Chapter Text
Everything changed for the worse when Dazai left, but shortly after the brief nosedive into chaos the team took when they lost their shoe-in for the Captain’s position, they seemed to get their shit together again.
“Nakahara-senpai is really taking to being Captain!” Mizuki whispered to his friend, Saori, both of them second-years like Ryuunosuke.
Ryuunosuke thinks so too, watching Chuuya where he’s perched upon the bleachers, firing basketballs just narrow centimeters away from the first-years’ ankles. This is a drill he affectionately calls ‘fast feet.’ It is something like the way he used to toss bullets at Mafia trainees to teach them how to dodge, and just like that traumatizing experience it is extremely effective.
This is not the first time Chuuya has lost Dazai’s partnership and it is not the first time he has recovered from this loss. Ryuunosuke, personally, finds that he picks himself up much faster this time around, with his own self worth not tied so tightly into Dazai’s approval. Really, the person who has been unable to cope with the loss of Dazai is their coach, who had been so thoroughly manipulated by Dazai he seemed to think their season was lost the second the third-year left. Previously, this had made it easier for Dazai and Chuuya to do whatever the hell they wanted and run practice as they saw fit, but once it backfired Chuuya started using threats of physical violence to reach the same end of total control. Their coach is that in name only, only still existing in the position so their club can, and Chuuya controls the team.
“Eh? What’re you lot doin’ lazing around?” His small lordship growled from his mighty plastic throne. Mizuki and Saori yelp, both dodging away from a basketball thrown in between their whispering heads. This maneuver was accomplished using instincts honed by a full year of Chuuya’s hellish training. Ryuunosuke sincerely believed that the Yokohama Technical basketball team’s overall reaction time was the best of any sports team in their country.
“Sorry, Captain!” Mizuki and Saori chorus, quickly turning back to Ryuunosuke to continue their ‘Everyman’ drill— every man for himself, an ironically named drill that is really an exercise in quick transition from offense to defense and teamwork on the latter. Whoever gets possession after the first basket will be entered into a 2-v-1 with themselves as the offensive player, the other two working to take the ball and prevent the basket. The first of the three to get possession dribbles up outside the circle and then become the offense while the other two become the defense. A hidden aspect of this drill is that it goes on forever, so Chuuya can basically leave them alone to tire themselves until it becomes stamina training as well.
“He never yells at you,” Saori grumbles, receiving the bounce-pass from Ryuunosuke at the top. Ryuunosuke and Mizuki then take defensive positions, waiting for Saori to make his first move.
“Chuuya has had plenty of time to yell at me. I suppose he’s tired of it by now,” Ryuunosuke responds, before neatly blocking Saori as he attempts to work his way to the basket. He takes possession, dribbles to the top, and then as has happened almost every time they’ve run the drill, Ryuunosuke makes it in the basket from the line and stands victorious versus his fellow second-years.
“Maybe if you’d lose once in a while, he wouldn’t be so tired,” Mizuki grumbles. But Saori and Mizuki have been his teammates since middle school, and any negative sentiment turns to empty words when they are playing together in games. Not for the last time, they run the drill.
At the end of practice, Chuuya calls all the year-groups back together to circle-up. This separation by year was abnormal, mostly done so they didn’t have to tell the first-years they sucked too bad to integrate into normal practice yet, and only ever done in this first week of playing. By Saturday, the first-years will be jumping at shadows, running in their sleep, and be able to keep up with at least half the team.
Chuuya, dwarfed by the first years on the right of him (the only ones brave enough to stand close being firstly Tachihara and secondly Gin) and his fellow third-years on the left still manages to stand tall between them. Ryuunosuke has managed quite on purpose to not be the person directly across from Chuuya for avoidance of how intense his stare can be. Sports pep-talks seem to call upon his old talents to call men to war. Mizuki, having landed himself that unfortunate honor, sweats profusely.
“Well, on account of how fast these sorry sacks of shit have shaped up—“ Chuuya nods to his right as he says so, and receives some cheers— “I’ve taken the liberty of setting up a practice game against Kaijo. Rumor is they have a crazy talent, and I want to crush him. Think we can do that?”
This gets more cheers. Dazai’s method of rearing the team was a bit more subtle, as was his method of play, but Chuuya has an unique ability to foster bloodlust in people.
