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It’s a very odd night on a very tall building in the city of Yokohama.
The set up does not matter. It’s an annoyingly familiar scene regardless: Either Akutagawa or Chuuya sit on such a building, gazing at the stars. The other joins soon after, minutes on minutes spent in silence cloaking their reality, allowing them to pretend that they weren't looking for the other.
Today, it’s Akutagawa who seeks Chuuya out, the redhead a beacon against a star-filled sky. His executive coat sits over his shoulders like a blanket against the brisk night. Chuuya sits closer to the edge of the top of the building, and Akutagawa stands a few feet behind him, a progression of the pretense. Even from here, he can see the executive’s face is red with drink and trusts he has a bottle of it somewhere.
Good. That’ll make things easier on the both of them.
Today, Akutagawa has a question, and despite this hide-and-seek game being a constant of theirs for months, part of him wonders if Chuuya will tell him to scram once and for all, if he might ruin the last decent relationship he still has outside of his sister with his inquiry.
He asks it anyway. “What was Soukoku, really?”
Chuuya sighs. Loudly.
The thing is, Akutagawa knows that he’s going to answer.
He knows it by the way he knew he would’ve died that one day about two months ago. He got caught in a decay-filled alleyway with an ability-user who stank of it, a rogue American who had been annoying Mori something fierce for weeks.
Mori hated annoyances. Akutagawa was an optimal solution.
All around him was trash, garbage cans, garbage piles, a garbage grave for a boy born from it. Dying at a dead end. Fitting, he thought, delirious from blood loss, as he leaned against a stain of himself on the wall behind him.
As for its cause, he forgets the name or forced it out of himself, rather. Akutagawa can be rather petty when he wants, and he always wants, because you can take a pup out of the slums but you can’t take the way it likes skin between its teeth. Akutagawa took one look at the man he thought would end his life and decided there’d be nothing memorable about him and there wasn’t.
It's not like he read the man's file anyway. He rarely reads the files.
The man’s ability though…That was something.
Aside from an uncanny knowledge of how to strike at a person’s most unaware and some apparently ability-compromising contraption making skills, the person had an ability that allowed them to make a telepathic cry for help to a person they knew. It had to be someone who cared though. Someone who'd come if they could. Someone they could trust to hear them wheezing their dying breath and give a fuck that it was their last.
Akutagawa coughed so hard he laughed, then laughed so hard, he coughed blood. The man didn’t like either of those very much.
He sat atop his throne of a rather decrepit dumpster, a rat-king playing at court. He grinned with his absurdly dry lips, dark hair misshapen and unkempt. Akutagawa could tell that the man would enjoy this.
“It’s a tragedy on two parts, Rabid Hound," he starts, amused. Akutagawa wished he knew his name just so he could forget it again. “Because you’d trust no one to save you even though you want to be saved. You know that you can't be, in any way that matters."
Akutagawa is fading, but not as fast as he'd liked. He’s drifting when he’d rather be biting, spitting, coughing up blood until the end. There are ways to mark even the prey you couldn't kill, to leave it stained with the knowledge that, at one point, you would’ve given anything to do so. There is power in that. He can’t muster enough of himself to grab it. Born weak, live weak, die weak. Fitting indeed.
Akutagawa can’t piece enough of himself together to talk; there's a haze that makes it hard to stitch his parts back right again and it's growing thicker, hungrier still. But he can’t bear to listen to this man’s drivel either. As familiar with killers as he is, he knows this man‘s type. The type that brags and savors. His ability is well-suited to the task; the man not only connects minds but he hears the connection. He gets to enjoy a person’s private last words with their would-be protector as they realize that they failed.
He really would spit at him if he could, and that’s saying something.
But he can’t. He can only let the words wash over him like sewage, the mortal stab wound a pain that practically pulses. He can’t feel past the wound, and he can’t think for all this static in his head begging for blood.
