Archive of Our Own ^beta

Atsushi’s danchi is warm and welcoming as he steps into his genkan, kicking off his shoes and shuffling inside before closing the door behind him.

Akutagawa has fallen asleep in his arms, face tucked away into his chest. Atsushi leads him further in, carefully eyeing his slumbering face as he braves the first step into his dorm, and the pads of his feet melt into the familiar feeling of his tatami floors. Atsushi’s futon is messily laid in the middle of the room and he lays Akutagawa down into it, setting him down onto a nest of soft, white sheets and pillows. Carefully undressing him until he’s wrapped in his ruffled shirt.

Atsushi folds his coat, places his shoes next to his, and quietly lays down on the floor beside Akutagawa. Planting his cheek down onto the straw mat.

It's better than concrete, at least.

Atsushi curls up onto his side and his eyes roam Akutagawa’s face, feeling himself smile at the little dot under his eye. A dainty mole that he’s never seemed to notice, buried below the bristles of his dark lashes. It sits so prettily above the dark smudges on his porcelain skin and Atsushi wonders, just how many beauty marks cover the expanse of his back. Spreading over his arms and legs, and up to his neck.

He doesn’t pretend that he doesn’t see Akutagawa’s bruises, dark blue marring the ivory mantle of his jaw and instead, Atsushi goes to fetch a tenugui, wringing enough tepid water out of it until he returns to Akutagawa’s sleeping side. Slowly, he pushes his hair aside and gently glides the cloth across his cheek, wiping the dirt and blood away.

Atsushi tends to him, knowing that Akutagawa would’ve never allowed him to do this if he’d been awake. As he dabs the wet towel into the dip of his clavicle, Atsushi briefly brushes past white scars of the past, raised lines that have a shallow undercurrent to them. He notices that it stretches around his neck, as if someone had taken a razor blade to his throat, slashing repeatedly.

Malice sits below Akutagawa’s skin, healed but still visible, and always hiding beneath his clothes.

Atsushi finds scar after scar, etched into his flesh, and a sickness washes over him, guilt tasting like alkaline. He’s made some of these himself and cut open Akutagawa enough times to contribute. As Atsushi sits with him, tenderly cleaning him, he spends too much of his time looking at the marks, wondering which one is his fault and how many more are from him.

Atsushi didn't want to hurt people. He didn't want to be the reason for this.

He doesn't pretend that Akutagawa is a good person, someone who didn't deserve any of this, but the guilt just keeps gnawing at him. Atsushi tells himself that he had to do it, had to defend himself from Akutagawa. He shouldn't have to regret hurting him back, especially if it meant protecting himself. He knows this, knows it's the case, but he still feels sorry for him. Still wishes things were different.

How different would things be, if Akutagawa and Atsushi had the chance to start over?

Atsushi doesn't have to forgive Akutagawa for the things he's done and doesn't think he can. That's something that'll never change. Akutagawa hurt people and Atsushi hurt him. It's a pathetic cycle that might never change, but tonight, Atsushi hopes it does. He wants it to change, wants something more with Akutagawa because a selfish part in him thinks that he understands him, a lot more than anyone else does.

A long time ago, Atsushi once said, that people need to be told they're worthy of being alive by someone else to continue going on.

Akutagawa knew what he had meant, but he didn't want to acknowledge it and Atsushi knew that. He didn't want to admit that he was just like Atsushi, and that he needed to hear that he deserved to live. Akutagawa believed being strong was the only way to guarantee that he was worthy enough to exist because that's how he had been molded and made, and that's what he had beaten into him.

It was the cruel training that made him into who he was, but it did not change the one wish that he had.

Akutagawa wanted to live, to be told everything that he'd done for the sake of existing was worth it, and that everything he sacrificed would warrant him a reason for living. Atsushi saw strength in mercy and kindness, but Akutagawa saw power in fear and control. For every enemy that he cut down, he would grow stronger, and it would allow him to fit into this world. Atsushi could only blame that way of thinking on the way the Mafia worked, and the people Akutagawa looked up to.

