Chapter Text
“What is wrong with you?!” Akutagawa remembers Dazai yelling at him that day, slapping him harshly after his words. What is wrong with him? What is wrong with Akutagawa? The answer is: many thing. There’s a lot of things wrong with the pale man, one of them being his Tourettes. No, of course him having Tourettes isn’t wrong in itself, but it’s very wrong according to Akutagawa himself. According to Dazai as well. He can clearly recall every time Dazai punished him for not suppressing a tic. Every hurtful word. Every slap. He remembers every beating he got for something that was completely out of his control. It didn’t quite make sense to him at first. Yes, he lived a very unfair life. But, getting beat for something out of his control that wasn’t even harming anyone except himself? It didn’t make sense to him. He had manage to suppress most of his hitting tics, which sometimes felt like they were targeting Dazai. Akutagawa wouldn’t mind if his tics targeted that monster, but Dazai beat him for it, so the satisfaction of it wouldn’t last very long.
A whistle is heard in the quiet corridor of the Port Mafia headquarters. Then a quiet grunt. “Are you okay?” Higuchi is heard asking Akutagawa in her usual concerned manner. Akutagawa shoots a quick glare at the woman next to him, then walks faster. Akutagawa and Higuchi have a mission: to capture the weretiger .
Akutagawa can hear some distant shooting from where he’s standing on top of a building. He smirks subtly to himself, then coughs quietly. His smirk quickly dies down at the memories of his earlier years in the Port Mafia. The constant verbal and physical abuse is a lot to handle. Especially the physical, considering Akutagawa’s weak and frail figure. He sighs. It feels like he can almost still hear the degrading words from that monster. Dazai has been haunting and taunting him ever since the two first met. It continued even after the man left. He hears Higuchi’s voice over the walkie-talkie, informing Akutagawa that it’s his turn. His tics causes him to whistle, despite his attempt at suppressing the humiliating sound. He grits his teeth, hating himself for not even being able to control his own body and sounds. “…disgusting…” he mutters to himself in his usual cold tone.
He gets to the alley, seeing some ginger haired guy, some black-haired girl lying on the ground with multiple bullet wounds, and… the weretiger . “You look weaker than I imagined..” the mafioso states, his cold, unsettling gaze lingering on Atsushi before turning to Higuchi. “…if I find out that he’s hurt, it’s not gonna end well for you…” he basically hisses out. He might sound protective, but he’s not. He only cares about capturing the weretiger alive, then shipping him to whatever crazy person that wants to spend 7 billon on him and getting money for him. Higuchi gulps and looks down. “…of course…” Akutagawa gives her one last glare before looking back at Atsushi. “You’re coming with me.” He states, not letting Atsushi react before Rashomoun already has a grip on the younger’s arms and legs. Before the weretiger can say or do anything, he feels Rashomoun latch itself around his throat. He feels himself losing consciousness.
Akutagawa watches the younger man pass out, and he takes Rashomoun away from his throat and neck, as well as his arms and legs. His tics causes his head to jerk to the side, and he quickly glances at Higuchi to see if she noticed, before quickly looking back at the unconscious man in front of the two Port Mafia members. “Lets take him back.” Akutagawa walks over and pulls Atsushi over his shoulder, dragging him with him back to the Port Mafia headquarters. He glances at the two other agency members before leaving the alley, leaving Naomi and Junichiro there.
Akutagawa sighs as he sits in front of the big cage that Atsushi had been put in. He’s on ‘guard duty’, as Mori put it. Akutagawa doesn’t understand why that man can’t get someone else to do it, but he’s not gonna disobey Mori’s orders anytime soon. He coughs, but not a real one. He has lots of weird tics, and one of them is that he ‘coughs’. It only happens cause his tics sometimes makes it so that he can’t breath properly or at all for a few seconds, hence the coughing afterwards. He clears his throat after having getting that uncomfortable tic. He keeps looking at Atsushi. He would’ve woken up already if the boss wouldn’t have given Atsushi sedatives. “…idiot..” Akutagawa mutters to himself about Mori. He’s always hated Mori, maybe even more than Dazai. “Look, he’s twitching again!” “Eww! Don’t get too close, you might get it too!” “What is wrong with you?!” “Get out of here!” “You don’t belong here!” “Go back to the slums where you belong!” but maybe not as much as he hates those other people in the mafia. Akutagawa shuts his eyes.
