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“Watch out!” Atsushi calls out for him. Akutagawa rolls his eyes as he steps away from the blast. It misses by several feet, hitting the one of the bookshelves that line the walls, “Akutagawa be careful!” His partner shouts. The concern would move him if Atsushi weren’t being so paranoid.
He was completely fine, and the ability of this villain of the week seems to be on the fritz other than the ‘teleport them to library of truth pocket dimension’ part which was especially nice because they were told that whatever was written in the books would immediately become true—and all the books talked about how nice it was having a weretiger as a boyfriend, which was the truth.
So, in total, the villain’s reality-altering was broken and this should be a cakewalk.
“Watch yourself.” Akutagawa responds as he uses Rashomon to scale a bookshelf, tossing some of the books at the villain, “And make sure you don’t trip or anything.” Atsushi’s head snaps up, staring as he gives Akutagawa the most baffled look he’s ever seen on him (which is saying a lot because his Atsushi always looks confused. It’s his most adorable look) and then proceeds to trip on thin air.
Akutagawa’s heart jumps to his throat as Atsushi topples, knowing that the villain would take advantage of this distraction. So he does the only thing he can do. He jumps off the bookshelf, knocking Atsushi out of the way of the beam of energy. He feels it ruffle his jacket as it flies past. Akutagawa had no clue what it is, but he knows that there’s nothing more that he would want to see than it’s effect on Atsushi.
It takes him a few seconds to come back to his senses and realize that he’s landed on his hands and knees on top of Atsushi, face inches away from the weretiger’s. Their proximity makes him blush, memories of just how hot the weretiger’s body was rushing in.
Atsushi seems to have a knack for knowing when Akutagawa is cold and always chooses the most direct way possible—body heat. For how much Atsushi may complain about his morals he clearly had no issues with pressing himself up to Akutagawa at any given opportunity. It’s been at least a dozen times now and Akutagawa remembers each and every one with worrying detail.
“A—Akutagawa?!” Atsushi stares at his partner, half his mind split between wondering why Akutagawa leapt for him, the other half screaming because Akutagawa—the Rabid dog of the Port Mafia, the man who is unphased at just about everything—is blushing. And blushing hard, “Are you okay?”
“I am perfectly okay.” Akutagawa responds, haughty as always put he looks much less severe when his face has a light pink glow, “Are you? That shouldn’t have hit you but it was a close call.”
What the fuck??
“I’m fine.” Atsushi squirms, “But I really have to know if you’re doing well. You’re acting…weird.”
“Weird?” Akutagawa scoffs, but Atsushi is right. He’s clearly distracted, to the point where he’s not looking Atsushi in the eye. Strangely, his focus seems to be somewhere around Atsushi’s nose, “I’m not acting weird at all.”
“Well instead of capturing the dude that trapped us here, you’re just sitting on top of me.” Atsushi points out. Akutagawa’s head snaps up, blush growing deeper as he realizes as his head jerks over to look at the place the villain last was. Who, of course, is long gone leaving them alone in this library dimension.
“Oh.”
“‘Oh.’” Atsushi parrots back at him. He has expects to get his head lobbed off or at least stabbed by Rashomon but instead Akutagawa gives him a look that’s so…purely fond that Atsushi’s unease grows tenfold, “Uh, could you get off me please?”
“Of course.” Akutagawa scrambles off of him. Atsushi takes a deep breath. Akutagawa does not scramble—fly into a rage, rip and tear, fight like he’s a minute away from death, he does. But Akutagawa holds himself up to some invisible standards put up by a person that Atsushi sometimes trusts (trusts enough to try and not agonize over what his mentor did to people in the past. What his mentor did to people that were desperate like him) and he does not scramble unless scrambling is the only way to survive.
What the fuck.
“My apologies.”
