jesus, how long had this kid been there?
“Hey, Akutagawa,” He begun and the boy startled, like a soldier waiting for orders. “I’ll trade you some chocolate if we can swap beds.”
Later, as Dazai was drifting in and out of consciousness, surrounded in a cocoon of cushions, he decided this place might not be so bad after all.
***
TEN YEARS LATER
“I warned you what would happen if you got caught again.”
Daisuke sighed heavily, fixing the young boy in front of him with a disappointed stare. In all his years working at Sheep boarding house, he had never encountered such a precocious child. He was brimming with potential, intelligent, charismatic, a natural leader- and utterly untameable. It was as though there was just so much inside of him that it became pure static energy leaking out of every pore until he exploded. It was impossible to domesticate him, to push him into a certain mould and drain that passion away. Chuuya Nakahara wasn’t made to be controlled. He was made to be extraordinary. But even extraordinary people got into trouble.
Chuuya rolled his blue eyes, rubbing the faint red lines on his wrists where the handcuffs had scraped against them. He was slumped back in his chair, legs resting leisurely on Daisuke’s desk as though he was royalty and not some street rat who’d just been caught with a rucksack full of stolen credit cards and a one-way bus ticket to Osaka.
“Calm down. It’s not like they’re pressing charges.” He grinned. ‘Minor, remember? No court in the world wants to waste time convicting a fifteen-year-old orphan over something as petty as pickpocketing.”
“Petty? They were talking about charging you as an adult Chuuya. I had to pull some serious strings to get you out of this one. This was your last chance, I’m not rescuing you next time.” He groaned, looking up at the ceiling. “God, Junichiro is never going to let this one go. I told him I’d put in a good word with Hachi’s sister if he let this one slide. She’s going to kill me.”
“Hachi.” Chuuya hummed. “How’s she doing? That new office job working out for her? I heard it’s harder to find good assistants these days.”
Daisuke flushed, easily distracted by thoughts of his wife. It was a weakness of his, one Chuuya prayed on mercilessly. “Stop changing the subject! This is serious. The board have decided to transfer you.”
Chuuya, careless mask dropping for the first time and showing the apprehension hiding behind it. “Transfer me?”
This was the hard part. “We just don’t have the facilities for you anymore. It’s your third strike. They’re moving you somewhere better equipped for people like you, somewhere with higher security. “
“People like me?” His voice was raising, practically vibrating with anger. “I’ve been here forever! It’s my home! They expect me to leave?”
“I don’t like it either! But there’s no other option! It was this or a juvenile detention center! Please Chuuya, level with me here.” It came out desperate, so pleading and pathetic that it just slightly managed to soothe Chuuya’s rising temper, instead giving way to frustration.
“Fine. Whatever. Where is this shit hole anyway?”
Daisuke winced, although well used to Chuuya’s colourful language, it still caught him off guard at times. “Bungou orphanage, It’s only a train journey away- you could still see your friends on weekends. Shirase and Yuan right? It’s a good place, better suited to more…advanced…children.”
“I’m not a child.”
“I know that Chuuya.” He replied placatingly. “But you’re not an adult either. It’ll only be a few years and then you can move out, maybe get an apprenticeship somewhere? You’re a smart kid, it wouldn’t be hard.”
It was a lie and they both knew it. Street kids, no matter how bright, almost never got good jobs. They became drug runners and prostitutes, lurking around the red light districts waiting for any measly job that came their way. If Chuuya was lucky, he’d be able to stay away from the heroin and crack dens but the said couldn’t be said for most of his friends. They’d already started forming their own gang, a small group with Chuuya at their prow, leading them further down into the shady side of Yokohama. It wouldn’t be long before they joined the rest of the ex-Sheep residents, rotting away in an alley somewhere with a needle in their arms. He only hoped he’d be able to spare Chuuya that same fate.
“When do I have to leave?” Chuuya asked, voice stony and defeated.
“Saturday. First thing. We’ll have a taxi pick you up.”
He wasn’t surprised by the sound of the door slamming as Chuuya left, but it made him jump anyway.