Chapter Text
Atsushi has become used to the feeling of abandonment, he has always felt like he’s already been abandoned the moment he was born. He was abandoned by his parents the moment he was brought into the world—and began to experience hell growing up. He wondered, what did he do to deserve this? To deserve all that pain and abuse throughout his childhood—the orphanage staff told him many times that there was a reason for his suffering. But all he could think of was that maybe, it was because no one had wanted him, no one had loved him or tried to give him an ounce of affection growing up. And experiencing that in such an early age—you could imagine the trauma that built inside of Atsushi, as he could still—to this day—remember everything he went through, vividly.
And he wanted to hate the person who caused it—that headmaster that was the source of all his nightmares and the reason why he couldn’t find himself worthy, worthy of being happy, worthy of being alive. The headmaster had engraved in his head that love, affection, happiness—needed to be earned, you needed to be useful to experience these things. And even though Atsushi knew the mentality the headmaster was forcing on him was wrong, he couldn’t help but believe it—and who could blame him? He was just a child all through it after all..
Then he was suddenly kicked out of the orphanage, the reason being that the orphanage was experiencing a shortage of food and such. Atsushi was merely 15 years old at the time—and just turned 15 mind you, when the orphanage staff threw all of his stuff at him while dragging him out the gate, all the while the headmaster just stared coldly at him—not an ounce of sympathy in his eyes.
And even with all that, Atsushi couldn’t deny that the headmaster was somewhat a father figure to him. Of course, the headmaster had not acted like a father to him throughout his childhood—but he was the most frequent adult man that had bothered to exist in Atsushi’s life. Although, the headmaster only existed to torture and abuse Atsushi—there’s no denying that they still have that sick father and son relationship.
And once Atsushi was out of the orphanage, he realized that the third time he was abandoned, he was abandoned by life. He starved and walked around the streets aimlessly, he had not experienced what the outside world was like for a somewhat long time—the orphanage did not allow him out of the gates back then, so now Atsushi had a hard time adjusting.
Although while being out of the orphanage, he started having weird dreams—more like nightmares actually. It all showed him a white tiger, with glowing yellow eyes, at first they all seemed like nightmares to him. And he thought that tiger, was a curse that kept following him around.
But after a few days of going without food or shelter, he finally found somewhere where he can work. It happened one day, when it was raining hard outside—he managed to find some kind of underground bar. He decided to seek shelter there for now, the bar was empty—which worked to Atsushi's advantage as that would mean that no one would question why there’s a minor in a bar. But little did Atsushi know that there was in fact a minor who frequented there.
The rain was taking quite a long time to calm down, and the old man who looked to be the bar owner, silently slid a pastry in front of Atsushi. The man looked at him, as if he was offering the boy who looked to be starving to death some food. And Atsushi, after some time, hesitantly started to dig in.
Atsushi was not used to adults being nice to him, and he grew uncomfortable with the silence between him—who was eating for free mind you and in front of the bar owner—and the old man who was silently cleaning shot glasses. Atsushi began to let his eyes wander around the place, it looked like your average bar, although it looked like one of those old fashioned bars—it still looked good interior wise.
That’s when his eyes landed on a help wanted sign, right beside the entrance he went in earlier.
“E-er, um I don’t think I can pay for this food sir. B-But….I can work here—I see that you have a help wanted sign. I-I can help around, I can be useful…”
Atsushi asked, but he could already tell that the owner would refuse, considering he was a minor. Which would mean that he would-
“Okay, you're hired—I can give you your starting pay today or tomorrow. Your choice-”
“I’m okay with today sir!”
Atsushi said he may have said it a little bit too enthusiastically which resulted in a red hue spreading across his face. The man slid a brown envelope in front of Atsushi, and thinking that this was starting pay, he opened it and his eyes went wide with the amount inside the envelope.
“There’s a dorm apartment across the street, it’s supposed to be for teenagers that’s studying in the area. You can use that money to live in there, make sure to save up though, I heard those dorms are quite pricey..-”
Atsushi kept what the man said in mind, tucking in the money back inside the envelope. The rain seemed to have calmed down outside by the time their conversation ended.
“Thank you very much for this sir, I’ll be sure to work hard to make up for it.”
Atsushi said, as the man simply nodded then saw Atsushi leave the bar. Perhaps he did that since the boy reminded him of a certain minor who frequented the bar with his two friends.
____
The old man wasn’t kidding when he said that the dorms were expensive, it had been about 6 months now since he got the job at bar Lupin. He had started to live in an apartment that served as a dormitory for students who studied in the area. Thankfully though, it didn’t require some type of proof that he did go to school. Although with his food and necessities, not to mention the pricey rent—he was having a hard time trying to keep up.
Right now, Atsushi sighed as all these financial problems were circling through his head. He managed to lock the door of his apartment and headed to the stairs to go to his job at bar Lupin. As he was going down the stairs, he overheard some of the teenage residents that lived in the building conversing.
“Look at this new bag I got! It’s one of the latest brand”
“Whoa! I heard that it’s quite expensive though, how’d you manage to buy it with your allowance?”
“Well, don’t tell my parents but, I got a sugar daddy…apparently older guys are weak towards younger looking kids.”