He’s had a lot of ‘enemies’ throughout his life. ‘Enemies’ probably isn’t the correct word for it, it’s more like bullies. But more… brutal. Even back in the slums people he thought he could trust would hurt him. He remembers one night specifically.
It’s a cold, dark night in the slums, and Akutagawa and his fiend are walking home from searching for food all day. Akutagawa jerks his head to the side, then whistles. Ah, his Tourettes are messing with him today. “Are you okay?” —— asks. “Hm?” Akutagawa faces his friend. “Yeah. Why?” He gives his friend a questioning and curious look. “It’s just.. you, like… twitched?” —— looks unsure of what Akutagawa did just now. “Uhh…I..I just have Tourettes.” The boy answers, hoping his friend will accept it and just shrugs it off. “So.. you’re more of a freak than us, or what?” Freak . Akutagawa can feel his heart shatter when his friend says that. “What?” Akutagawa stops walking and turns to completely face his friend. “You’re a freak, right? Twitching and shit..” Akutagawa grits his teeth and glares. “So what if I ‘twitch’?” He questions, sounding a bit angry while trying to hide his hurt. “It’s weird. You’re weird.” —— snickers. “Freak.”
Akutagawa hates the way his ‘friend’ talked to him, and said it like that. He sighs and opens his eyes. He notices Atsushi’s eyes fluttering open and he sits up and looks down at the younger man with cold eyes. Atsushi is like a caged animal. Must be humiliating for him, Akutagawa thinks. He understands the feeling though. He’s felt humiliated most of his life. “…huh…?” The weretiger rubs his eyes and looks around, trying to figure out where he is. Akutagawa decides to speak up. “Ah, I see you finally wake up.” He says, his voice cold and annoyed. Atsushi freezes when he hears the mafioso’s voice and he slowly looks up at him. Akutagawa stands up and walks closer to the big cage, staring down at Atsushi who’s now sitting in the cold cage. “I’m happy to see that you are where you belong, in a cage like an animal.” Akutagawa notices a small, subtle trembling coming from Atsushi. He feels the sudden familiar feeling in his neck right before a tic. His expression hardens and he tries to suppress it, hoping that the taunting feeling will leave without humiliating him now. Atsushi stares wide eyed up at the dark-haired man. “…what..what are you…are..are you gonna..kill me….?” His voice is shaky. Akutagawa didn’t quite hear Atsushi’s voice earlier, but he faintly heard it from Higuchi’s walkie-talkie, and back then it sounded very different compared to now. “Kill you? Don’t be ridicules. We’ll sell you. You have a 7 billion bounty on your head after all, weretiger.” Akutagawa’s cold, gray eyes bores into Atsushi in a very unsettling way.
The feeling in his neck is still there, and he slightly raised his head. He internally curses himself for letting a tic slip out in front of the enemy, even if the tic was small and not too noticeable. “S-seven…seven billion…” Atsushi whispers in disbelief, seemingly not noticing Akutagawa’s tics. ‘Huh, he’s clearly not as sharp as Dazai to pick up on things.. guess that’s a good thing though..’ Akutagawa chuckles, not a friendly chuckle, no. Quite the opposite actually. “Yeah, 7 billion. Some idiot put a 7 billion bounty on your head.” Akutagawa says in a mocking tone. What kind of idiot would out a bounty on someone weak? Who would put a bounty like that on anyone? Despite being a Port Mafia member, it’s still quite shocking. But who is he to complain when he gets money from finding the poor person? “..who..w-why…?” Atsushi whispers distressed to himself. What if the person who out a bounty on him will kill him?