Shigure, one of the third years, nudges his neighbor. “Isn’t Kaijo where that model guy went? The one from Teiko?”
His neighbor, Kajii Motojiro, looks appalled Shigure even bothered to ask. “Do I look like someone who keeps up with middle school basketball? Ask me something that matters.”
To be fair, Kajii doesn’t look like someone who would play basketball, let alone watch it in its itty-bitty incarnations. He probably only joined up for the same reason that every other former-Mafia member did. To aggressively cope with being reborn into a world of peace and parents and pleasant light.
Ryuunosuke himself had been at a loss in this new world. He didn’t remember how his last one ended except for the obvious answer: violence and pain. Those things seemed missing in this life, and he was surprised to find he missed them, a bit.
When he walked into his middle school’s club fair to find that Dazai and Chuuya (who Ryuunosuke had not yet seen, since coming back from the dead) were dressed in their own rendition of their school’s uniform, handing out fliers for a basketball club, he immediately choked on his melon bread. It brought back the thrill of danger he’d been missing.
Chuuya had been slinging the fliers somewhat like frisbees and somewhat like dinner plates from a tall stack in his arms at unsuspecting students. For being made of only somewhat-waxy paper, the fliers achieved impressive velocity, paper-cutting students left and right. Ryuunosuke watched from his bench as the normal middle schoolers attempted to flee the corner of the schoolyard Chuuya was haunting, but they were met at every turn with Dazai popping out of trash cans and trees and behind other club’s booths. His hands were full of bunched-up paper, stuffing fliers into any open receptacle he could find on another student’s person. Though Ryuunosuke did not see the placement in action, he saw a boy who loudly complained about their persistence walk away with a flier turned backwards and taped to his back, the message ‘I have absurd tastes in women’ written on it. He was given a wide berth by the female students.
Chuuya didn’t look less of a delinquent in his school uniform than he did when his job was to kill people. His outer jacket hung off his shoulders in much the same way as his old one used to, and his white button up was enough unbuttoned to show the black band shirt he wore under both. He was missing his hat, an absence that made Ryuunosuke somewhat uncomfortable to see, and he was similarly lacking his choker, instead wearing some kind of silver chain. A different silver chain was attached to his belt loops, hanging down off his left hip. He had one dangling earring, and to show it off his hair was shorter than Ryuunosuke had ever before seen it.
In contrast, Dazai looked much more proper than he used to. He still wore his sleeves long, though at the moment Ryuunosuke had no idea where his outer uniform jacket was. His white button-up looked freshly ironed and neatly tucked into his similarly crisp slacks. He wore white sneakers, but they were immaculately clean and looked like the kind you would get at a designer store. The only thing out of place on him was a matching silver necklace as Chuuya’s, hidden under the collar of his shirt. That is, aside from the accessory that used to characterize him the most.
Ryuunosuke tried, but for the life of him could not locate any bandages. That more than anything kept him on the bench. It was as if Ryuunosuke had only ever seen the moon as a crescent, and was now confronted with a lack of a hole to fit himself into. It was so much brighter, much more complete, and was at the same time unfamiliar and strange. It scared him.
These were people he had once known, but he was sure now he did not know them. They did not know him. How could they know who he turned into with the easy assurance of consistent meals, safe shelter for him and his sister, medical care that was able to catch and treat his illness before it was a death sentence? How could they know a version of him with a mother, if not a father, who loved him and Gin so well they’d had no choice but to round their edges on her softness?
With Ryuunosuke so focused on watching from a distance, he was caught by surprise when he looked down at his lap to see a flier had neatly made its home there. ‘JOIN THE KAMINO MIDDLE SCHOOL BASKETBALL TEAM. WE’RE GONNA WIN IT ALL!!’
That was a kind of assurance no other club (particularly the chess club, which Ryuunosuke had been hoping to join) could give, combined with the trust Ryuunosuke had in no one else but these two that it would be followed through. He filled out a club entrance form at a booth manned by two normal third-years, both shocked he had actually gone through the trauma of receiving a flier and still decided to join up.