The man, sitting cross legged, leans forward. His hands are on his knees and he looks intrigued, like he’s watching a great show. “Interesting. Your mind hasn’t connected with anything or anyone,” He claps his hands together, giddy with the novelty of it, and Akutagawa grits his teeth. Americans.
“This is it. The cruz of it. The art. I’ve never seen anyone like you. Hateful, alone and bubbling over with it in silence, to the very end.”
He’s bubbling with something. The static pours like lava over his psyche. It burns, it ruins, it melts. He’s never been this bloodthirsty, even at his worst. And he’s bleeding as fast as he can and it still wants more, more, more and Akutagawa’s starting to think that it’s not him that wants it.
Akutagawa’s starting to think that he’s not all that novel.
The brunet must be thinking the same thing or a worse one because he goes pale as a ghost and hops off the dumpster, straightening very, very slowly. “I- I don’t think-”
What pitiful last words.
And they are his last. Because at that moment, Chuuya Nakahara comes down from the sky like vengeance personified, gleaming red from his hair to his hands to the look in his eyes. He lands in front of Akutagawa, splintering the ground, a being too large for its housing.
And he’s pissed.
“You wanna get crushed by gravity?” The man doesn’t answer. He doesn’t get the chance.
Akutagawa doesn’t feel much as he watches Chuuya quickly dispose of that particular problem. He watches his corpse impassively, the blood spilling out of its lips and remembers he had gathered-from somewhere or another- this man’s name. It’s William.
Funny. He died like a William.
He truly is fading fast. So much so that he almost forgets Chuuya’s there until he tells him he’s called a med team. Chuuya doesn’t approach him, understanding that Akutagawa won’t react well to it.
He hasn’t in the past.
Akutagawa takes all of the anger, all of the spit, all of the spite he’d wanted to throw at William and sneers it at Chuuya, “Why are you here?”
It says a lot that they're past the executive-subordinate thing by now.
Chuuya, for his part, is having none of it. “What the fuck? Because you called me? Yelled for me, practically. Cut the shit, Ryuu!”
He hates that nickname. He throws the hate at him too. “I did no such thing.”
Chuuya’s less sure now, seeming to remember that Akutagawa wouldn’t be caught dead asking for shit, evidently. He hasn’t before. The rationale Akutagawa has left wonders how close Chuuya must have been to this uninhabited, obscure alley, for him to be so certain he’d heard him.
“I could’ve sworn it sounded like-” Chuuya trails off, glancing at the target again. Chuuya can hide his expression-somewhat- when he really really wants to. But he doesn’t want to. Doesn’t think to, more like. Akutagawa can tell that Chuuya has read the file on this man. He sees him mentally scan the paperwork on this guy and the ability he had. Delirious from blood loss, and seething like it will replenish his veins, he watches Chuuya make the connection, and promptly sever it.
“We’re gonna get you patched up.”
“I should hope so.”
“And after that, we’re grabbing grub.”
“And alcohol?”
“And alcohol.”
Lots and lots and lots of fucking alcohol.
It's best to forget such things.
(Things like what it means that Chuuya is willing to protect him or that Akutagawa apparently trusts him to do it. Or what it says that there’s literally no reason Chuuya would be out here unless it was to keep an eye on a particularly reckless subordinate on a particularly tricky case. What he must know if he’s checking up on him, because Akutagawa has been off lately, ever since Shin Soukoku’s first mission and the six month deal with the weretiger and the…. The idea that he was why Dazai-
Like he said, it’s better to forget.)
And now they’re here, two months into this dynamic, three months into his deal with the jinko, and Akutagawa’s not hesitating. He’s just… thinking things through for once, examining the beast before he breaks it.
In any case, they’ve been building towards this for a while and building ways to ignore it. Akutugawa knows Chuuya will shatter some of those walls for him right now.
And Chuuya does. Chuuya takes down those walls and even more, baring them to the indifferent night sky and an apprehensive Akutagawa, who sits behind him, waiting. (He sat down as soon as he heard the sigh. He knew how this was gonna go.)
