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Ever since Atsushi woke up with no recollection of the day before when he was younger, when he woke up with those Lichtenberg figures, his life has been a living hell. Even before that, it was bad, but nothing could compare to the torture he went through on a day-to-day basis.
Some of the nerve-endings in his back and stomach couldn’t be healed by the tiger’s regenerative ability. The scars still felt numb to the touch, and no matter what he did, those scars never faded. Some of them were so many years old, but still, they ached around the area of the scars, and looked almost irritated constantly.
He’d never been able to buy scar cream, since he was still living in the orphanage when they were scarred, so he’d been able to live with the aches and pains. Atsushi has been in pain for as long as he can remember. Even with money, he keeps forgetting to find stuff to subdue or alleviate the pain because it’s something he’s been living with for what felt like his whole life.
Atsushi still fears water. He fears having his head dunked in it, but even then, he would jump into a river to save someone’s life because of what his Headmaster told him. Atsushi hates that man, tries his best to block out every word that was spoken to him, but it always comes back to him especially when someone is in danger.
When he jumped into the river, when he ran into the fire.
He ignores the words that repeat like a mantra somewhere in the back of his mind, and instead occupies himself with work for as long as he can. He’ll work as many hours as he’s told to by his employers, and when he’s off the clock he’ll distract himself with anything else.
But the orphanage and the Headmaster always come back to haunt him.
”A child with no parents is not allowed to cry.” He always tried to hold in his cries but sometimes it came to be too much. He was just a kid, just a boy. How is a child supposed to hold in his cries? But the more he cried, the more the pain came.
Sometimes Atsushi was put in a cell. He would lose track of the time in there, and when he came back to his senses it was already morning, but what he always found strange when he was younger was that every time he left there were more scratches on the walls, there was always more blood even if he had no recollection of what happened during those times. He knew now, ever since that night he met Dazai, but when he was younger he was just so confused.
After he left the orphanage, he noted that he had a higher pain tolerance than some of the people around him. It wasn’t until the heat of the flames became so intense that he noticed the blisters forming on his skin. He figured that may have also been due to the rush of adrenaline in his veins that allowed him to go faster for longer without noticing the pain of the blisters and cuts or the ache in his muscles, the strain of his lungs as he inhaled more smoke than he should have.
Of course, the tiger healed all of those injuries. It always had. But it didn’t take the memories of where injuries came from, and it couldn’t take away the scars.
Atsushi almost never considered therapy, and didn't think he could even pay for it. He was a new adult in a new city, and didn’t have the money or even the time for those luxuries. His form of therapy was just occupation, preoccupying himself before the trauma had time to taunt him. He knew he had trauma, was constantly aware that the life he lived wasn’t that of a child’s, more of a prisoner’s.
He could preoccupy himself during the day and some hours of the night with the jobs he held, but there was nothing there to subdue it when he laid in bed. He had no issues falling asleep, but when he was asleep there was a constant assault of those memories. It was on those nights, and in the mornings he woke up from them, that he found Kyouka sitting right outside of the closet in which he slept.
He appreciated her presence. The nights weren’t as bad as they were when he lived alone. He did the same for her on the nights she had her nightmares. The thought that he wasn’t alone was comforting, even if they only really saw each other at home.
Atsushi’s life was a hectic one. He was wanted by Yokohama police as a “man-eating tiger,” and wanted by the Port Mafia for a bounty. Even so, he couldn’t stop himself from putting himself into dangerous situations. Atsushi befriending two of the Port Mafia Executives? It was an insane concept, one that Atsushi tried to distance himself from, but every time he saw Kouyou and Chuuya at the bar in which he worked, he couldn’t help but talk to them every time he saw them.
And despite how he acted, Atsushi didn’t even mind Dazai’s antics. His manipulation, the way he always tried to kill himself and ultimately failed, the way the man wouldn’t pay his tab, Atsushi didn’t mind it. (Mostly. He did wish the man would pay his tab, which made Atsushi’s coworkers upset. He wasn’t allowed to die until he paid it back in full.)
He may have been a little annoyed, sure, but it wasn’t the worst. He knew that Dazai held little to no ill intent towards him. Watching him and Kunikida fight at the cafe was one of the highlights of his days. So Atsushi decided that, even if he wanted a painless and peaceful life, that he would probably give that life and his soul up if it meant he could stay here, in this city, like this. If he could keep this chaos in his life.
Even if his scars ached, and even if he still trembled in fear at night, he wouldn’t trade his current life for all the money in the world. If it’s what led him to this point, he didn’t mind his past, and tried not to let it affect how he lived entirely.
He knew the tiger was a primary reason he had to endure most of those beatings. He knew that his ability also tried to protect him. He, of course, didn’t ever use his ability, finding no need to. He didn’t see the tiger out of the corner of his eye so often anymore, which was an interesting development, but he constantly felt its comforting presence. He didn’t resent it at all, even if he had to endure pain because of it.
He loved his life right now. So he can deal with the trauma later.