“I’m used to it,” Ryuunosuke had lied. He wasn’t used to those two at all, especially not anymore. But they had something no other person but Gin had given him so far, alone as they were in this new world. The ability to be truly, incomparably fucking mean. Playing nonsense sports for nonsense stakes with people who once were known for destroying enemy organizations and entire city blocks? The chess club couldn’t possibly hope to be as fun.
The first practice they had together, Chuuya clapped a hand on his shoulder and said “It’s nice to see ya.” Dazai barely acknowledged him more than any other first-year on the team. Instead, he gave Ryuunosuke a faint smile at the end of practice huddle, and neither of them mentioned anything else. Although Ryuunosuke could have raged at Dazai for the way he had treated him in the past, many could rage at Ryuunosuke as well. He gave Dazai the grace he was so clearly asking for: their debts were wiped clean by death. They owed each other nothing, but even so they chose to get to know each other again.
Dazai being gone hurts because it’s a reminder of old Ryuunosuke losing the only man whose regard he ever truly craved, but more than that Ryuunosuke in his new life lost an upperclassman who, while it would be strange to call him a close friend, he cared about and who cared about him.
Kajii and Tachihara found themselves at Yokohama Technical, same as Gin did when she joined his school after graduating her arts-focused middle school, and none of them could resist the same pull that caught Ryuunosuke. Something about being on a team with these same people closed a wound Ryuunosuke had spent years wishing didn’t exist.
If he can’t be happy just being nice, at least he can have fun using his murder-talents for a stupid sports game. Opposing teams tend to leave matches against Yokohama Technical with life-shattering realizations and a new fear for the sport they’d previously devoted themselves to. This world is full of weaklings.
Chuuya brings attention back by glaring both of Ryuunosuke’s fellow second-years into silence. “Aside from the unneeded interruption, Lemon-head’s right. That Kaijo thinks they’ve got some star should rile you up, but the fact is he’s just a freshman, same as these worms—“ Chuuya jams his elbow into Tachihara’s lower stomach, causing him to cough out any air and possibly his soul. “He’s got an ego the size of his modeling catalog. We gonna let that stand?”
“No!” Comes the chorus. “Does that metaphor really work?” Comes muttered from Higuchi, who despite the team being co-ed has elected to be a manager, and is in the huddle with the other second-years. She was mostly covered by the sound of their cheers, and is so ignored.
“Alright, hands in, Yoko-Tech on three! One, two, three!”
“Yoko-Tech!” They cheer, and then head for the lockers.
After practice, Ryuunosuke typically walks to the train with Gin and Higuchi, who had convinced her parents to let her rent an apartment nearby the Akutagawa family just so she could attend school with them. Her little sister often spent the weekends, but her parents lived so far away and worked so many hours (to support their immensely wealthy lifestyle, for real, Akutugawa made less even when he was actively doing major crime) that that was the most contact Higuchi tended to have with any of her blood family.
Ryuunosuke had asked her— “You have a second chance at life, and again you tie yourself to me. Why be so foolish?”
“I’m not being foolish,” she retorted, glaring at him in a way she never did Before. “I lived a life without you, remember? From birth till I was assigned to you in the Mafia I lived without you. I like being tied to you, always have. I’m not going to live my second life depriving myself of the people who make me happy just because society’s morals judge the things we did in our first. That’s what’s foolish.”
“I think it’s my morals too, now. Would that upset you? That I no longer want to be the person you followed?” Ryuunosuke challenged.
Higuchi was always a soldier ready to accept anything Ryuunosuke threw at her. She stood strong. “You are always the person I want to follow. It doesn’t matter what we do, so long as I get to be by your side.”
To other people this would be a confession of love, but Ryuunosuke has always been very, very homosexual. This was not an urge he expressed publicly in the mafia, and it isn’t one he expresses now, but Higuchi made it her business to know everything about him. The first couple months of their partnership was honestly the creepiest working relationship Ryuunosuke had ever had, even considering Mori. Things got easier when he decided he didn’t give a shit. Higuchi loved him so much she did not care that Ryuunosuke wasn’t romantically interested in her. She wanted to ingratiate herself in his life and fuse herself to him like one of those male anglerfish. No one had ever loved Ryuunosuke like that before, not that he ever really had a want for it. It was so strange that even his honed paranoia was shocked into trusting it.