Chuuya tells him about the Sheep, about the arcade and the dog-for-life-bet. He even tells him about Arahabaki, the black void that had answered the call of his mind. He tells him about the Flags and Verlaine and Dazai’s scheming. He tells him about the inside jokes, about the laughs Dazai wrung out of him. He tells him because Chuuya cares and because Chuuya knows that Akutagawa needs context more than Chuuya needs to bury these memories.
He tells him, in part, because he’s not really telling him. He doesn’t face him. He stares up at the moon as if she is his only listener and prattles on, comfortable because she is too far away to do anything about it. He doesn't move much, as if scared she may try.
“Soukoku was a forced partnership. Maybe a trauma bond. A bit of slight of hand on Mori’s part too: stay so focused on this rivalry you don’t even realize what you’re competing for-who could become the worst version of himself the fastest.” Akutagawa feels the strangest thing as he thinks that Chuuya lost this round too, and it’s with no small amount of spite towards Dazai. A few harsh comments compared to two friend groups lost (and counting?), Dazai and Chuuya were never on equal footing. One singular friend gone and Dazai left too.
The one time Dazai loses and the camel's back breaks.
Chuuya’s low voice has a tinge to it that lets Akutagawa know he’s smiling. He's inviting him to laugh too. And Akutagawa almost could, even knowing it’s at Chuuya, at this man who knows enough to know how wrong the life he leads is but not enough to save himself; at this fool, who can match the leash measurements to every distinct voice, but walks into it anyway, open-eyed.
Two slaughterers no more skilled at killing bad habits, for all their practice. One bandaged bad habit and it dies no easier for them-for all it claims to want to.
It’s the biggest gag ever and they’re living it. Their life is a soundtrack of laughter and gun rounds and one man's footsteps.
Again, Chuuya knows what he's really asking.
“Shin Soukoku is a bit different. Shin Soukoku allows Dazai to sharpen his two mentees without really having to do much. You can call out Atsushi’s self-pity for what it is, without Dazai having to lose points with him.” As opposed to his somewhat still retelling of his own past, here he shows leisure. He gestures with his bottle as if inviting the moon to join him for a cup.
“Nakajima, for his part, gets to project. He gets to tell you that your murderous ways are why Dazai “left you without a word” - Akutagawa winces, cursing his inability to hold his liquor- “without having to think about the fact that, even if you had been the perfect little subordinate, you still would’ve been a murderer. “
And Dazai still would have left.
Chuuya's on a roll but Akutagawa's head is spinning. He's dizzy, inundated. So many wounds and screaming matches and they were both so wrong. He doesn't want to believe it.
"But-"
Chuuya waves a dismissive hand. “I get it. Nakajima, the be-all end-all of morality. You, the bloodhound, the slaughterer. You’re morally rancid, a terrible being, you put a bomb vest on his little sister, blah blah fucking blah.”
How rude.
“But that’s the fucking point, Akutagawa." The return to formality. He hates it more than he likes.
"If you’re so terrible, don’t you think it should terrify Nakajima that Dazai holds so much of your respect? Don’t you think it would scare him shitless- the type of person Dazai would have to be to get that from someone like you? Don’t you think that would worry the little werekitten just a little?”
Akutagawa….hadn’t thought of that.
“It does. He might not know it but it does. I know about his childhood and the shithole orphanage. Dazai’s the only adult he’s ever had looking out for him. He’s not gonna want to take him off his pedestal. So as long as Dazai’s nice enough that Nakajima doesn't have to ask any hard questions, and smart enough with his plans that he doesn’t have to think past his own ideals, he’ll gladly project all of his fears about Dazai onto you.” If he was on a roll before, he’s only picking up steam, his bottle waving like a wand, his tone that of an passionate instructor.