To live, Akutagawa had to be strong enough to kick those off at the top and the ones that tried climbing after him. To be anything less meant death.

Atsushi briefly thinks to the last person left standing back at the warehouse, and how Akutagawa could've just killed him as revenge. He expected it, anticipated it even, but despite everything, Akutagawa let him get away with his life. Even if he was too weak at that point, Rashōmon held back, refusing every opportunity to spill blood.

Akutagawa could've easily done so, but he kept his side of the deal. He had shown mercy and went against what he was taught to be the person that he’d killed long time ago to fit into a cruel city. What those men did, what they would've done, Atsushi wasn’t capable of forgiving. Akutagawa had every reason and every right to act out on his anger, to lay down his vengeful reckoning. That’s the Akutagawa he thought he knew, but Atsushi was utterly wrong.

A clearly conked out Akutagawa is his biggest enigma, and Atsushi does not appreciate the headache all this overthinking is giving him.

He isn’t aware of how tired he is until exhaustion rushes over him, and he feels too sore to continue functioning normally. Atsushi ends up on the floor next to Akutagawa, and he curls up beside him, deciding that a catnap or two wouldn’t hurt. It’s just when he tucks his arms underneath his head to get comfortable (as comfortable as the floor’s going to get), and yawns for a bit, that he feels a hand in his hair.

Atsushi scrambles to sit up to see Akutagawa, clearly half-awake, and groggily opening his eyes up at him.

“Why’d you get up so fast?” Akutagawa mutters as he reaches for him, prompting him to come back, “You were just getting all snug and cozy by me.”

“I thought you were asleep,” Atsushi blusters, clearly embarrassed that he did all that to a sentient Akutagawa.

“Are you stupid, or did you actually believe I could sleep through all that, weretiger?"

“Wow, someone's grateful. How do you feel?”

“Like shit,” Akutagawa laughs, but winces right after. Atsushi hovers, clearly worried about that.

“You've got a bruised rib, idiot. Don’t do that.”

“Don’t nag me. I’ve been through worse.”

Atsushi frowns, but Akutagawa weakly shoves his face away, “I’m allowed to fret. I’m the one who carried you all the way here.”

“Funny that you assumed when I said home, you thought I’d meant your dorm.”

Atsushi blinks, because those were Akutagawa’s last words to him at the warehouse. Take us home. He was glad that Akutagawa seemed to be a bit more trusting of him now, and not pushing him away out of fear or instinct. Instead, both of them were exchanging banters, and Atsushi was happy to see him doing much better than before.

“Sorry for not dropping you off at your stupidly swanky apartment. I couldn’t exactly commute.”

Akutagawa rolls his eyes, and then struggles to sit up, but with Atsushi’s (unwanted, but greatly needed) help, he makes it up all the way. He scowls in pain until he's huffing and puffing.

“Where is your sadistic doctor when you need her? I’m going to punch something. Maybe your face. It’d make me feel better.”

"Okay, but can you like, maybe not do that?"

Both of them go quiet until Akutagawa glances at him, and he’s not sure what Akutagawa’s looking at, but it’s obviously something on his face.

Atsushi awkwardly feels for it, but finds nothing out of the ordinary.

"You were hurt,” Akutagawa leans forward, fingers just barely grazing his chin, and Atsushi briefly recalls that he’d hit it back on the concrete floors of the warehouse. He didn’t notice that he’d cut himself back there, partially because he was focused on a lot more than a little gash, but since it’d healed quickly, he didn’t think it need fussing over.

“I’m fine,” Atsushi assures, waving it off, "I don’t feel a thing.”

Akutagawa doesn't listen, and takes the damp tenugui to wipe away the dried blood on his skin. He's being careful, even though it doesn't hurt anymore.

Atsushi just hovers and finds himself doing that a lot, so he blames it on Akutagawa. His mortal enemy is in his futon and he’s right there. Atsushi’s breath tickles one of the spiky strands of hair on Akutagawa’s head and he watches it flutter and sway, cutely flittering with every puff of air.

“I think you should run a bath,” Akutagawa instructs, after patting Atsushi down with the towel.