All that to say, Ryuunosuke was forced to accept her devotion the second time around just as he had the first. “Well then. I have decided to be a basketball player.”
“Um. Wow.” Ryuunosuke can visibly see the gears in her brain stop, change courses, and begin to turn towards imagining him shirtless and sweaty. “Sounds great! I’ll be the team manager! I can make you bento boxes! And sports drinks! Oooh and—“
Today, she’d left freshly folded clothes on the floor in front of his shower after sneaking into the boy’s lockers like some kind of ninja. They’d of course gotten wet from the being on the floor of the shower area, so Ryuunosuke had just changed into what he already had packed. Seeing him in clothes other than the ones she’d picked, Higuchi sulks behind the Akutagawa siblings and cries faintly on their walk. They do her the favor of ignoring this.
“How do you feel about Chuuya as a captain?” Ryuunosuke asks Gin, public with their sibling relationship in this life and so able to interact with her whenever he wants.
Gin shrugs. “Him being the only captain makes the team much more aggressive than it was in middle school, but…”
“But what?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I ever forgave Dazai for what he did to you. I liked the mafia better when he left, and I like this team better now.”
And that’s the truth held by many of the returnees. That they never truly forgave Dazai, either for him leaving or for what he did before he left. Most of them just plain never liked him.
The returnees fall into two camps: very attached to their old life, or very intent on creating a new one. While Ryuunosuke falls somewhere in the middle, he leans to the second. Gin, despite her intentions to do the second, leans to the first. She’s joined in this by Higuchi, Chuuya, and Kajii. Tachihara has always been the most adaptable person Ryuunosuke knows, probably because of his past as a spy, and so had the easiest time of both letting go of his past-life and also reintegrating with the people he remembered once he found them. Dazai and himself chose the second for reasons Ryuunosuke could only suspect were the same. They’d hated themselves too much to want to still be those people.
Higuchi’s reasonings for keeping mostly the same are above stated— she has no real regrets from her past life, she only wants to stay with the same people she loved in the last one. Kajii misses his Batman-style villainy, and Ryuunosuke is a bit afraid for his life after graduation. Chuuya is the same because he actually is the same. Unlike everyone else, who now have mostly normal life stories, Chuuya is still a lab experiment.
This was explained at a Dazai-organized hangout back in middle school, the three of them going to a park after practice for some catching-up disguised as streetball. Chuuya was dominating, obviously, and so while Ryuunosuke had been coughing and wheezing his life out for reasons that had nothing to do with his illness Chuuya had plenty of air to talk.
“I’m human, philosophically at least. And I started out that way even last time around, but there’s something about me that wouldn’t be right if I’d just popped out of a womb somewhere. Arahabaki’s a part of me. I am it.”
“I was almost certain Chuu-chan wouldn’t get reincarnated, because he doesn’t have a soul,” Dazai said, dodging Chuuya’s thrown basketball. “But I found him locked away in some hospital when we were seven. What a loyal dog, to follow me into my next life!”
“I fucking hate you—” Chuuya said. In this life, while Dazai calls him Chuu-chan as a holdover from their childhood, Chuuya calls him “— Osamu.”
Rashomon was still with Ryuunosuke, but he’d sworn to never use her again. He wonders what Chuuya does with his ability. What Chuuya intends to do.
They get off the train, drop Higuchi at her apartment complex, and walk further on to their own. Their mother is still at work in the hospital, so Ryuunosuke starts dinner (they take turns, and tonight is his) and Gin goes to Ryuunosuke’s room (the room with The Big Fancy Desk and so the room they both choose to study in) and starts her homework. This is how many of their nights go. They are peaceful.
When Nanako Akutagawa comes through the door, Gin is done with her homework and is setting the table for curry as Ryuunosuke is doling out three servings of rice into bowls with little Moomins on them, from when they were little.
“I’m home!” She calls. Ryuunosuke can’t see her at the door, but by the time she enters the kitchen her hair clip is in hand and her black hair is loose upon her shoulders. Her scrubs are blue, the standard for nurses on her floor of the hospital, but she wears little Kuromi socks and her house slippers are themed the same. She has on dark lipstick and her eyeliner is even a bit too much to be professional, but her manager is surprisingly laid back and so she doesn’t often get reprimanded for it. She, like her son, is missing eyebrows. Unlike her son, this was an intentional act of self expression.