That ability user better hope that Akutagawa gets to him before Atsushi does. Akutagawa is hurt and it’s not his fault but he is the only one that can fix it, right? And the easiest way to fix it would be beating the ability user unconscious right? Normally he doesn’t immediately make the leap to violence but it’s Akutagawa. Cruel and quick to rage with burdens weighing down his back and footsteps that always had a red tinge.
As ferocious as his ability, and while Akutagawa may pretend that Rashomon might be always hungry he’s not any better. He wants and wants and wants and Atsushi…well, Atsushi is lucky enough that he is important enough to Akutagawa that he wants Atsushi alive. Maybe it is intertwined with how Akutagawa wants Dazai’s approval but still Akutagawa has chosen to save his life.
His life. The life of a thing that dances on the edge of being a man and tries so hard to convince himself that he is human like everyone else around him. A man that tries so hard to make sure that every breath he takes isn’t wasted, that all of his atoms don’t belong to something that will live and die and do nothing for anyone.
Akutagawa knows this, somehow.
Atsushi is okay with this, because he understands Akutagawa as well. He understands his need to be the strongest, because that was how he proven his worth. He understands his obsession with Dazai because he knows his hatred of the Headmaster—they were both given someone to look up to. For Atsushi, it was someone he should never be—Akutagawa had someone that he should replicate down to his very atoms.
(Atsushi does not know how Akutagawa can stand to be around Dazai, but that is where they differ.)
He understands his partner, but Atsushi would never pretend to know him. He doesn’t know what Akutagawa does with his days, both inside and outside of the Port Mafia. He doesn’t know Akutagawa’s likes or dislikes or if Akutagawa likes his favorite food. He doesn’t know Akutagawa’s birthday or even his age.
But Atsushi understands how he works.
Which is why every cell in his body is vibrating with rage.
Whatever has happened to Akutagawa is clearly messing with his very being and Atsushi will not stand for it.
He jerks as Akutagawa flicks his forehead, “I can see you thinking, Jinko. It looks like it hurts. Maybe you should stop.”
Atsushi blinks at him, “Are you…okay?”
Akutagawa rolls his eyes. What on earth is wrong with him? He’s not acting strangely, every action feels as natural as breathing, “I’m perfectly fine, Jinko. Now get up we still have to catch the ability user before we can escape this place. I suppose you have their scent.”
“Give me a second…yes, yes I do.”
“Well then, Jinko, lead the way.” The look in Akutagawa’s eyes is concerning. Not the normal ‘Akutagawa’ concerning (read: murderous) but so soft Atsushi’s heart twists in his chest. This ability user needs to be taken down. Now.
Atsushi leaps off the bookshelf, leaving indents in his wake. Akutagawa watches on fondly before he follows with Rashomon.
He is the tiger and the tiger is him on rare occasions. (Can’t take the tiger out of the boy but you sure as hell can take the tiger out of the boy. Lord help you if you try however.) Hunting people down became as simple as breathing when he and the tiger are on the same page so it takes them only a few minutes to find their man…trying to squeeze himself into a bookshelf.
“...Does he have any powers over the bookshelves?” Atsushi whispers to Akutagawa.
“No, all he can do is send people to this dimension and change the book’s contexts to make their words true within this place.”
“So what is he trying to do?”
“I believe the colloquial term is ‘hiding’.”
“You’re not as funny as you think you are.”
“I never claimed to be a comedian.” Akutagawa replies before he jumps off the bookcase and uses Rashomon to slow his fall. Their conversation ends. Atsushi would call it typical if all of Akutagawa’s actions weren’t accompanied by a strange gentleness. He shakes his head and jumps after him, landing hard on tiger legs.
“Hey! Don’t move!” Atsushi calls out. Their suit-wearing man jerks his head up, a foot and part of his arm in the bookshelf. The rest of him has stopped attempting to get into the small space, but still knocks a few books out of the shelf.
“Uh…hello?” The ability user says, looking very much like he wished he had hidden while he could, “I’m not the person you’re looking for.” They said quickly, clearly lying, “The person you’re looking for went that way.” He attempts to point with the hand wedged into the bookshelf and fails.
