Chapter Text
Gin loves living far from college. The long train ride home is relaxing after the hectic semester, and she loves to watch the scenery from her window turn slowly from bustling streets and skyscrapers to trees and wide expansive fields, her head bopping along to the music blasting through her headphones.
The ground is cracked under her shoes when she gets off the train, tufts of grass growing between the tiles on the floor, and the station is small and uncrowded. She walks through the small building, the wheels of her suitcase rumbling, the sound echoing off the white walls. She spots him slouching on a chair near the exit, familiar black hair swept back into a small ponytail, donning a white sweatshirt covered almost entirely with his signature large black coat. Though his appearance is largely unchanged, Gin does notice a new color painting the tips of his hair a dusty white.
He looks up to her, and she sees dull, gray eyes — the same shade as her own — light up slightly as they lock with hers. Subconsciously, she speeds up to greet him, and envelopes him in a hug before he can even get off his chair properly.
★
The ride home is just how she remembers outings with her brother to be: quiet, peaceful and comforting in the familiar interior of his little black car. She tugs her mask off once she’s inside, breathing in the air. They talk lowly of arbitrary niceties: how her first year at college was, how her classes were and has she been making any new friends lately?
The answer to that last question is no, of course. Ryuunosuke purses his lips at the response. Neither of them has ever been any good at making or maintaining any sort of relationships — she supposes it’s an Akutagawa family curse. Though it’s hardly like their parents had been around long enough for her to confirm that theory.
She eyes the vanilla-smelling car freshener hanging from the rear view mirror curiously, a new addition. It’s not that big of a deal, but for four years straight, Ryuunosuke had stubbornly always used the same sandalwood scent. What changed?
“This smells nice,” she says, touching it lightly. It sways side to side at the contact.
“It does,” her brother says simply, eyes glued to the road.
She doesn’t get to ask more, though, as an old road catches her attention. The tires roll over the gravel, and Gin presses her face to the window as a familiar house comes into her view, the white bricked walls and yellow wooden door a sight for sore eyes. Ryuunosuke parks the car in the driveway, and Gin all but jumps out of it, unbuckling her seatbelt and closing the door in the same breath. One of the curtains stirs, and a head poks through, alerted by the sound of the car engine, his red curls a stark contrast to the light green of the drapes. He vanishes as soon as he comes, only to reappear at the door, flinging it open.
“Gin!” Chuuya exclaims, pulling — almost tackling, really — her into a rib-crushing hug. He’s short, the top of his head just reaching her shoulders, but his small stature has always been terribly misleading. Gin thought people were supposed to get weaker as they got older, but despite rapidly approaching his thirties, Chuuya is strong. Stronger than her, definitely, and at almost nineteen years old, isn’t she supposed to be hitting the prime of her youth right about now?
“You’ll crush her,” Ryuunosuke says, pulling her suitcase out of the trunk. “And she’s only just arrived.”
“I’ll take it in,” she tries to say, as her brother wheels her bag into the house, her voice strained and her ribs still caught in Chuuya’s iron grip. At last, he lets go, and she breathes for the first time in about sixty seconds.
Inside, the house is just the same as she remembers, with its colorful cushions and the plants on the living room windowsill that Chuuya is so fond of, sunlight hitting their green leaves at just the right angle. The moment she steps into the kitchen, she is tackled again, for the second time in the span of two minutes, by a black dog licking her face.
“Hey, Rashomon,” she giggles, dropping to her knees to give him a hug. His fur is soft and smells like grass — he must’ve just come back from the garden, she guesses.
Chuuya had gotten her and her brother the dog when they’d first moved in four years ago. When her mother died, she was thirteen, and Ryuunosuke was only one year older. They were alone and too young, with no home, no income, and no one but each other. For a time, Ryuunosuke engaged in pickpocketing and thievery, only ever stealing small things from passers by, barely enough to fetch them the money for a loaf of bread. A terrible lifestyle, especially for two kids who had barely hit puberty yet.
Until Chuuya found them, almost a year later, and took them in, raising them as though they were his own little siblings. He had given them shelter, food and a place to belong. He had given them love, something they weren’t entirely familiar with, not even when their parents were alive.
Staring at the paint peeling from the walls, Gin isn’t sure when they’d started calling this little place home, or Chuuya her brother, but now, she can’t see them as anything else. She doesn’t have friends, but she does have a family, a big friendly dog, and a place to return to at the end of the year.