“How are my little vampires doing this fine evening?” Nanako asks, kissing Gin on the cheek. She’s always been glad her children shared her tendency for dark clothes and dramatic statements. Already being a part of a commonly disapproved of subculture, Nanako shirked most societal rules of propriety and affection, especially around her children.
It’s strange she works with, like, actual medical professionals, let alone that she is one. She is likely a much-needed source of chill for a group of stereotypically uptight people. Ryuunosuke can’t imagine her ever acting like any of the doctors he used to know, at least.
“I won my group’s scrimmage today in practice,” Gin says, soft as she ever announces any of her own accomplishments.
“That’s wonderful! You’ll be a regular in no time, right Ryuu?”
“It is likely. Chuuya will probably play you and Tachihara together at our match with Kaijo, since you already have a partnership.”
Nanako gasps. “A match with Kaijo! When is it?”
Gin explains Chuuya’s end of practice talk as she hands Ryuunosuke plates for the curry and the chicken he’d made to go with it, and after he fills and hands them back to her she places them on their themed placemats— each a different ‘scary’ or ‘gothic’ character Nanako thought were cute— and then they each take their seats at the table.
“It’s a shame Nakahara-kun is always so busy. I’d like to meet this young man. You two always speak so highly of him.”
Ryuunosuke glances at Gin. Gin shrugs and continues eating. This is a continuation of Gin’s plan to make sure Chuuya and Nanako never interact.
Tachihara’s been over to their apartment many times in the past, being Gin’s best friend. Nanako had insisted on being around to chaperone the first few visits. “This house isn’t completely lawless. I can’t just let Gin have boys over without supervision.”
Gin pointed to Ryuunosuke. “Supervision.”
Nanako had done him the farce of covering her mouth with her hand and loudly whispering, “I’m not sure your brother knows what to look for, sweetie.”
Tachihara and Nanako got along suspiciously well. It wasn’t hard for Nanako to like any of their friends, she liked those who were liked by her children, but Tachihara has an innate charm. This too Ryuunosuke attributes to his spy abilities.
“Are you still upset you couldn’t tell I was a double agent?” Tachihara had asked, seeing how pained Ryuunosuke was at his nefariously fast friendship with Nanako. Ryuunosuke dodged the question by physically turning his back to him. “Huh. Anyway, has your mom met Chuuya yet? She’d love him.”
She would, she already does. Chuuya is all up in those alternative fashion forums Nanako herself stalks in her spare time. Once, while shopping with their mother, the siblings had to execute an impressive distraction maneuver to make sure neither of them saw each other shopping at the same stores. Nanako even follows Chuuya’s social medias where he posts his outfits, and often comments about how she’s glad her children have a cool upperclassman like him.
“Chuuya’s the reason why we didn’t have her last time,” Gin said, answering her friend but looking at Ryuunosuke all the while. “He doesn’t get to know how great she is now.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” Ryuunosuke said, like he always does. Gin gave him the same look she always does. It always reassures him of how sure she is.
The first time they were small, their world exploded in a dark mass that created Tsuribachi. It orphaned the Akutagawa siblings and many of their childhood friends. Gin loved Chuuya, but she loved him before she knew what he inadvertently cost her, and before she knew just how great it was to have a mother or any parent at all. Gin still likes Chuuya, but she holds weird grudges.
The Akutagawa family finishes their dinner and then does their dishes. Ryuunosuke, having cooked, has the lighter chore of wiping down the table and putting away the dry dishes. Gin washes and Nanako dries, listening to a popular band that Ryuunosuke always tries but can’t remember the name of.
Gin and Nanako sing together, the latter much louder. Ryuunosuke knows that they objectively can’t be great singers, but enjoys to hear them anyway.
Ryuunosuke finishes up, excuses himself, and goes back to his room to do his homework, Gin having finished hers while he was cooking.
It’s a small room, basically a closet if he thinks about the room he used to have on an Executive’s salary. The desk and bookshelf, both painted black and covered in books, take up most of the room. He keeps his futon in the closet to preserve space.
He’s living like the weretiger used to. What a fucking thought.
