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Atsushi had had a tough day. And not only this one day, but also the past five.
Dazai had run off after multiple missions and Atsushi had been stuck doing the aftermath paperwork all alone because of it. Which made him stay late for the past couple of days.
So when Atsushi had finally finished the last report and clocked out all he wanted to do was go home and collapse.
He had been walking home in the dark every time with only the moon watching him drag himself back and shedding some light in the dark night.
Sadly the weretiger is still human and needs food. Remembering the empty fridge in the apartment he shares with Kyouka, he still had to go out to do some shopping.
That's how he ends up in the cup noodle aisle in a nearly empty grocery store late at night staring at the dark cloaked eyebrow lacking man standing in the same aisle.
Honestly, Atsushi thought he had started hallucinating from the lack of sleep, his theory was disproved however when the mafioso turned around and acknowledged his presence with a slightly startled jump of his shoulders.
"Jinko." He greeted, with no less disdain than usual.
It made Atsushi raise an eyebrow. The mafioso must have been particularly distracted and lost in thought if Atsushi could walk up next to him without the other man noticing.
"Hi…" his brain is still mushy from the previously mentioned sleep deprivation and he couldn't really figure out how to act in this situation. So he turned to the shelf and started his browsing.
Akutagawa observed him with a frown while Atsushi looked through the brands of cup noodles in front of him.
"Darn.." the weretiger muttered to himself.
"What." Their words were almost spat.
Atsushi turned back to Akutagawa to answer.
"My favourite brand... it's not here." Which sucked cuz if Atsushi was going to live on cup noodles for the next oncoming week then at least he should pick something that he wouldn't mind eating so often.
"Are there any others you like?" This time the words were almost polite sounding.
Atsushi thought that Akutagawa remained strangely passive. Standing there awkwardly in the fluorescent lights of the store. He was definitely behaving weirdly. But he wasn't one to talk when he could barely catch onto the words that left Akutagawa's lips.
"Mmm." He turned back to scouring the shelves.
"Maybe that one, it's kinda nice. Haven't tried many of the other flavours yet though."
This kind of casual conversation would never happen between these two on a normal occasion, it is a strange day indeed.
Maybe his brain finally caught up to him because a moment of clarity was presented to Atsushi. And that was that Akutagawa was standing here, in a grocery store, in the less wealthy part of town, doing what seemed to be some shopping…
"What are you doing here?" He asked rather bluntly. "Do you also want noodles?"
Surely if Akutagawa wanted something from an ordinary grocery store he would have one of his subordinates come and get it for him?
He got a mean look sent towards him.
"Foolish jinko, do you really think I eat this kind of crap. I'm in no need of these cheapskate concoctions. I'm only here because-"
Atsushi had toned out the rest of the lengthy list of excuses of why the mafioso was here and instead spent his very reserved energy staring at his lips while they moved.
It wasn't the first time he had found himself staring at Akutagawa's lips. Sometimes on missions, when they were talking close enough to each other, his eyes would slide to the mafioso's mouth. But he would snap out of it as soon he found himself doing it.
"-nd you always talking about it. So I wanted to tr- hey! I'm tal-"
But those lips on that pretty face were still moving and Atsushi's mind was already barely working. So how was he supposed to focus on anything the other was saying?
"Ats- j-jinko are you even li-" Akutagawa was getting distracted by the intense stair coming from the weretiger.
But before he could get another word in he felt hands on both sides of his face tilting it slightly downwards, making him stop his nervous blabbering.
"y-you-"
Not that Akutagawa admitted to being nervous. What was there really anything to get nervous about anyway.
Before he could think any further, another set of lips touched his own.
Truly Atsushi had gone insane for doing something so bold and the other would probably try to impale him any second now.
But moments passed and Rashomon was never summoned. Nothing else had impaled him too, and those lips had not moved from his own.
They are soft… Atsushi though. Soft and warm against his own. The contact made him relaxed. With his eyes closed, it felt like he could fall asleep where he was standing.
He tilted his head so he could feel more of those lips and it made the other let out a choked-up sound.
They both stayed like that for what was probably a few seconds but they felt like whole minutes.
When the weretiger finally moved away, he already missed those lips and the comfort they brought.
What greeted him instead was a completely red and no longer sickly-looking complexion of Akutagawa's face.
While the wide-eyed mafioso opened his mouth and struggled to find words, Atsushi's slug brain was once more making him stare at those lips. Wanting to feel them against his own again.
Before he could act upon those thoughts again, he snapped back when hands grabbed his wrists pulling them away from Akutagawa's face.
"S-stupid jinko. W-who d-d-do you t-think you are."
Akutagawa struggled greatly to process what had just happened and could barely get a full sentence out. No one had ever had the audacity to do something like that. He started to blabber nervously, even more, when Atsushi wasn't responding to his threats.
"Y-you, can't just- '' Akutagawa let go of his wrists and started taking steps backwards pointing an accusatory finger at the weretiger.
"I'll have my r-revenge!" He said before fleeing the scene with all the grace of an experienced mafia member escaping a crime scene and leaving Atsushi to stand there alone in the cup noodle aisle of the store.
There he stood. Eyes wide, heart beating and face reddening after realising what he had just done.
Truly it had been a strange day.