“Right…Murakami, you will have to come back with us.” Atsushi says, “We will allow you to be properly judged by the legal system and they will decide what to do with you then.”
Murakami looks between them, “Yeah, no.”
Atsushi is about to argue—you can’t just say ‘yeah no’ when you’re about to get arrested—but he’s proven wrong as Akutagawa slams into him from the side and knocks him against a bookshelf before he can react. His hands are quickly pinned to the shelf, wood digging into his skin. Atsushi can see Murakami getting away from the corner of his eye, but his attention is quickly dragged away as Akutagawa presses Atsushi against the bookshelf with his own body.
“Akutagawa? What are you doing?” Atsushi’s voice jumps several octaves as he feels the mafioso’s chest against his own. Akutagawa wins in the battle of height not strength, but the thought of pushing him away lasts only for a moment before he processes the sight in front of him.
Akutagawa’s face fills more of his vision and that blush is back, bringing color to pale skin and giving his entire face a light glow that seems to draw Atsushi in. Normally he looks standoffish and withdrawn but now it feels like there’s an invisible wire between them that’s slowly drawing Atsushi in and he can’t fight it and doesn’t know if he wants to—
Akutagawa’s lips part, “You’re staring, Jinko.” They’re light pink and chapped and Akutagawa clearly didn’t prepare to do what Atsushi is thinking, and of course he’s not because who rolls out of bed preparing to kiss your mortal enemy—what the actual fuck! He cannot be thinking of kissing Akutagawa, pressed against some weird pocket dimension bookcases with filled to the brim with books…books that the ability user could use to change reality within this space…
“Akutagawa could we pause…this for a moment?” Akutagawa’s eyebrows furrow, “Not that I want to stop or anything like that! I just want to check out the reading material for a moment?” Akutagawa huffs but lets go of Atsushi’s hands. Atsushi yanks a book off the shelf, and it takes him a single glance at the cover to understand:
I love my weretiger boyfriend and tacked onto the end like a hastily scribbled revision and want to kiss him very much right now so much i will let murakami get away right now
“There’s nothing strange about it.” Akutagawa remarks, clearly not looking at the book and instead looking right at him, “‘I love my weretiger boyfriend’ an objective truth.”
“Did you see the…revision?” Akutagawa sighs, an impatient sound and Atsushi knew that he could not put it off for much longer, “It’s strange, isn’t it? I mean, you want to kiss me so much that you’d let away the guy we’re chasing? That’s not like you.”
“Are you sure about that?” Akutagawa replies, arms coming around Atsushi’s shoulder and pulling him close. The distance between them closes until it’s almost nothing and Atsushi’s mind goes completely blank. Akutagawa smirks, “Are you sure that you want to follow him?”
“I—I, Akutagawa,” Atsushi whines as Akutagawa’s hand grips the hair at the back of his head. His nails dig into his scalp before he pulls and Atsushi’s knees go weak.
“Is that really what you should be calling me?”
“What—”
“Ryuunosuke.” Akutagawa breathes before pressing their lips together. Atsushi copies him. It takes him a moment to process that he is kissing Akutagawa, and he gasps. He leans back, head spinning.
“Is something wrong?” Akutagawa asks, genuinely worried. It’s all Atsushi can do to keep from bursting out in laughter. He enjoyed that—he wanted to kiss Akutagawa again. Again and again and again until his lips were numb. What has he done so wrong to earn this karmic retribution, getting to kiss his rival only because he’s under the influence of an ability?
Atsushi has an awful expression on his face, angry and hateful. It makes Akutagawa’s stomach turned because he knows its focus isn’t him, it’s Atsushi himself.
“Jinko—Atsushi,” He corrects, “What is wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” Atsushi says huffily.
Akutagawa stamps on his foot, making him yelp, “I’m not an idiot, Atsushi. Something is clearly wrong…was it the kiss?”