He’s got posters of random shows Nanako took him to all over the room. The local record store’s owner is friends with her, and so she is always up-to-date on what crazy alternative bands are in town. Ryuunosuke genuinely likes them, and tends to get lots of compliments on his ‘goth aesthetic’ whenever he goes.
Ruining the indie vibe, Gin put a poster of some girl from BLACKPINK on the wall in front of his desk for ‘study inspo.’
“I’m gay, Gin,” Ryuunosuke had complained, gesturing at the eyesore. “What is this supposed to do for me.”
Tachihara was over, because of course he was, and the gruesome twosome sat on Ryuunosuke’s floor and admired Gin’s handiwork. Akutagawa stood up in front of them as they sat crisscrossed, both of them in Gin’s house clothes. They were holding hands and gazing intently at the BLACKPINK girl, not meeting Ryuunosuke’s eyes. It made him feel kinda like a substitute teacher.
“I’m gay, and this is doing lots of things,” Tachihara offered, entirely unhelpfully.
“Me too,” Gin agreed, nodding at her best friend. Ew.
“Not the right kind.”
Tachihara laughed in a shocked hack. “There’s a right kind of gay now? Gin, are we the wrong kind of gay?”
Gin put her hand on her chest, gasping. “Oh fuck, we might be.” She turned to Ryuunosuke, eyes wide in fake shock. “Nii-san, am I the wrong kind of gay? If Tachihara’s a guy and I’m nonbinary does that make us straight?”
Most of that was bullshit and his own poor phrasing, but this was a stumper. “I— Well. Maybe? How does that work, actually? Does this mean you two are together again?”
“Well…” Tachihara rubbed his nose in thought, a habit he picked up in the absence of his regular bandaid. “I mean. I guess we still have all the right pieces for it, even if we switched ‘em around some.”
“Your gender is not determined by your vagina,” Ryuunosuke regurgitated as clinically as possible. He’s spent a lot of time on forums about families of trans youth, in this life and the last one.
Tachihara winced. “Thank you, Onii-san, that’s not uncomfortable to hear at all.”
Gin raised her hand and swore: “I would marry Michizou right now, if it were legal.”
Ryuunosuke chooses not to linger on his sister’s inevitable marriage to the spy. “It is legal, due to your respective birth certificates.”
“I meant, like, cause we’re five years old.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“We have forever to still be together,” Tachihara said. “Like, Gin’s the love of my life, but we’ve had a life together already. I’m not in any rush— if we’re meant to have this life together also then we will. It’s simple.”
Gin, as if Tachihara hadn’t spoken, intoned very seriously to Ryuunosuke “If someone else tries to marry Michizou, I will kill them.”
“So you’re on the same page,” Ryuunosuke gathered.
“Yes,” they said together, nodding. Gin also nodded up towards the poster, “By the way, if you try to take that down, I’ll tell mom you called me the wrong kind of gay.”
So the poster has stayed up. It doesn’t help Ryuunosuke’s studies though, and by the time Dazai calls and interrupts his focus he’s barely got anything done at all.
Ryuunosuke props his phone up on the spine of one of his chemistry books and answers the call, putting it on speaker. “What’s going on?”
“Mahh, so rude Ryuunosuke. You can at least say hi.”
“…” Ryuunosuke starts writing down conversion equations on his problem sets.
“Okay, wow. Well, anyway, I need you to come to visit me this weekend! It’ll be before your scrimmage, so you have the time. I have a present for you!”
“Dazai, last time you gave me a present I turned out to be allergic to it.”
“Oh I don’t think you were allergic. I think those edibles were just expired.”
“Edibles? You told me they were candy?”
“Same difference. You need to relax more! That way you wouldn’t get so stressed and leave all your studying until the last minute. You should really be focusing on Calc, you know, because you have that quiz tomorrow.”
Oh shit, he totally did. The sound his books made as he switched them out and slammed his math textbook on his desk was no doubt loud enough for Dazai to hear, if not the rest of the Akutagawa house.
“Relax. This unit is easy, you just have to remember—“
Dazai helps Ryuunosuke get the formulas down and then bids him goodbye. It’s such a relief to have his studying done and successfully too that he almost forgets about the meeting he now has to make.
Ah shit.