“He’ll tell you it’s your fault Dazai left you when he really wants to say it's your fault that Dazai treated you like he knows he must have. He'll act like you're the problem because at the end of the day, some part of him knows he’d never survive the Dazai you got. And he knows that Dazai’s not fully gone, and probably never will be. Hell, Dazai trained you. The kitten’s just too scared to ask himself how much of his mentor he sees in his enemy. Survival instincts aren't just taught in the slums, you know.” Chuuya takes a large sip from the bottle, finishing with a swig and flourish. Akutagawa finds that he’s clenching his own fists, white-knuckled and raging. Chuuya still doesn't look at him.
“That’s what Shin Soukoku is. Two chess pieces polishing each other until they’re nuanced- but not too much, well-trained and tightly leashed.”
"He hasn’t leashed the weretiger." Akutagawa looks down at his bunched up knuckles and feels like a taunt string being plucked for sport. He doesn't want to believe this. The jinko, the perfect protege, nothing more than collared pet. Because if that's the case, it means all one can be to Dazai is a collared pet- kind words or hard punches. He wishes he cared for a different reason, or that he was overjoyed. But the longing, the weakness in him won’t let him.
But Chuuya’s not done.
He still doesn't look at him but he squares his shoulder. He knows Akutagawa and he knows what he fears and he cares enough to let him know those fears are valid. There is no lying about the monster beneath the bed; there is no secret to the slaughter here. They have not been lambs in a very long time.
"Not visibly. Not obviously. The leash he keeps him on is his lack of knowledge about Dazai himself. The leash he keeps you on is your lack of identity outside of Dazai.”
That is…That’s- "Chuuya-"
"I have no doubt he cares about you both,” There’s a pause here where discomfort finds its home. “In whatever dick-twisted way he’s able to." Chuuya continues and Akutagawa can hear the lip curl in his voice. This is a gift too, a cloak of knowledge to warm Akutagawa's sickly bones, leaving the man in front of him to the elements. There is a comfort in contorting the face of someone like Dazai into something monstrous. His humanity though, his capacity to care- that it what is hard to swallow.
No amount of alcohol will soothe that.
“He'll never let you off that leash. He'll never give you the validation that you want. He couldn’t fill that pit even if he wanted to and he doesn’t want to. As much as he hates the pedestal you put him on, he fucking loves it. Cause he knows he's nothing without it.” Chuuya slams the bottle down, suddenly furious. But he pauses, and regains himself, straightens and continues. He remembers that it's not about him.
“The thing about mentors, Akutagawa, is that some of them are only good for one thing. One trick ponies who get you from Point A to Point B and and might just kick you in the balls on the way there."
“Dazai saved you and trained you. He took you out of the slums. But he can't live without a leash to pull.”
He can hardly live with one, neither says.
“It's just a matter of whether you're still that same starved dog or not. Whether it still fits your neck the same.”
"It can't be that simple." He all but yells and Chuuya reads between these lines too. Dazai, for as long as he wants to be, will always be the lesser of any given evil. The two of them will always be pawns. It hardly matters whether its Dazai's chessboard or Mori's.
There's something said about old dogs and new tricks, and having so much blood on your hands for so long - it ages you. There's no learning left for them.
Chuuya straightens again and leans back, his hands outstretched behind him to keep him upright and stargazing. The alcohol bottle is forgotten at his side, looking strangely lonely." I guess it's how you wear it then."
He needn't specify. He means the collars, the leashes, the chains, the death that haunts and darkens them, much like the Mafia black coats. He doesn't have to say they're dead men being walked to early graves.
Akutagawa decides then and there, with nothing but the stars and a false god as his witness, that he'll walk to his upright and on two legs. And practice makes perfect.
He stands and walks forward. He moves slowly and every step feels unsteady, like his legs hold the last of his self-preservation, like the difference between dog and man is too far a leap for him. He makes it anyway. He sits next to Chuuya, the shattering of pretense, as Chuuya watches, solemn, assessing. Akutagawa stares up at the stars and wonders if there’s a life where he reaches them. He knows it will never be this one.
He doesn't ask for the alcohol.
He doesn't want to forget.