Atsushi looks away from him, “No…” Akutagawa raises his foot threateningly, “Okay, it was, but not really? It’s not that you kissed me it’s because…” Atsushi trails off, still refusing to look him in the eye, “Actually is it okay if you talk about it later?”
Akutagawa doesn’t want to, but Atsushi is his partner after all.
“Fine.” He acquiesces, “But as soon as we complete this mission, you are telling me what is troubling you so.”
“Yeah, sure.” Atsushi barks out a harsh and worrying laugh, “I’m sure that it will all go over well.”
“I know that you are being sarcastic, but I am being genuine when I say that I agree with you.”
Atsushi only looks more conflicted.
Again, Murakami is quite easy to find. Smartly he didn’t try to hide within a bookshelf again so Rashomon grabbed him easily, dangling him several feet above the ground.
“One more chance before I hand you over to the Port Mafia.” Atsushi snarls, “Undo what you did right now and let us out of this place and I’ll let the police take care of you. Put Akutagawa back to normal.” Akutagawa glances at him, clearly baffled but Atsushi puts it aside. He’ll understand.
“Also I want to know why you chose to do…that.” Atsushi continues.
Murakami laughs at him so Atsushi punches him in the face. The library melts around them, and within a few moments they’re back in Yokohama and Atsushi feels the sun beaming down on them.
“Ah. I understand now.” Akutagawa says. His light blush is gone and his usual frown has returned. Atsushi breathes a sigh of relief. He coughs into his fist, “We shall never talk about this, Jinko.”
“Agreed Ry—Akutagawa.”
“And I suggest your first course of action should be to forget that you ever heard that name.”
“Look it’s not my fault that you were in love with me because of that dude’s ability!” Atsushi throws his hands up, “Don’t take it out on me.”
Akutagawa crosses his arms and huffs in a silent well who else am I supposed to take it out on. Atsushi meets his glare with a wordless maybe don’t take it out on anybody. Maybe you should wonder why you’re trying to take it out on someone instead of immediately turning to me.
You’re annoying, Jinko.
I’m also right. Atsushi rolls his eyes, I’ll hand this guy over to the police and we can go and pretend like nothing ever happened.
“Speaking of, you kissed me back.” Akutagawa says aloud.
“We were not speaking.” Atsushi squeak, “And I thought that you didn’t want to ever talk about this!”
Akutagawa puts his hands on his hips, “I would have gone along with it if you weren’t surprisingly eager to let it all go. Normally you hold on to every little interaction with have and refuse to stop pestering me about it.”
“I swear to god if you drop this I will never do that again.”
“Too late.” Atsushi wants to cry with despair as Akutagawa steps forward, eyes dark, “You kissed me back. I was under the influence of an ability, what on earth is your excuse?”
“To…make sure that you didn’t turn on me?” The excuse is obviously paper-thin but how else is Atsushi supposed to get out of this conversation. Under no circumstance can he admit to kissing Akutagawa.
“Like I’d believe that.” Akutagawa scoffs, stepping closer, “Give me a real answer, Jinko, or else Rashomon gets a nice snack.”
“If you want an answer maybe don’t threaten me!” Akutagawa scowls but he does take a step back. Great. Now what was Atsushi supposed to do? As he’s running through new excuses in his head, someone calls out to them frantically.
“-gawa-senpai! Akutagawa-senpai!” Higuchi runs up to them, waving wildly as if she couldn’t be heard in a two block radius. Akutagawa sighs under his breath, “Where have you been?” She asks as she runs up to him, completely ignoring Atsushi.
“I’ve been doing exactly the same thing as I’ve left.” Akutagawa replies, “What kind of answer did you expect.”
“It’s been over a day Akutagawa-senpai. Everyone’s been worried,” Akutagawa scoffs at this but Higuchi continues, “Especially after we learned more about Murakami’s ability?” Atsushi’s heart leaps in his chest. Please let it be anything other than lingering or recurring affects. I don’t think I’ll be able to survive that.