“Calm down. You’ll pass out if you keep hyperventilating like that.” Akutagawa’s tone is cold and annoyed as he watches the young man in the cage slowly starts to have a panic attack. Atsushi, understandably, panicked at the thought of dying. His mind keeps wandering back to Naomi and Junichiro who are probably still in the alley, bleeding out while he himself is in a cage in what seems to be a room in the Port Mafia headquarters. They’re going to die. They’re going to die cause of Atsushi. Cause Atsushi is weak. He’s weak and now his new friends are going to die cause of him.
He shuts his eyes and more tears runs down his cheeks as his breathing remains heavy and irregular. Akutagawa jerks his head to the side again, then grunts quietly. He’s almost getting concerned for the man in the cage. He, of course, can’t just let him out. Not without getting in trouble. Though, letting him out is the moral thing to do. But Akutagawa hasn’t done anything moral since he lived in the slums, before he was found by Dazai. The door to the room opens and Akutagawa feels a hat being placed on his head. Chuuya.
“There you are, I’ve been looking for you.” The ginger says and stands himself next to Akutagawa. Akutagawa sighs in annoyance, and a bit of relief as well. Chuuya is the only one, expect for Gin and Dazai, who knows about the his Tourettes. And Chuuya, just like Gin, doesn’t judge him. Nor does Chuuya mention or drag attention to his tics. “Why?” Akutagawa asks in response to Chuuya’s words. “Cause we need to give the guy food. Also, Dazai is coming by.” Dazai . Akutagawa freezes. “Dazai? Why is he coming by? He’s not even in the Port Mafia anymore!” He’s upset. Dazai abused him for years, then left and started working for the Armed Detective Agency. Then also found Atsushi, and was nice to him. Akutagawa couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous. Dazai found Atsushi, just like he had found Akutagawa all those years ago. But instead of abusing him, he’s nice to him. Nice. Dazai. Dazai being nice doesn’t sit well with Akutagawa. Dazai could act like a child when he was in the Port Mafia, and he could act funny, but he was never kind to anyone except Oda. Chuuya sighs. “He’s coming to see Atsushi or something, and boss allowed him for some reason.”
Akutagawa’s head jerks to the side and he whistles before grunting. He glances at Atsushi before turning around to leave the room. “Wait.” Chuuya puts a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Boss wanted you to watch over him. Are you gonna disobey him?” Chuuya questions. Akutagawa has never disobeyed Mori’s orders before, is he really going to do it just cause Dazai is coming here? Akutagawa grits his teeth before sighing. “..no.” He turns back and looks at Atsushi in the cage, then walks closer, standing right before the cage. Atsushi is still panicking and breathing irregularly. “Stop that.” Akutagawa says in a firm, annoyed tone. “You’ll pass out. I’m suppose to watch you, and you can’t pass out on my watch.” Chuuya watches. Atsushi keeps sitting on the floor with tears running down his cheeks, looking more pathetic than usual according to Akutagawa. Atsushi looks up at the man before him, whimpering quietly as the thought of getting killed comes back. “Oh, for god’s sake..” Akutagawa glares down at Atsushi.
“I’m not gonna kill you, so calm down.” His voice, as well as his gaze, is hard and cold. Atsushi lets out a shaky breath, not believing a word Akutagawa is saying. Akutagawa kicks the cage. “Calm down!” His voice gets louder and harsher. Atsushi flinches and trembles and more tears runs down his cheeks. Chuuya walks up behind Akutagawa and puts a gentle hand on his shoulder. “He isn’t going to calm down if you do that.” The redhead says gently. “If you’re calm, he’ll be calm.” Chuuya is probably right. Atsushi only panicked more after Akutagawa spoke harshly. He sighs and considers it for a moment. “I know what I’m doing..” he says at last, not wanting to admit that he’s doing something wrong, especially not since Dazai is coming by soon. Chuuya looks at him for a few moment, then shrugs and lets go of Akutagawa’s shoulder. “I’ll go to Mori’s office for now, he wants me to prepare or something for Dazai’s arrival.” Chuuya sounds annoyed that Dazai is coming by, which is to be expected. The short man leaves the room and walks away. Akutagawa listens to his footsteps slowly fading away before he turns his attention back to Atsushi.