And that is more than she’d ever dared to dream of, just four years ago.
Chuuya walks into the kitchen, then, petting Rashomon’s head on his way to the stove.
“You missed Gin a lot, didn’t you, boy?”
There’s a closed pot resting on the stovetop, and he turns on the gas underneath it, warming it up.
“Of course he did.” She smiles, scratching the back of the dog’s ears. “He must’ve been so bored without the coolest member of his household.”
“Well then, how about you carry your own suitcase up the stairs, hm?” She hears Ryuunosuke’s voice from behind her and groans. Getting up, she gives Rashomon one final head pat before making her way to her brother.
★
Once Gin has finished unpacking, and taken a much needed shower, Chuuya calls her down for food. It’s a nice combination of soup and rice, with a thinly sliced salad on the side, and as usual, Chuuya’s cooking is heavenly. After spending a whole academic year with a diet consisting only of microwaveable lunch boxes and cheap takeout, the homemade food is something akin to ambrosia on her tongue.
She eats with her brothers, clad in sweatpants and a black sweater, the white crew neck of her shirt sticking out from underneath. Her hair, still a little damp from her shower, is tied up into a bun. After eating, Ryuunosuke takes her to arguably the best place in their whole little town: the BLR, aka Black Lizard Records. It’s a small record store that technically belongs to an old man called Hirotsu, but Gin and her brother had been frequenting the store and helping out there since they were children, and it had ended up being more of a home for them than the house where they grew up, Hirotsu more of a caretaker for them than their own parents.
Ryuunosuke had started officially working there two years ago.
The bell at the door rings as they enter, the familiar smell of old wood and lavender air freshener hitting Gin in the face. Nothing about the layout has changed, from the brown painted shelves to the vinyls and old posters hung on the walls. The only thing unfamiliar to her is the man behind the front desk. He’s around the same height as her brother, with white hair and choppy bangs that fade into black at the tips. Suspiciously similar to her older brother’s new hair, actually…
“Hello,” he calls cheerily, his back to them. “How can I help y—?” He stops short as he turns around, his eyes falling on Ryuunosuke, then to Gin, then back to Ryuunosuke again. “Akutagawa?”
“Man-tiger,” Ryuunosuke greets, to which the white-haired man sighs, his cheeks turning a little pink.
“I told you not to call me that,” he grumbles. Gin chuckles. The man is cute, in a funny sort of way. His eyes are catlike and sharp, yet they are filled with a shining sincerity that’s strangely endearing. “I’m Atsushi,” he addresses her, offering a hand. “What’s your name? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around before!”
“I’m Gin,” she smiles, shaking his outstretched hand. “I’m Ryuu’s sister.” At that, Atsushi’s eyes widen almost comically, his mouth forming a surprised ‘o’. The resemblance makes sense to him, now, the similar shades of their hair, the glint in their eyes. They both have a slightly threatening aura, too, though Gin’s eyes are softer when she talks, while Ryuunosuke’s never leave their aggressive edge.
“Well, if it isn’t my favorite Akutagawa!” comes another voice from behind a door beside the front counter. A man emerges from behind it, a little taller than her, and this worker is far more familiar than Atsushi. He raises a bandaged arm to wave at her, beaming. “Gin! Welcome back!”
“Hi, Dazai.”
“Dazai!” Atsushi says. “There you are! It’s your shift now, you know!”
“Ah, but Atsushi, you you have to understand, I’m twenty seven! My bones are achy, and my joints are beyond repair! Nothing that youth like you would understand, of course, but I hope you’ll be sympathetic to an old man’s pains?” He flutters his eyelashes, pouting a little. Gin rolls her eyes. So, his tendency to slack off remains, it seems.
Back when her brother first started working at the BLR, Dazai would always push his shifts to him with half baked excuses that Ryuunosuke always agreed to, out of respect for the elder man. Even Atsushi looks as though he’s about to relent, and Gin has to wonder if he’s just a nice guy, or if Dazai’s manipulation skills are better than she’d originally thought.
“No, go take a break, Atsushi,” a deeper voice comes from behind her, a voice she knows.
Hirotsu!
“Dazai, do your shift.” It sounds slightly exasperated, but when she turns around, the old man’s face is just as expressionless as ever as he levels the bandaged man with a gaze so eerily calm that it’s somehow threatening. When Hirotsu’s eyes slide over to Gin, however, they soften, the lines around his mouth creasing as he offers her a small smile. “Welcome back, little one.”