“Explain. And start tying him up.” Akutagawa commands. Atsushi gets his phone out to call the ADA and get the cops here as soon as possible. He still has a job to do and he’s not letting the Port Mafia take Murakami.
“Yes, Akutagawa-senpai! We learned that Murakami’s ability is actually quite a bit weaker than we believed earlier. Murakami cannot outright change reality, instead he can only bend it a bit.” Akutagawa goes pale, “Whatever changes to reality he makes must be something already plausible. Of course he can turn things to his favor but he cannot remake reality.”
Oh. Atsushi thinks, and then again, oh.
“We were worried that he had made you two kill each other!” Higuchi cries out, nearly in tears. Akutagawa looks the same but for a different reason, “Let’s go back, Akutagawa-sen—”
“Could I borrow Akutagawa for a bit?” Atsushi interrupts. If looks could kill, the one that Higuchi gives him would put him down ten times over, “I’ll make sure that he gets food and rest, I promise. I think that there’s something we need to talk about before we go our separate ways.”
“I thought you said that you wanted to go our separate ways.” Akutagawa complains listlessly.
“Don’t say that now.”
Atsushi drags him into the first place he can find which happens to be an upscale foreign restaurant. Probably not the best place for this type of discussion and they are definitely not dressed for it but they squeeze into a booth in the back corner and do their best to pretend that the tension that lingers in the air is from being out of place.
“You were all for dropping this until it was turned on you.” Akutagawa says weakly.
“So are you.” Atsushi responds in kind, “Let me begin: what the fuck Akutagawa?”
“It just happened!” Akutagawa says back, “Jinko if I could put a date and time on it I would because I would simply block it from my memory. If I could control my emotions then I simply would choose to feel nothing for you. But I cannot and thus here we are.” The blush has returned in full force, far darker than it was before, “Here we are in this shitty Italian restaurant discussing my unfortunate preferences.”
“‘Unfortunate.’” Atsushi echoes.
Akutagawa gives him a thunderous look, “Yes, Jinko, unfortunate. Unless you have forgotten, we are on other sides of the law and the moral spectrum. We cannot be in a relationship.”
“We—” Atsushi opens his mouth to argue before closing it again without saying a word. Akutagawa is right, considering conventional logic stands. Atsushi is in the ADA and Akutagawa is part of the Port Mafia. It’s only due to some loophole and legal gymnastics that Atsushi can’t take Akutagawa to the police.
Akutagawa is hard-headed and quick to anger and never seems to regret the bodies he leaves in his wake and Atsushi…understands why. He understands why Akutagawa is so angry and he understands that Akutagawa is just as human as a person picked off the street. He understands why Akutagawa keeps on pushing him away, he even understands why Akutagawa questioned him the moment he left the library.
He understands that it’s only logical to push Atsushi away and pretend that he feels nothing for his partner.
Akutagawa’s hand rests on the table. Atsushi covers it with his own.
“Jinko.” Akutagawa warns.
“This might be the dumbest decision I’ve ever made in my life and I know that this decision doesn’t make logical sense—but I can turn into a tiger and you can make a monster come out of your clothes so logic has already left the building—but I think we should pursue this.”
“...This.”
“ This.” Atsushi emphasizes, hoping Akutagawa won’t call him out on refusing to give it a name. He is not sure what he would call it, this new rhythm of his heart. It’s more than fondness, and it is definitely not curiosity.
He wants to know. Atsushi wants to stare into the abyss that is Akutagawa Ryuunosuke and have Akutagawa stare back.
“You are…deeply confusing and one of the most naive people I have ever known.” Akutagawa says as he holds Atsushi’s hands back, “This is going to blow up in our faces.”
Atsushi smirks before leaning across the table.
“Let’s see.” He says before kissing him.