They giggled, an idea slowly formed inside Atsushi—but he thought that it would mean that he was back to being used by adults again. But then again, his bills were piling up, and it seemed like his paycheck at the bar wasn’t enough to get through the day.
He would have to think about it then.
_____
The dreams continued, although this time, it seemed like the tiger was passing a message on to him—as if they were telling him something important. Good news to Atsushi, he found out about a certain full moon when he was out at night. That night, Atsushi had the same old dream, with the tiger staring intensely at him.
”Atsushi, you need not be afraid of me..”
The tiger spoke, which scared Atsushi quite a bit, scurrying away at the tiger only for it to pounce on top of him.
Atsushi was trembling, just waiting for it to attack him, but instead—nothing. The tiger kept staring at him, Atsushi looked at the tiger in confusion, wondering why it hadn’t attacked him. And with that, he hesitantly brought up his hand on to the tiger—surprisingly resulting in the tiger leaning into his touch.
”You need to accept who you are, Atsushi, I am here to protect you””
The tiger pressed its forehead on Atsushi, and after that he was awake. Atsushi woke up in an alleyway, his memories of that full mooned night couldn’t be remembered. But he had an idea on what had happened that night.
He now realized—he was an ability user.
_____
“Hm, aren’t you a bit young pouring drinks?”
A sudden voice spoke out loud—Atsushi was busy prepping drinks that the owner said were for the three customers they had that frequented at the bar. Atsushi turned around, only to be met by a boy who wore clothes that looked like he was in the mafia as they were all black . The boy also had various bandages wrapped around him—which made Atsushi think that maybe this boy was in the mafia—but what baffled Atsushi the most was that the boy seemed to be closer to his age.
“Um, aren’t you too young to be here too?...”
“Hm, touché kid-”
“I believe we’re about the same age sir”
Atsushi said, the boy simply stared at him, his eyes were curious like a cat.
“I thought you were younger, oh well—it seems that I am rather early. I’ll have whiskey then please.”
The boy ordered, and coincidentally a glass of whiskey was already on Atsushi’s side of the table.
“Maybe he’s one of the customers the owner told me about.”
Atsushi thought, as he gave the glass of whiskey to the strange boy and continued with his task to clean the shot glasses.
___
A couple of minutes go by and the other ‘regular’ customers walk in, with the strange boy greeting them enthusiastically—particularly the man with the trench coat.
“Oda! So glad to see you again!”
The strange boy said happily at the man who Atsushi assumed to be, ‘Oda’. Along with Oda came a man with glasses and a somewhat not impressed expression that was targeted at the strange boy.
"Ango, guess what? You guess I’m not the only minor you can scold for being here now. Bartender-kun right here is a minor as well, and he said he’s the same age as me!”
Atsushi only tensed upon now being the center of attention, thanks to the boy taking a sip of his whiskey. What was he gonna do now? The person known as ‘Ango’ looked like someone who worked in the government, and with Atsushi’s bills—it would be impossible to pay off if he couldn’t work at the bar now. He would go back to starving on the streets.
“I-I..I..-”
Atushsi couldn’t think of an excuse to save him from this situation, that was when a sudden hand touched his’, in what felt to be a comforting manner.
“Hey, it’s alright—we’re not exactly the police to be caring about something like that”
The man known as ‘Oda’ said, Atsushi sighed in relief.
“Um, thank you..I don’t really have any other jobs other than this one…”
“What about your parents? Aren’t they gonna get worried about you working here?”
“I…I’m an orphan, I…I never knew my parents..”
Atsushi decided to just claim it as that, he didn’t need to trauma dump on customers today.
“Oh, I’m sorry about that, do you have any place to live?”
“Classic Oda, taking in every orphan he comes across-”
The strange boy said dismissively, and Oda just sighed at the boy’s comment.
“Yes, um—I live at the student apartments nearby. Although I’m not really a student..”
Atsushi muttered out the last bit as he prepared the other two drinks. Pouring the two their drinks, Atsushi excused himself as he had to clean and left the three to converse amongst themselves.
“Hm, I didn’t know you can have different colored eyes…”
The strange boy—or Dazai, muttered to himself as he caught himself somewhat mesmerized by those sunset colored eyes.
———
“It seems I’m early again today, bartender-kun”
The boy in bandages said—playing with his shot glass as his other hand was busy holding his head.
“I have a name you know…-“
Atsushi sighed out somewhat exasperatedly, as he poured the boy his second refill of whiskey.
“Then, pray tell, bartender-kun—what is your name?”
“If you must know, it’s Atsushi, Atsusi Nakajima”
“Then, I’m Dazai, Dazai Osamu”
Dazai said as he smiled up at the sunset color eyed boy, looking at him with both curiosity as well hesitation. As if Atsushi didn’t know if Dazai could be trusted or not, but considering that Dazai was the only person he met that was the same age as him that didn’t treat him like trash—he would try to get used to his weird behavior for a while longer and see how it goes.
“Dazai, your here early, that’s quite surprisingly honestly..-”
Oda entered the bar and sat beside Dazai as usual, while Atushi went ahead and started his drink for him.
“Don’t tell me you’ve grown fascinated by the boy Dazai”
Oda said, as he glanced at the said boy who was busy making his drink. Dazai simply smiled.
“Is it wrong of me to? He does have beautiful eyes, eyes that look like they're hiding something from a grim past..”